The Art of Simulation in the Social Imagination...

 

 

If you were alive in the 60s, you are familiar with the television series called, Star Trek. If were were alive in the late 70s up until the present time, you are familiar with the movie and its sequels or parts.

For some people, this TV and film phenomenon has become a cult, a kind of following on the level of sacred. There was one episodes in the television series that was more than futuristic, it is or could be rationalized as prophetic given today's current global pandemic with its so-called 'data/results'. Instead of me telling you all about this episode, I simply have cut and paste it here from Wikipedia so that you can read it for yourself; I can verify that it follows the original written script.

The USS Enterprise travels to Eminiar VII in NGC 321, bringing Ambassador Robert Fox to establish diplomatic relations. Little is known about Eminiar VII, beyond the fact that they have been at war with a neighboring planet, Vendikar.

Nearing Eminiar VII, the Enterprise receives a message from the planet warning them not to approach, but Ambassador Fox orders Captain Kirk to proceed. Kirk, First Officer Spock, and additional security personnel beam down to the planet, where they are met by representatives Mea 3 and Anan 7. During a supposed attack by Vendikar, Anan 7 explains that the war is conducted as a computer simulation, and that the Enterprise has been "destroyed" in the attack. The two planets have a treaty, according to which they have to kill the "victims" of every simulated attack. The crew are thereby expected to report to Eminiar's disintegration chambers for execution, and Kirk's party is taken captive. Spock telepathically plants a suggestion in their jailer's mind, allowing them to escape.

Anan 7 uses a voice duplicator to imitate Kirk's voice and order the crew to transport down. Scotty, suspicious, has the ship's computer analyze the message and confirms it is fake. He orders shields raised. When the crew fails to transport down, Eminiar fires upon them, but the attack is deflected by the shields. Anan 7 then contacts the Enterprise, claiming the attack was due to a malfunction. Ambassador Fox, deciding to believe Anan, beams down and is taken to a disintegration chamber along with Mea 3, who was also "killed" in the war simulation. Spock and the security officers rescue them.

Kirk confronts Anan 7 but is overpowered by guards and taken to the Eminian council chamber. When Anan 7 opens a channel to the Enterprise, Kirk orders Scotty to execute General Order 24 before being cut off. Kirk explains that he just ordered the ship to destroy everything on the planet within two hours. Panic ensues, which Kirk takes advantage of to disarm the guards. After Spock arrives, Kirk destroys the war simulation computers. 

Anan 7 condemns Kirk's actions, arguing that it is unalterable nature to fight wars, so without the simulation they have no alternative but to fight a real war. Kirk instead believes that the only reason the war with Vendikar has gone on so long is because the simulation insulated both societies from the horrors of war and gave them little reason to end it. 

Now, you are probably wondering, or not, why this episode was related to you as the 'art of simulation' and how it applies to today. If you are wondering, take some time to read it again and then wonder why you did not see it in the first place. 

Sometimes what is happening right in front of you is hidden in plain sight. The art of simulation is to make you think its all real. When you look around today, what is real or really happening is being questioned. As it should be. 

Now, if you are getting my drift, ask yourself... is this a 'wargame' simulation with unreal causalities? It looks that way doesn't it? But... haven't we moved past that with the jab and aren't we out of the battle? Maybe, we have been set up for a coming real battle with real casualties which will be called out sooner or later.

cv one niner...Kirk Out!

Who is Responsible for Your Bad Choices in the Social Imagination?

 

Research has shown that the typical person makes about 2,000 decisions every waking hour. Yes, folks you read it right… every waking hour. And, thankfully, most decisions are minor and we make them instinctively or automatically — what to wear to work in the morning, whether to eat lunch now or in ten minutes, etc.

But many of the decisions we make throughout the day take real thought, and have serious consequences. Consistently making good decisions is arguably the most important habit we can develop; and especially in regards to eating right, exercising, education, and investments.

Our choices affect our health, our safety, our relationships, how we spend our time, and our overall well-being which includes our future well-being as in our down the road years from now social stability…social connections, money, housing and food not to mention investment in long term relationships.

When you have to make an important decision, be on the lookout for a steady state of distractions that come from social media misinformation, corrupt politics and market turmoil.

And, be mindful of emotions that cling tend to like old sweatshirts or sneakers.  Whether they are learned over time or just picked up from a recent bad experience, you have to be mindful that frustration, excitement, anger, joy, etc., are all a fundamental part of the daily human experience and they impact our decisions making/choices dramatically.

And while these emotions may or may not have a meaningful role in our lives, you probably don’t need to see the research to know that emotions, especially during moments of peak anger and happiness, can hinder our ability to make good decisions/choices.

Deciding to speak or send an email while angry often compounds a tough situation, because the words don’t come out right. To counter this, pay attention to your emotional state and focus on the character strength of self-control.

Resist the temptation to respond to people or make decisions while you’re emotionally keyed up. Practice walking away from the computer or putting the phone down, and return to the task at hand when you’re able to think more clearly and calmly.

The decisions we make determine our reality. Because, we live in a social reality, in the social imagination. So, our decisions directly impact how we spend our time and what information we process (or ignore). Our decisions shape our relationships  and increasingly in today’s hyper-connected world, decisions contribute to our energy level and how efficient we are in the various aspects of our lives; especially financial.

[Most of the above was taken from this online site ~ https://hbr.org/2019/08/6-reasons-we-make-bad-decisions-and-what-to-do-about-them]

Did you know that there is an experience called situational poverty. Yes, that comes from making bad decisions but some people like to think it’s just a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Sociologist Herbert Gans wrote a piece decade ago about how the poor are coming and going. And, he was/is right. This can happen to you and it may or may not be directly correlated with a bad decision on your part but most often that is the case.

For instance, getting a divorce can really set you back. Or being made redundant at work as in ‘let go’ only because your company just merged with another and they just so happen to have their own people hand picked for your job.

Next, a sudden illness or an accident can ruin you financially; and, even if its not you that was suddenly struck down, it could happen to someone you love. It may or may not have been due to a bad decision on your part but maybe on theirs. Or maybe the bad decision or choice was made by a stranger... causing you physical harm or financial ruin... you just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, right?

So, who pays? Sure, you can do a ‘go fund me’ with the hopes of getting back what you lost or paying off a medical debt. Or maybe you want the government to take that burden on… and just in case you didn’t know it but that means taxes for you and me.

Sure, there are orgs out there to assist people. In fact, you could start an organization to assist people because you either want to virtual signal or because you went through a similar circumstance yourself and so feel inclined to help others. And, that can be a good thing but at the end of the day what does it teach others about making bad decisions. Is it like feeding the bears? Could be.

Shouldn’t people get an education that helps them to navigate the world so that they make good decisions? We’d like to think so… but, these days who pays attention to what is good for them, who reads the signs?

[Most of the above was taken from this online site ~ https://people.eou.edu/socprob/readings/week-1/social-problems-thinking-about-who-benefits/]

And, the best parts of the above were written by me ;-) just sayin 

Society Expects too Much from the Mask in the Social Imagination...

is the mask a bad fit for risk reduction...

Shane Neilson, MD, PhD candidate in English and cultural studies: 5/17/16

When I walk past my waiting room, I see people wearing surgical masks. This scene becomes surreal when my patients are watching pandemic disaster movies on the wall-mounted television screen, movies that feature frightened crowds who wear similar masks in the vain hope of protection. As my eyes move from mask-wearing patients to screaming on-screen characters and back, I wonder: What is happening here?

As represented by our cinema and other media, Western society especially expects too much of masks. In the public’s mind, the still-legitimate use of masks for source control has gone off-label; masks are thought to prevent infection. From here, another problem arises: because surgical masks are thought to protect against infection in the community setting, people wearing masks for legitimate purposes (those who have a cough in a hospital, say) form part of the larger misperception and act to reinforce it. 

Even this proper use of surgical masks is incorporated into a larger improper use in the era of pandemic fear, especially in Asia, where such fear is high. The widespread misconception about the use of surgical masks that wearing a mask protects against the transmission of virus — is a problem of the kind theorized by German sociologist Ulrich Beck.

The surgical mask communicates risk. For most, risk is perceived as the potential loss of something of value, but there is another side to risk, memorably formulated by Beck in his Risk Society. Beck states that risk society is “a systematic way of dealing with hazards and insecurities induced and introduced by modernization itself.” For Beck, risk occurs not only in the form of threat and possible loss, but also in society’s organized management and response to these risks, which create a forwarding of present risk into the future. 

Furthermore, Beck writes of the “symptoms and symbols of risks” that combine in populations to create a “cosmetics of risk.” He suggests that people living in the present moment conceive of risk in terms of the physical tools used to mitigate risk while still “maintaining the source of the filth.” Beck critiques the cosmetics of risk as measures that are not preventive but rather act as a “symbolic industry and policy of eliminating the increase in risks.” I propose that the surgical mask is a symbol that protects from the perception of risk by offering nonprotection to the public while causing behaviors that project risk into the future.

Histories of the surgical mask offer some clues about our contemporary risk profile, a profile that is, according to the nature of risk, future-oriented. The birth of the mask came from the realization that surgical wounds need protection from the droplets released in the breath of surgeons. The technology was applied outside the operating room in an effort to control the spread of infectious epidemics. In the 1919 influenza pandemic, masks were available and were dispensed to populations, but they had no impact on the epidemic curve. At the time, it was unknown that the influenza organism is nanoscopic and can theoretically penetrate the surgical mask barrier. 

As recently as 2010, the US National Academy of Sciences declared that, in the community setting, “face masks are NOT designed or certified to protect the wearer from exposure to respiratory hazards.” A number of studies have shown the inefficacy of the surgical mask in household settings to prevent transmission of the influenza virus, but Smith and colleagues, in a recently published meta-analysis, concluded that the surgical mask was non-inferior to the N95 mask in terms of influenza transmission rates among health care workers. So … health care workers should wear masks to prevent transmission for reasons other than source control, but the public shouldn’t? This conflict creates an optics problem. 

When risk is perceived, readiness and protection for all those at risk becomes a goal, which thereby creates a constant state of preparedness in the universally vulnerable. Remember the sinister-looking beaked plague mask from the Middle Ages that instilled fear in onlookers? Wearing a mask reinforces fear. The cosmesis provided by the mask creates more risk of an effective kind.

An effective problem occurs in the present through anticipation of an unknowable, but somehow threatening, future. Beck suggests that the cosmetic symbols are themselves manifestations of risk that bear their own risks. The same mask donned in the present for the common cold at a local clinic forms part of the cosmetic framework of future pandemic risk management. The future pandemic is perceived in the present, but its materiality is not just in our minds, it is literally substantiated by the mask. Thus we have the means for a self-perpetuating system: the mask symbolically protects against infection just as it represents fear of that infection.

This fear surfaces in public policy. In an annex to the Canadian pandemic influenza preparedness plan covering public health measures, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) does not recommend the use of masks by well individuals in pandemic situations, acknowledging that the mask has not been shown to be effective in such circumstances. However, this stance is complicated by the PHAC’s supporting reasons, which relate to problems of supply, cost, distribution and feasibility: panic might occur if the availability of masks were limited; public purchase of masks might limit the availability of masks in health care settings where they are required; and not all members of the public can afford to purchase masks — if masks are recommended by public health authorities, there could be an expectation that they will be publicly funded and made available by public health programs.

The dimension of supply constitutes tacit acknowledgement that people expect masks to be available in pandemic situations. And they do, if the evidence of popular cinema can be believed. Western society has already emerged into a present reality in which citizens are conditioned to want masks on the basis of media representations of pandemics. The same annex on public health measures refers to the “false sense of security” that a mask can psychologically provide, but the converse is the real risk posed to a government unable to mollify its population.

The PHAC has warned that “Just as we do not know when the next pandemic will strike, we cannot predict how severe it will be.” The pandemic preparedness plan operates in the present, however, with much evidence of the Canadian government’s ongoing preparation, including the release of an updated version of the pandemic influenza preparedness plan in December 2015. Such a future-oriented plan mines anxiety in the present.

We act out our collective anxiety about pandemics by wearing masks even when there isn’t a pandemic, but wearing masks reinforces the idea of a possible future of pandemic. The problem of affect in political terms is a contagious one: fear spreads among the public, leading to intensification of risk management — the classic example being 9/11 and the war on terrorism. Fear of infective risk spreading communicably becomes an ironic pun. Pandemics occurred in 1918, 1957, 1968, 2003 and 2009. Thus, the conversation changes from if the next pandemic will occur to when the next pandemic will occur. Because we are currently “between pandemics,” our existence is book-ended by the realized threats of the past and the reasonable threats of the future — to our detriment, with this detriment masked by the surgical mask itself.

 

 

ONLINE SOURCE ~  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4868614/?fbclid=IwAR3gSctpwk_R6WxruHNF0fTAH8K5QeBgwjDkqYmkVANmbtYeSfu4pENJbH4