Blinded by Deception: Navigating the Fog of GPS Warfare

 

From OpenArt

Imagine piloting a high-tech drone, only to have its navigation system hijacked by an invisible enemy. This isn't science fiction; it's the chilling reality of GPS spoofing and denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, posing a critical threat to modern militaries reliant on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

Not yet do we see drone-on-drone aerial dogfights. Today's battlefields are dominated by silent UAVs, eyes in the sky gathering intel and delivering precision strikes. But their effectiveness hinges on accurate navigation, often solely provided by GPS. Just like your phone, these drones rely on satellite signals for positioning, making them vulnerable to manipulation.

Enter the nefarious world of spoofing. Malicious actors can mimic GPS signals, broadcasting false data that throws the UAV's navigation system off course. Imagine your drone being tricked into thinking it's miles away, potentially flying into enemy territory or missing its target by a devastating margin.

DoS attacks take a different approach, overwhelming GPS satellites with jamming signals, essentially blinding the drones to their true location. This can render an entire fleet of UAVs useless, crippling reconnaissance and attack capabilities.

So, how are militaries fighting back in this fog of GPS warfare? Here's a glimpse into their arsenal:

1. Diversifying the Drone's Senses: Moving beyond GPS, militaries are equipping UAVs with a multi-sensory navigation suite. Inertial Navigation Systems (INS) use internal sensors to track movement, while terrain-matching algorithms compare real-time imagery to onboard maps. Celestial navigation, an age-old technique, utilizes the stars as celestial beacons. Each method has its limitations, but their combined data paints a more accurate picture, making it harder to fool the drone.

2. Redundancy and Fault Tolerance: Just like having a spare tire, militaries are equipping drones with multiple GPS receivers and INUs. If one is spoofed or jammed, the others can still provide some level of navigation, preventing complete blackout. Ground-based radio systems can provide location abilities at strong signal strengths, like the British Gee navigation system for bombers in WW2.

3. Advanced Spoofing Detection: Gone are the days of simply trusting the GPS signal. Militaries are developing sophisticated algorithms that can sniff out fake signals by analyzing signal strength, satellite geometry, and even subtle inconsistencies in the data.

4. Cooperative Navigation: Imagine drones sharing navigational data like a flock of birds. This is the essence of cooperative navigation, where UAVs use information from each other to cross-check their positions and identify anomalies. This not only bolsters individual drones but also creates a resilient network that's harder to disrupt.

The battle for GPS supremacy is far from over. As technology advances, so too will the sophistication of spoofing and jamming techniques. But by diversifying their navigation toolbox, embracing redundancy, and developing advanced detection and cooperation strategies, militaries are taking crucial steps to ensure their UAVs remain sharp-sighted even in the fog of GPS warfare.

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This was written by Bard from lengthy prompts, following reports of the failure of American precision munitions on the Ukraine-Russian front due to Russian GPS jamming/spoofing. I also asked Bard to write this in the style of "Foreign Affairs" or "The Economist" - for a slightly less breathless piece - but the result was too boring to share with you.

A Catholic in 21st Century Paris

From OpenArt

I encountered Claude in a cafe on the Rue Mouffetard. He was sitting at a table in a back corner, a distinguished man in his seventies clad in black leather jacket and faded jeans. His beard was white, as was his longish hair; here was a man lined with the turbulence of Parisian life over the decades.

But I was specifically taken by the two newspapers resting on the table in front of him: L'Humanité and La Croix. He was reading neither, content to lazily smoke, gazing peaceably across the room. A blue cigarette packet marked with a swirling dancing silhouette lay crumbled next to his mug of coffee.

The paper of the Parti Communiste Français lying next to the daily newspaper of the Catholic Church?

What was that about?

It turned out that Claude was now retired, living alone in an apartment on the Avenue Émile-Zola in the 15th. He came here most days, he said, to think and to reconcile the many tumbling ideas in his head.

“I finally left the Party after the collapse,” he said, “in 1991. It was obvious that the dream was going nowhere. I keep in touch, of course,” and here he waved towards the PCF newspaper, ”though these days that’s just for nostalgics.”

“And La Croix?” I said gently, sipping at my own espresso.

He looked just a little embarrassed.

“It’s not what you think," he said, (what did he think I thought?).

“I'm not one of the sheep who replaces one failed utopia with another, who has come to believe that there's some power up in the sky who will save us. No, nothing like that at all.”

“But you are a Catholic?” I said.

“Yes, for some years now.”

“Why, if I may ask?”

“It’s complicated. I could give you simple answers. To start with, at some basic psychological level I rather like the Mass.”

I smiled at him over my coffee cup.

“Yes, you scoff, but it’s beautiful,” he said, “Always the same, always different. A hundred variations as the years roll by. The Mass is communal and reassuring; it feels good to participate.”

“Of course we all know that the Catholic Mass is mostly dedicated to making obeisance to a divine Jesus and asking for His Mercy,” I said.

“But how else is a global community of billions of people going to hold together for two millennia, without acknowledging the leadership of a Supreme Being. There has to be an indisputable leadership, a central theme: the alternative is everything crumbles away into schism. Surely we've all had enough experience of that?”

“So take yourself,” I said, “Do you believe in the literal existence of a Supreme Being? Jesus Christ, God, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Trinity?”

He smiled at me then.

“You’re young, you believe that things exist in such an absolute way. Do you believe in justice and love, oppression and resistance?”

“Of course,” I said easily.

“Point them out to me, show me where they live. What colour are they, how much do they weigh?“

He paused invitingly.

“Perhaps they all live in heaven?” he asked.

Touché.

“I get it,” I said, “As a Marxist, or former Marxist, you know that all those ‘things’ you mentioned are really social relationships, the social-expression of our underlying humanity. Our words reify, invent pretend-things out of the patterns of human desires, human lives.”

Claude simply looked at me with an enigmatic smile.

“OK,” I said, “Moving on, I can see where you’re coming from on the belief system, but why are you a Catholic? That was surely not necessary.”

“But perhaps it was,” he said, “The Marxist utopia has departed. We are to be left without hope in the face of global capitalism?”

“So you’re anti-globalism.”

It wasn’t a question: of course he would be.

“Not in principle. I’m against all those ideologies which make almost everyone merely instruments of ‘economic forces’, forces which always benefit a pretty invisible elite. They really only care about themselves, you know.

“Whether it’s wokeness, or no-borders globalism, or classic economic liberalism, the narratives are always tendential. Honeyed words, but underneath it’s always: ‘keep the masses atomised - and if that fails, diverted - so they don’t rock the boat’.”

The old class warrior took a deep drag of his cigarette and leaned back, his eyes closing; a haze of blue smoke surrounded him.

“In your Communist days,” I said, “you thought the masses would throw off their bourgeois ideological blinkers and embrace collective liberation through revolution. That’s gone away for you absolutely?”

“It took me a long time to see that Lenin and the Bolsheviks’ towering achievement was to overthrow a tottering feudal regime which was doomed anyway. Their Marxist ideology was operationally beside the point. Then they tried a direct road to communism in a situation of absolute scarcity. Marx had pointed out decades before that this was impossible, that it would just lead to a police state. A century later the left still has no answer as to what could replace the dynamism, the sheer coordination of global capitalism.”

I nodded: sadly, there was no arguing with that.

“So in the current state of the world,” he continued, “ I have become convinced there is no answer but to defend ourselves with what we have to hand, perhaps for centuries to come.”

I drained my cup, slightly incredulous at such defeatism. I worked daily for the triumph of socialism.

“You can't think the Catholic Church is the new Communist Party.”

“Of course not. It’s a community, open to all, where people reaffirm the basic truths of what it is to be human and are valued as such. Ends not means. It is a bulwark, a citadel, a place of refuge where human values can be affirmed and celebrated.”

“The Catholic Church is one of the most reactionary organisations on the planet,” I pointed out.

“So say its secular critics. I suppose they would say that, as it impedes so many of their projects.”

I raised my eyebrows but he quickly continued.

“Most Catholics don’t subscribe to the full authoritarian orthodoxy. It’s a cliché that the Church is broad. There are many points of view and many contradictions. For every Biblical fundamentalist there are those who understand the historical and symbolic nature of the texts, who see the many inconsistencies in what has always been a creaking theology.”

“Excuse me,” I said, “This is a church which is profoundly unhappy with science and progress, which is frightened to discuss the historical Jesus and the true nature of his teaching for fear of alienating the flock, which sacralises the most unlikely stories in its sacred books. Doesn’t that make you a complete hypocrite?”

“It makes me a member of a squabbling family, but one that is rooted in the deep history of human relationships, aspirations and solidarity.”

He stopped for a moment, as if dredging his memory.

“Ah, ‘There are many rooms in my Father's house’,” he said, crinkling his lips.

It was time to go.

“Claude, it’s been a pleasure talking to you. And I hope all of this deep thinking grants you peace,” I said.

I left some euros on the table and walked away. As I entered the street I looked back through the window. There was Claude, still sitting there, a broad smile on his face, his fist raised in clenched salute.

Specification for an AI phone in 2030

From OpenArt

In the “Sentenced to War” military-SF series by Chaney and Brazee, soldiers have a “Battle Buddy” surgically emplaced and wired into their brains on a ‘crystal substrate’. The AI can tap into a soldier's senses (vision, hearing, etc) and process the information independently.

The AI system is knowledge-rich, as if it has graduated from the best military school. It communicates conversationally (through an internal voice) with the soldier and can overlay information on request into the soldier's visual field via stimulation of the visual cortex.

It seems the ideal AI companion - except when the hero begins to suspect that the Battle Buddies come with a covert surveillance backchannel into Military Intelligence.

We can reverse-engineer three major specification-areas from this hypothetical system for the next generation of AI phones.

1. Situational Awareness

The phone needs to know what's going on. Absent the ability to directly tap into the user's senses, this suggests the user will need to wear cameras and microphones which default to always-on. This might be considered spooky by some. Also how are these devices mounted? A headband; glasses? Or does the phone tap into some local part of a future global audio-visual surveillance network currently waiting to be constructed?

2. Interaction modes

Many people seem unwilling to talk aloud to their devices, fearing this can be inappropriate, indiscreet and intrusive. Typing into a screen is low bandwidth and cumbersome. What's a good solution, both for sending to the AI and getting a response (information which might include visual - augmented reality - and audio as well as text)?

3. Where is the real value-added?

Current phones already support countless useful functions, often user-specific. Is the AI phone just more of the same, perhaps a bit streamlined, or does it transition from being a tool-set to becoming an entity with presence and agency: a valet, a concierge, a chaperone, a security guard, or a friend? An automated friend which knows your every intimate secret seems a bit of a security risk?

Summing up, I think the mature AI phone is not an incremental improvement over current phones, although it will certainly incorporate their current capabilities. It will be a system comprising sensors and effectors, multimedia communication with the user and affective and emotional agency as well as abstract cognitive competence; more friend than information and entertainment resource.

I would guess we'll see many trial systems until some design stabilises around 2030.

---

Note: I asked Google’s Bard to improve this vision using its intelligence. Its rather lengthy series of drafts mostly told me how good this little essay was, and suggested the use of Musk-style neuralink implants as an additional feature. Hmm…

Lust and Pain in the Palace of Lies

From OpenArt

I wrote this 2,000 word short story as a dark satire on mysterious government agencies whose optimal recruits are those with Dissociative Identity Disorder. Think unempathic, callous, impervious to pain, low arousal - yet also competent, smart and on-mission.

We follow the final (virtual reality) assessment of such a trainee. I was trying for psychological horror, penetrating such a state of mind and a twist. I was also very interested to see whether the current batch of LLM AIs could add some value to my draft.

Here was the prompt: Please edit and improve the short story I will present in the next post. Keep the length about the same but improve the literary quality. Also accentuate, if possible, the haunting psychological dissociation, depersonalization and derealisation experienced by the protagonist.

Bard flatly refused to consider it. Its neo-Victorian guardrails simply blew a fuse - I suspect the title was enough. Booksie’s Bob was made of sterner stuff and produced a version which was 25% shorter, mostly by bowdlerising the material and failing to grasp the centrality and ambiguity of the protagonist’s psychological reality and the VR setting. Some of the detailed descriptive material was valuable, however, so I revised and incorporated that into the final version here (two or three paragraphs, including the first and last).

My conclusion. The current public AIs are ring-fenced against adult material, whether sexually somewhat-explicit or featuring scenes of torture or horror, even if implicit. They do not comprehend the overall plot, particularly if it’s sophisticated, ambiguous or setting up a twist. However, like a super-thesaurus, the AI-edited version is currently useful for feedback and detail. Might work better for children’s stories if they were bland and uplifting (!).

But things will only get better.

My domestic critic, who read both versions, said that she didn’t like my story: “Why do you never write about nice people doing nice things?” she said.

Next time, I told her.

Here's a link to the story.

March in French

From OpenArt

Apparently the month-name 'March' is highly googled when French people write in English.

'March', in French, is pronounced as 'Marsh'. 

But when the French hear it in English they hear 'Mart-sh' and conclude that 'March' has a 't' in it. But that looks wrong: so off to Google...

Four questions I asked Bard recently

[Bard's answers have been shortened for readability].

Q1. Tariq Ali said once that Ernest Mandel confided to him, very close to death, that he thought that the revolution he had fought for his entire life would now not become a reality for perhaps hundreds of years. He said that this view should not be shared with the comrades of the Fourth International because it would only demoralise them. Do you have the exact quote?

I'm unable to locate the exact quote from Tariq Ali about Ernest Mandel's pessimistic view of a future revolution. While it's possible such a conversation occurred, without a specific source or context, it's difficult to verify its authenticity.

However, there are some details to consider:

* Mandel's optimism: Ernest Mandel was known for his optimistic and unwavering belief in the inevitability of socialist revolution. This is reflected throughout his writings and interviews. A complete reversal of such a deeply held conviction towards the end of his life seems somewhat contradictory.

* Ali's perspective: Tariq Ali has been a vocal critic of certain Trotskyist tendencies, including Mandel's Fourth International. While he respected Mandel personally, there might be an element of bias, intentional or unintentional, in his recollection of a private conversation.

* Lack of supporting evidence: Despite extensive research, there appears to be no other mention of this conversation or Mandel's supposed pessimism in biographies, articles, or interviews related to either figure.

[Follow-up question]: Tariq Ali may have deleted the recollection and the quote. Perhaps it's still in an Internet Archive formed soon after Mandel's death (which was when?).

You're right, it's possible that Tariq Ali may have removed the recollection or quote about Ernest Mandel's pessimism. It's also a good suggestion to check internet archives from around the time of Mandel's death, which was on July 23, 1995. …

Comment: I distinctly recall reading this around the time of Mandel's death. It would not surprise me if Tariq came under great pressure to delete the observation based on Mandel's clear wishes. I believe Mandel drew his final bleak conclusion from the utter collapse of the Soviet bloc and its total reversion to capitalism.

---

Q2. Can the Pauli Exclusion Principle be derived from QFT?

Yes, the Pauli Exclusion Principle can be derived from Quantum Field Theory (QFT), although it's not a straightforward or simple derivation. QFT offers a deeper understanding of why this fundamental principle holds true for fermions (particles with half-integer spin).

Here's a simplified explanation:

* Particles in QFT: In QFT, particles are not localized objects but excitations of underlying fields. Each type of particle corresponds to a specific type of field. For example, the electron field describes the presence or absence of electrons at different points in space and time.

* Creation and annihilation operators: To manipulate these fields, QFT uses creation and annihilation operators. Creation operators add a particle to the field at a specific location, while annihilation operators remove one.

* Anticommutation relations: For fermionic fields, creation and annihilation operators obey anticommutation relations. These relations essentially say that you cannot have two identical fermions in the same quantum state. Trying to add a second fermion to an already occupied state results in zero, meaning the state no longer exists.

This anticommutation behavior is a consequence of the deeper mathematical and statistical properties of fermionic fields, which originate from the connection between spin and statistics, known as the spin-statistics theorem.

Comment: insofar as I understand this, I think it's accurate.

---

Q3. In what book does an author from the Jesus Seminar discuss the formation of the Resurrection narrative from the Jewish ritual of the act of atonement and its two lambs/(goats).

Unfortunately, your description doesn't pinpoint a single book from a Jesus Seminar author. Several possibilities exist, as the Seminar involved multiple scholars researching diverse themes. Here are some potential leads:

1. The Resurrection of Jesus: A Sourcebook (Jesus Seminar Guides Vol 4) by Robert W. Funk: This book features essays by various Seminar members, including one by Arthur Dewey on the Gospel of Peter, which contains a resurrection narrative with unique parallels to Jewish sacrificial rituals.

2. The Historical Jesus: Five Views That Matter by John Dominic Crossan: Crossan, a prominent Jesus Seminar member, explored Jewish roots of early Christianity in several works.

3. Beyond Jesus: The Search for the Real Rabbi by Marcus Borg: Borg, another key figure in the Jesus Seminar, emphasized Jesus' Jewish context and explored how early Christian communities adapted and reinterpreted existing traditions.

4. Who Killed Jesus? The Resurrection of Myth and Reason by Robert M. Price: While not directly affiliated with the Jesus Seminar, Price is a prominent critic of traditional interpretations of the resurrection and delves into its possible cultural and mythological roots.

Comment: In fact the right answer is "The Birth of Christianity: Discovering What Happened in the Years Immediately After the Execution of Jesus" by John Dominic Crossan. And it's the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur.

---

Q4. Reacher Hope and Despair book?

The book you're referring to is most likely "Nothing to Lose" by Lee Child, the 12th novel in the Jack Reacher series. It features two towns with contrasting names: Hope and Despair.

Plot Summary:

Reacher is on a cross-country trek when he stumbles upon these two towns in Colorado. Hope is a small, friendly community, while Despair is a desolate, one-man town controlled by a fanatical preacher.

Reacher's curiosity is piqued by the stark contrast between the two towns, and he soon finds himself uncovering dark secrets lurking beneath the surface of Despair. The town is dominated by a powerful recycling plant that seems to be more than what it meets the eye.

As Reacher digs deeper, he becomes entangled in a web of corruption, violence, and conspiracy. He must use his formidable skills and unwavering sense of justice to protect the innocent and expose the truth about Despair.

Comment: spot on.

Clare at the Château de Loches (Loire valley)

Clare pictured in June 2009

The Château de Loches, Loire valley (photo Wikipedia)

The Priddy Mineries in Winter

On Thursday January 11th when it was 2 degrees C.

 

Wushu at the Gym today

The sword in its bag: Wushu = Martial Art

Clare turns left at the entrance, heading toward the swimming pool and her twenty lengths. Me, I turn right for the sports hall.

After a few minutes of warm-up exercises and stretches, I do a six minute t'ai chi form. I'm concentrating on posture (should be lower), balance (especially the kicks), rhythm and flow. I know I'm too fast; it should be more like eight minutes but I can't help but be tugged by martial intent (now with speed and power!).

Next comes the Cheng Man-ch'ing sword form using my Christmas present of the heavier wooden sword (pictured above). I start with a three or four minute form - slow! - to focus on correct posture, flow and balance. Then speed up for power and intent. As in a karate kata, you should imagine an invisible opponent and deliver killing strikes to the neck, limbs and body.

Now it's time for the first four Heian kata. I perform each one once, fairly slowly in a t'ai chi fashion, because I'm not young. I'm looking for accuracy and flow - it's getting there, especially for Heian Yondan with which I am least familiar.

I finish with a further round of either the sword or t'ai chi form and then it's off to the café for a coffee, to relax and wait for Clare.

Thirty minutes of practice, three times a week.

Japan’s population will bounce back - sort of

From Wikipedia

Japan's TFR (Total Fertility Rate) is around 1.34. This is the average number of children a Japanese family will have in contemporary Japan. The TFR which maintains a steady population level is 2.1 (some fraction of children do not reproduce through death, ill-luck or disinclination).

People conclude that the Japanese as a country-community are doomed. Since European TFRs are similar, averaging around 1.6, this repugnant conclusion seems quite generalisable.

But people who write sensational stories in the media about this pay only lip service to evolutionary theory, they don't operationalise it. This bland, average TFR hides subpopulations, some of which don't reproduce at all, but others of which are quite prolific in family size.

Since there is parental genetic influence on the size of family [1] we can treat this fecundity-variance as setting up a process of genetic truncation selection. The structure and incentives of Japanese society (a proxy for almost all advanced countries) poses enormous Darwinian selection pressure against those individuals with genotypes which encourage them to fail to reproduce adequately.

---

A simple Fermi estimate (a back of the envelope calculation) allows us to predict the result of this massive selection pressure on the Japanese population, in generation time steps.

Simplifying the numbers in [2] below, divide Japanese families into four categories with the following endogenous TFRs:

 - category zero is 25% of the population with TFR zero

 - category one is 33% of the population with TFR one

 - category two is 33% of the population with TFR two

 - category three is 9% of the population with TFR three.

So this is the population structure at generation 0. 

Assume for ease of calculation that the population of Japan is 123 million. We divide this into three generational age cohorts: 0-25, 25-50,50-75 and assume each cohort is equally numerous at 41 million people.

Over one generation the upper cohort dies (losing 41 million people) and the middle cohort reproduces to replace them (or not).

To make things more intuitive we will replace the percentages with 100 notional families representing those individuals who reproduce, namely the 41 million strong middle cohort. Call them 40 million to make the sums easier. So each 'family' represents 400,000 people. 

What happens to the population as the generations roll over?

Generation 1: 2025 => 2050

We started with 123 million. The elderly cohort dies leaving 82 million. And now the logic of extreme selection kicks in: 

 - category 0, 25 families, are culled from the gene pool and vanish 

 - the 33 families of category 1 are replaced by 16

 - the category two families simply replace themselves, remaining 33

 - the category three families increase their number by 50% to fourteen.

Total number of families is 16 + 33 + 14 = 63. The newborn population is 63 * 400,000 = 25 million. The new population is 82 million + 25 million =  107 million. This is consistent as it happens with the chart at the head of this post.

(Note: the resulting TFR here is 25/20.5 = 1.2 so our back of the envelope calculation is a slight under-estimate).

Quite a drop from 125 million.

What happens next? Those alleles which support a propensity to have children have increased in frequency, but we know the heritability of this trait is not high. So as generation 1 transitions to generation 2 in 2075, we will still see some families having zero offspring (or never forming a family unit at all) while the percentage of those families favouring more offspring will increase.

The modelling would be complex and noisy, but the direction of travel is clear. Darwinian selection is doing its work and a new population being selected for, composed of those families interested in having children despite all the many modern distractions. 

Inexorably, the population of individuals who genetically underpin category three will rise exponentially and will eventually dominate in the population, which will itself substantially rise in numbers if it can manage to sustain itself.

There is an interesting implication, which escapes no-one who thinks about this in an informed way, that any other genetically-informed traits which co-vary with fertility-promoting alleles will also be selected for. I admire many aspects of Japanese culture but my ignorance of the details of Japanese society is pretty much total. Still, someone much more informed than me should take a look.

---

[1] Heritability of family size (from Bard)

Here are some examples of heritability estimates for family size in different countries:

Denmark: 15-20%

United States: 20-30%

Australia: 25-30%

Netherlands: 30-40%

Japan: 20%

-

[2] From Bard - family sizes in Japan: 

Here are some specific percentages you might find helpful, based on data from 2020:

Percentage of women aged 45-49 with no children: 22.7%

Percentage of women aged 45-49 with one child: 32.5%

Percentage of women aged 45-49 with two children: 34.2%

Percentage of women aged 45-49 with three or more children: 10.6%

Our 'Advance Decision' signed documents

Here is the template we used (unchanged!) due to Celia Kitzinger.

Clare's and my signed copies are stored (Google Drive/My Data/Wills-Advance-Decision) and in hard copy in our fireproof safe. They were signed in 2011 and remain in force today and for the foreseeable future. Medical professionals please note!

Advance Decision template (Celia Kitzinger)

 

ADVANCE DECISION

 

To Health Care Professionals: 

 

I, [YOUR NAME], of [YOUR ADDRESS], have the capacity to make the decisions set out in this document.  I have carefully considered how I wish to be treated if, in the future, I lose the capacity to consent to medical treatment, or the ability effectively to communicate my refusal or consent. 

 

Date of birth:  [YOUR DOB]

NHS number:  [YOUR NHS NUMBER]

National Insurance Number:  [YOUR NI NUMBER]

 

REFUSAL OF TREATMENT

To avoid any doubt, and unless stated to the contrary below, I confirm that the following refusals of treatment are to apply even if my life is at risk or may be shortened by virtue of such refusal.

 

In the event that I am no longer competent to make decisions on my own behalf, these are the decisions I have made in advance.  If I lack mental capacity and also have an advanced disseminated malignant disease, advanced degenerative disease of the nervous system (including MS, motor neurone disease and Parkinson’s disease), moderate or severe brain damage due to injury, stroke, disease or other cause, senile or pre-senile dementia, severe difficulty in breathing (dyspnoea) that cannot be cured, or any other condition of comparable gravity, I refuse any medical intervention aimed at prolonging or sustaining my life.

 

In the event of any of the above conditions applying, I refuse all life-prolonging treatments, including but not limited to: cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, artificial ventilation, specialised treatments for particular conditions such as chemotherapy or dialysis, antibiotics when given for a potentially life-threatening infection, and artificial hydration and nutrition.  I also refuse all life-sustaining treatments including but not limited to therapies whose purpose is to maintain or replace a vital bodily function and without which death would most likely occur as a result of organ or system failure.

 

I recognise that I am unlikely specifically to have included all possible current or future treatments for whatever health condition may lead to the applicability of this AD. Nonetheless I wish to refuse them.  Furthermore I am unable to anticipate all possible circumstances under which this AD might become applicable but believe that any such circumstances would be extremely unlikely to alter my decision had I anticipated them.  I am very anxious that new treatments or unpredictable circumstances might be used by my healthcare team to argue that this AD is not applicable and not binding.  I wish so far as I can to pre-empt any such arguments.

 

CONSENT TO TREATMENT

I do consent to any medical treatment to alleviate pain or distress (including any caused by lack of food or fluid) aimed at my comfort.  I do consent to palliative treatment for incurable vomiting or feeling sick (but not for treating any underlying condition causing these symptoms).  I maintain this request even in the event that it may shorten my life.

 

Upon my death I wish to donate all usable organs and I consent to any treatment which is designed to make this possible and to optimise the process.

 

 

I have deposited this advance decision with:

 

1.  My GP: [GP NAME, GP ADDRESS]

 

 

Signed:  ______________________    Date: __________________

 

 

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Witness 1   

 

Witness Name :  _________________________

 

Address:            __________________________

 

 

I witness that this advance decision was signed or acknowledged in my presence.

 

 

Signature:   _________________     Dated:    _________________

 

 

 

Witness 2

 

Witness Name :  _________________________

 

Address:            __________________________

 

 

I witness that this advance decision was signed or acknowledged in my presence.

 

 

Signature:   _________________     Dated:    _________________

 

 

 

Nothing worse than elderly relatives bearing advice

Hi fellow comrades-in-arms for justice,

Let me introduce myself. I'm a student, a radical and passionate for change. I despise the tired establishment of this country which only ever presides over failure. Everything’s broken; nothing gets fixed; I'm terminally bored.

And that's why I’m wired for action.

Get outta the way, Grandpa!

Speaking of that, my dad gave me a copy of a letter my granddad wrote to me years ago - before he died. It was kept for me until I was eighteen! How condescending is that? I hate all that advice from beyond the grave stuff.

So here's an extract of what I have to put up with - just hear the pompous pontification, the smug condescension!

---

“... It is the destiny of teens and twenty-something's to yearn for a cause, to join a movement of like-minded people fighting for a better future for all, as they see it. The activist tribe is intoxicating: self-righteous events follow one from other; there is no shortage of parties and romantic partners. Loneliness is banished, life is collective, active, exciting and seldom boring.

“The cause is seldom analysed too closely or too seriously. Christianity once promised Salvation and Heaven-on-Earth; Marxism promised a radical equality, the end of oppression, the unlocking of all the forces of progress; climate activism fights clear enemies to save a biosphere fit for all the people.

“But it takes years of immersion in the esoteric doctrines of the cause before its objectives, strategies and tactics can be properly understood and deployed. Rebuttals which are compelling rely upon complex analyses spanning several disciplines with which you will not, at this stage of your life, be familiar. During your period of apprenticeship you will be emotionally committed to the movement, chained to the induction process … and immune from outside criticism which you will find either tribal nonsense or too sophisticated for easy comprehension.

“And here is a meta-critique to which you are also immune.

“It is in the nature of young people, particularly those in somewhat elite institutions such as the universities, to believe they are owed a pathway to future success. In advanced economies, however, the pyramid is steep - and narrow at the top. Few aspirants will make it, and those few will generally owe their success to their family connections (in a very few cases, outstanding talent may hack it).

“The struggle therefore is bogus. It cannot deliver you what is promised. The Kingdom of God on Earth will not happen; the Communist Revolution will require an evolution to a world utterly different from your own; the Green movement's strategy is utterly decoupled from actually solving the problems it purports to address.

“So enjoy the struggle while you remain starry-eyed. Then enjoy it in retrospect as a fulfilling coming-of-age. Unless you were born with silver spoon in mouth (you were not!) - or you get very lucky indeed - you will need to readjust your objectives as you leave your twenties. We live in a complex society: hopefully you didn't trash your studies, your CV or your reputation in ways that prevent you from finding a life trajectory which really does work for you in future.

“Have fun - I wish you well...”

---

Easy for him to dump all over us, isn't it. He's dead.

"Our Posthuman Future" by Francis Fukuyama

Francis Fukuyama's "Our Posthuman Future" swings a now-rusty axe at advancements in biotechnology, its edges dulled by two decades of scientific progress following its publication in 2002.

At its core, the book muses upon a disingenuous morality play: technology mutates our "absolute human nature". The remedy? A state-guided ethical framework to restrain its monstrous potential.

So much for libertarianism.

Fukuyama's high-mindedness is crafted to appeal to both sides of the political aisle – leftists who fear technological disruption of their cherished shibboleths, and conservatives wary of moral relativism – but ultimately it only highlights his own personal  preferences.

Fukuyama needs a fantastical portrait of human nature, a static essence woven from language, consciousness and "spiritedness". This convenient Nietzschean fiction ignores the messy reality of evolution, whereby our biological and cultural landscapes constantly reshape what it means to be human.

His pronouncements on the dangers of genetic engineering are quaintly outdated, riddled with assumptions about heredity that have been thoroughly debunked by subsequent research. Fukuyama, at time of writing, was unaware for example of the polygenic formation of most complex traits - such as personality and intelligence - which feeds his convenient skepticism as regards the genetic component of their heritability.

The book's real agenda emerges in its calls for stringent regulation, its subtext tinged with suspicion both of scientific inquiry and individual autonomy. By invoking a static, nebulous and absolute "shared humanity" as the foundation of morality, Fukuyama unwittingly empowers the very state he claims to fear, entrusting it with the delicate task of policing human evolution. Sadly, this is what reactionary looks like, dressed in moderate, progressive clothes.

Such politically-convenient triangulation ignores the vast ethical complexities of biotechnological advancements, reducing them to a convenient bogeyman that justifies increased state control. That would be self-defeating for any state which unilaterally tried it. One thinks of the calls for unilateral nuclear disarmament echoing across the decades.

"Our Posthuman Future" may have sparked conversations at the margins two decades ago, but its attempt to impose an absolute Platonic morality on the contingent protocols of an evolved social primate is just an empty exercise in reification.

No-one cares about your digital clone

 From the Revelation Space Wiki:

“Beta-level simulations were sophisticated computer programs designed to mimic a person in appearance, mannerisms, and thought-patterns. While capable of successfully impersonating a human mind down to their most minute idiosyncrasies, they were not in fact self-aware -- they were just near-perfect imitations of life. As such, they enjoyed no legal rights or protections.

… it was considered a most egregious social faux pas to allow someone to believe a beta-level simulation was in fact alpha-level; however, mistaking someone for their beta-level was itself an insult …”

Alastair Reynolds’ digitised-human concept is fast approaching reality. 

Today I read about a company which will set up your digital clone (with avatar) if you simply submit as few as four pages of notes, penned by yourself.

Better results are expected if you grant delphi.ai access to your entire corpus of Google Docs and hopefully your memoirs too.

In pitching to your vanity, no-one mentions the use-case. How often will your grandchild (or generic loved one) choose to chat with a shallow personality model - without emotions or empathy - formed from a dataset fossilised in deep time?

Forget about it. In 10-15 years there will be an unbounded collection of Internet friends and advisors, all a lot smarter, more empathic and wiser than you or I could ever be. 

Hope to be remembered fondly, if only dimly.

The Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

"The rain lashed down on the cobblestones, a cold, insistent lullaby against the slick flagstones. Jacques huddled deeper into his threadbare overcoat, its collar a damp cage against a wind whispering secrets of the Seine. Beside him, the hulking silhouette of Pierre was an impassive monolith, the silence that clung to him as thick as the Parisian smog. Lutte Ouvrière's newest recruit was draped in shadows, shadows which whispered under flickering street lights - tonight the shadows seemed to writhe with a life of their own.

It all went to hell faster than a bar brawl on Bastille Day. One minute they were hauling crates into a grimy Parisian cellar, the musty air heavy with the ghosts of revolutions past, the next, the cobblestones were erupting in blue flashing strobes, steel claws of spotlights ripping through the night. Sirens wailed a mournful aria as armoured vans disgorged gendarmes, their faces like gargoyles in the harsh neon glare.

The interrogation suite was a slap in the face. Pastel walls, plush carpeting, armchairs that swallowed you whole like overstuffed confessionals. Jacques felt like a stray, an alley cat catapulted into Versailles, his knuckles white against the polished veneer of the interrogation table. The video screen on the wall flickered to life, displaying Pierre in all his granite-faced glory, shackled to a chair in a cell that wouldn't have looked out of place in a mediaeval oubliette. Yet, even under the harsh fluorescents, Pierre's eyes were unwavering, a stoic statue in a concrete landscape.

Then she walked in. Céline. A whisper of smoke and ink, wrapped in a dress the colour of midnight, her dark hair a cascading waterfall against skin like alabaster. She smiled, a flash of white teeth against crimson lips, and Jacques's pulse skipped a beat. This was no gendarme in sheep's clothing, no gruff inspector with a dossier smelling of stale Gauloises. This was a femme fatale straight out of a Simenon novel, and she was playing him like a Stradivarius.

She slid into the chair opposite him, the scent of vanilla and expensive perfume hanging in the air like a promise. Instead of barking orders, she spread documents on the table, the top his long-forgotten university thesis, "The Reconstruction of the Standard Model from Loop Quantum Gravity." Céline, a goddess of intelligence fluent in the arcane language of physics? It was enough to make a man question reality.

Her questions were velvet-coated barbs, her flirtations calculated manoeuvres. She spoke of his research, his dreams, her gaze lingering on his exposed chest. He found himself drowning in her eyes, those emerald depths promising secrets, his guard slowly dissolving like salt in seawater.

Then, the revelation, sharp and sudden. 

"You're on our side, Jacques," she purred, the controller in her hand a tiny silver sceptre. 

Memories, dammed for months, burst through the sluice gates of his mind. He wasn't Jacques, the idealistic firebrand of Lutte Ouvrière. He was Agent Duval, deep cover, tasked with monitoring Pierre, a viper in the folds of the French Left, a serpent working for a foreign intelligence service with his fangs already sunk into the nation's security.

The flood of memories was agonising, a kaleidoscope of clandestine meetings, whispered codewords, the ever-present fear of exposure. And Pierre, ever the stoic mask, his loyalty as impenetrable as the granite of the Alps.

Céline's smile was bittersweet. Relief, triumph, and a tinge of sadness that made her eyes even more luminous. Tonight, they would celebrate a stolen moment of normalcy in the quicksand of espionage. Tomorrow, Duval would vanish, another layer of memories carefully excised, leaving behind a bruised and bewildered Jacques, convinced he had withstood brutal interrogation by the very forces he secretly served.

But as they slipped into the Parisian night, hand in hand, Jacques couldn't shake the feeling that somewhere, beneath the fabricated memories, a shard of truth remained. A whisper in the dark, a ghost at the corner of his vision, reminding him of the man he once had been, the life he had led, and the choices he had made in the cold embrace of shadows. And he knew, with a chilling certainty, that the shadows would always be there, waiting, ready to reclaim him the moment his guard slipped. For in the labyrinthine world of espionage, loyalty was a fickle flame, easily extinguished by the coldest of winds.”

---

The Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind written by Bard from this...

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Bard Prompt: Write a short story of around 2,000 words in a breathless, pulp-noir style based on the following synopsis.

“The setting is the dark, rainy street in an ancient, run-down arrondissement of Paris. The hero is a young man, Jacques, who is a political activist. His left wing organisation, Lutte Ouvrière, has sent him out this late night with a new comrade, a large taciturn man whom Jacques has never met before. The comrade takes charge and directs Jacques to help set up a mysterious assignment. However, the mission is quickly interrupted: lights, police vans. The two of them are arrested.

“The scene shifts to an interview room, which to Jacques’s surprise is very pleasantly furnished with pastel walls and stuffed upholstery with sumptuous cushions. Jacques is seated at a small table in the centre of the room, expecting a rough interrogation to come. He notices a video screen on the wall to his right. It shows an image of his large comrade shackled to a steel chair in a filthy cell. The large man sits as impassively as ever.

“Jacques doesn't know it but he's in a special DGSI interrogation suite. The DGSI is France's interior intelligence agency.

“A charming, petite, dark haired woman about his own age enters the room. She introduces herself as Céline. She pulls a chair up beside him and puts some papers on the table. Jacques recognises the top paper as his university thesis, ‘The reconstruction of the Standard Model from Loop Quantum Gravity’.

“Céline’s manner is respectful and flirtatious. She seems to want to talk about his scientific research, not about his political activism. Jacques finds himself attracted to Céline, hé can't help noticing her bare arms, her enticing outfit. Soon he's letting her steer the conversation as she wishes. Suddenly he realises the truth: she's just flattering him, getting under his guard. ‘You’ll get nothing from me,’ he says, ‘I’m telling you nothing!’

“Céline smiles at him and tells him he is completely wrong. Jacques is actually on her side although he doesn't know it. His bulky companion, still visible on the wall screen, is an agent of a foreign intelligence service, infiltrated into the French Left. Jacques has been keeping him under surveillance. ‘Now do you remember?’ she asks, as she does something with a small controller in her hand. Jacques's memories come flooding back. He is a deep cover DGSI agent.

"Céline is really Jacques's girlfriend and tonight they are going to celebrate a brief but joyous reunion. Tomorrow though, Jacques will have all these memories erased and will be released with a cover story of a brutal police interrogation which he successfully resisted, believing he is a true revolutionary and a loyal member of Lutte Ouvrière.”

----------------------------

Coming along, isn’t it, this drafting of stories by LLMs? A fifty percent word count expansion here from my outline-prompt. The short-range narrative cohesion is good, the long-range story cohesion still not quite there for me. But for a pedestrian pulp tale, not bad at all. AC.

The End of History and the Last Man

Reading Francis Fukuyama's book (in the 2020 reissue of this 1992 published book) is an exercise in head-scratching perplexity and fist-on-wall-banging frustration.

Making Hegel's thymos (the Homeric/Platonic quest for status and recognition) a motor for historical change is certainly an improvement over basing your theories of history on that poor, selfish, solitary creature, homo economicus, with its purely consumerist motivations.

But that's like going from crass to merely poor.

In his 1975 book, "Sociobiology: The New Synthesis", Edward O. Wilson expressed a strong belief that the future of social sciences lay in their integration with evolutionary biology, specifically through the lens of sociobiology. Surely Fukuyama might have noticed this? We have advanced our understanding of human nature quite a bit since Hegel, who was writing only twenty years after the French Revolution of 1789.

Still, as a clear and coherent philosophical introduction to Kant, Hobbes, Locke, Nietzsche and Hegel, Fukuyama's chosen intellectual resources, this book could hardly be bettered.

Such a clever man, Mr Fukuyama. One could almost believe his attempts to stay Overton Window-adjacent might be… Straussian?

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Substantively, Fukuyama argues that capitalism - in its ‘bourgeois democratic‘ form - is truly the stable endpoint in human social organisation (an attractor in dynamical systems jargon). In his 2020 afterword he observes that militant Islam and system-busting populism have, despite widespread fears, not proven to be existential threats to the democratic order.

I am sure he is correct: a strong civil society composed of decentralised and fragmented economic elites welcomes a relatively weak, malleable centre of governance - one which won't get out of control.

Russia and China are examples of strongly-autonomous state structures pursuing nationalistic (thymos-driven?) projects to the detriment of their economic interests. It's tough being an entrepreneur in such countries: avoiding being 'disappeared' or worse.

The real (and long-term) threats to Fukuyama’s somewhat optimistic trajectory are twofold: (i) the massive expulsion of the mass of the population from social and economic life by elite-owned total automation; (ii) the entrenchment of a hereditary elite class by genomic engineering - a tech-constructed version of India's caste system (still covertly operational).

I would like to know more about Fukuyama's views on total automation. Meanwhile, his take on bioengineering, “Our Posthuman Future”, is on my reading stack.

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The short-term stability of 'liberal democracy' has its limits. It is worth emphasising just how ultimately fearful capitalist elites are of the masses - and how little they really care for their welfare. Unlike the lords of feudalism, economic and state-apparatus elites are not armed and are relatively few in numbers.

The military, not recruited from the elite in their mass, is not necessarily to be relied upon.

Fukuyama observes in the final chapters of his book just how much degradation and contempt politicians have to suck up in managing and defusing disgruntled mass movements and their cynical demagogue leaders.

It's therefore often the case that key government figures are not themselves socially or economically members of the top elite. No recent British leaders have been scions of the billionaire class; Trump is viewed with disdain by the truly well-off.

As in Tom Wolfe's essay, "Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers", politics is theatre and the real stuff happens elsewhere. That's what Fukuyama's ideal of liberal democracy ultimately comes down to.