Goodbye Sky

We were paying c. £80 per month for Sky (satellite) TV, and, with the two Eurosport channels closing, we were left basically replicating access to just the Freeview channels. Tell me about bloated monopolies.

Outraged, we signed up with EE for their TV Pro service, which is Internet delivered. We're also taking the subscription sports channels (TNT Sports) for professional cycling (monuments, week stage races, grand tours) which Clare is particularly attached to (£23 per month in total).

Was this going to be easy to install? The stuff in the box was labelled 'self-install' but I've been bitten before - in fact almost always.

Carefully and methodically I de-wired the Sky box: ethernet cable, HDMI cable, satellite leads, power cable and stashed the ensemble into a heap in the corner: eventually it will all be shipped back to Sky.

Then, equally methodically, I connected the EE-provided ethernet cable, HDMI cable and power cable to the EE TV Box Pro, configured the remote and pushed the box's power button (having already turned the TV on using the Sky remote).

Amazingly, the screen displayed the first setup screen, the 'continue' button tantalisingly lit up. 

Naturally I couldn't affect it in any way: the remote was dead in my hands.

I called customer service.

There followed a comedy of errors. Batteries out and then back in again; the remote woke up. It then proceeded to wrongly pair with our ancient DVD player rather than the EE box. I took the DVD player away entirely - mothballed it - and eventually (batteries out; batteries back in again) the remote began to speak to the set-top box.

Success! I logged off the customer support call; played with the TV Channel Guide.

No BBC channels at all. 

Back to customer service and routed through to technical support: a long and obscure journey through multiple settings screens to reboot the box and reacquire stations. Finally it all seems to work. End the call to customer support.

So this is self-install in March 2025: how do pensioners cope? 

[Full disclosure: I am a pensioner - I mean other pensioners who don't have science degrees and who haven't worked in telecoms for thirty years].

Engineering consciousness?

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Richard Feynman once remarked that "unless you can build something, you don’t really understand it." This simple observation underpins the very nature of scientific inquiry and technological progress. If you cannot replicate a phenomenon through engineering, then your understanding of it is at best incomplete.

But when we apply this insight to consciousness we are confronted with an unnerving reality: despite our increasing competence in building systems that outperform anything in the natural world: aircraft that outmatch birds in flight, tanks that could defeat any armoured reptile, and computer systems that easily outthink humans, we still cannot engage with consciousness itself.

This profound inability suggests a paradigmatic gap in our understanding. It seems that we are missing something fundamental about what consciousness truly is and how it might have emerged.

Modern AI systems converse, navigate, play games at superhuman levels. Yet they are not conscious. They might simulate understanding but they do not feel. They lack subjective experience.

To date, no engineering specification has required, or led to the emergence of, consciousness. While we have designed systems to meet every requirement we could imagine - intelligence, adaptability, problem-solving - none of these systems exhibit the subjective what-it’s-like quality of conscious experience. Have we overlooked some crucial aspect of what makes human beings not just intelligent, but conscious?

We turn to introspection. Take the example of driving a familiar route. Once the skill is mastered, the brain processes the task automatically, our conscious mind is elsewhere. However, when something goes wrong - say, an unexpected obstacle appears - we "wake up" to the problem. Our conscious mind kicks in, calling upon a broader model of the world, seeking a solution.

This shift from automatic processing to conscious thought hints at a key feature of cognition: consciousness arises when the system is confronted with a situation that can’t be resolved by routine processes. When the 'closed world' assumed by instinct expands to the 'open world' of coupled reality.The brain reaches out to a wider pool of knowledge, seeking to integrate more complex information, a 'bigger picture' to formulate a solution.

In these moments of cognitive consciousness, the brain is not simply processing more information, but is actively integrating a more expansive model of the world. This expansion of awareness feels like a conscious step - an intervention from the "bigger world" outside the confines of the immediate task.

The crucial question, however, is why this transition is accompanied by a conscious experience. Why does the mind 'wake up into self-awareness' when faced with complexity?

And this is not even the full explanation of consciousness. It only touches on the functional aspects - the cognitive process of integrating new information. It does little to explain the affective experience of consciousness - the "hard problem" that David Chalmers famously identified. Why does any system, biological or otherwise, experience the intense pain of a stubbed toe, or the exquisite joy of a Led Zeppelin riff? This is the domain of qualia - the raw, subjective feel of experience that, as far as we can guess, seems to arise from the interplay of lower and higher brain systems.

It seems plausible that emotions play a critical role in harmonizing the conflict between primal drives and higher-level cognitive goals. But this does not, in itself, explain why pain feels so profoundly bad, or why joy is so intensely pleasurable. The rawness of these sensations seems to arise from the tension between lower-level survival instincts and the more abstract, deliberate planning processes of the cortex.

Emotions, in this sense, act as a bridge between these competing systems. But why should these conflicts - between the brainstem’s imperative to action and the cortex’s more detached planning - be felt at all? Robot designers have been designing such multilevel 'subsumption architectures' for decades without anyone ever thinking that consciousness was involved.

This is (one of) the unexplained mysteries at the heart of consciousness.

The failure of materialism to account for consciousness appears absolute. AI systems get better and better but they're all p-zombies. ChatGPT? Superhuman competences, human-level dialogue; no consciousness.

Consciousness seems to be a solution in search of a problem. Is this sending us the message that we’re simply operating within the wrong paradigm?

The reductionist, materialist model of consciousness posits that the mind will eventually be explained through an understanding of brain processes. As a hypothesis, this is appealing in its simplicity: no magic. But also no success.

In despair, panpsychism offers a radically different approach, positing that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe - something intrinsic to all matter. Consciousness is not an emergent property but an inherent aspect of reality. Atoms and the void - and consciousness.

Panpsychism offers no predictive or explanatory capabilities. It sells itself as a metaphysical framework, but without any practical means to explore the concept of consciousness. A comforting idea, perhaps, but one that presently leads nowhere.

We remain at an impasse. Materialism fails to explain consciousness, and panpsychism fails to provide any productive means of exploring it. Feynman might say: if we can’t yet build consciousness, it simply means we don’t understand it well enough (or indeed, at all).

So consciousness joins the other great questions: why is there something rather than nothing? What is the true nature of reality? And Camus' question.

'Empathising and Systematising' - a short story by Adam Carlton

Antoinette and myself at my agent's office

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She walked across while I was waiting to see my agent.

Antoinette: I remembered just in time. One of the readers of the slush pile. Bottom of the food chain in the business.

But Antoinette stood out, I thought: she had sparkle.

"Hi Adam," she said, showing me a printout, "I came across this and I'm puzzled. My first thought was, well, it's not for us; but something about it - the argument - it piqued a bit of interest..."

She gave me a charming smile, with only the slightest flicker of irony, and handed me the document.

"I thought of you."

Like I said, smart girl.

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The Evolution of Elite Cognition: Systematizers vs. Empaths in the March of Civilization

By Dr Henry Lutending

Human society was once small, tribal, and violently xenophobic. Hunter-gatherers operated in tight-knit bands well below the Dunbar limit, where social trust was personal, reciprocity was direct, and there was little requirement for abstract reasoning or large-scale cooperation. The only selection pressures at play were for basic survival skills—strength, cunning, a capacity for immediate social bonding, and a deep suspicion of outsiders, who, given resource limitations, were almost certain to be hostile.

Then came agriculture, surplus, cities, and suddenly, a new game. Societies grew beyond the size where direct reciprocity was possible. Elites—those who could manage complex societies—emerged. And to do that, they needed two things: (1) systematizing intelligence, to plan taxes and economies, develop legal codes, and run administrative structures; and (2) high-level prosociality, to negotiate, defuse conflict, and create the ideological glue that held populations together. In short, enhanced intelligence and empathy became adaptive in a way they simply hadn’t been before.

Selection responded accordingly. Over the last ten thousand years, elite classes across civilizations—from the Middle-East to China—developed traits that were alien to their peasant underclasses. Elites had to think long-term, manage abstract systems, and suppress impulsivity in favor of diplomacy and reputation-building. These traits, culturally vital, were biologically selected. The best networkers and system-builders left the most descendants, shaping gene frequencies over time. (Peasants also adapted away from their hunter-gatherer forebears, to a life of sedentary drudgery and endemic disease - a different set of adaptations).

Selection was fast, messy, and polygenic. Just as rapid selection for intelligence in Ashkenazi Jews produced both extraordinary cognitive abilities and a cluster of neurological disorders [1], so too did the selection for high-trust, high-intelligence elites produce its own variety of pathological byproducts—over-systematization, over-empathizing, and the various maladaptations we now call autism, anxiety disorders, and elite neurosis.

Fast forward to today, and we see the consequences all around us. The class structure of modern Western societies forms a cognitive and temperamental cline.

At one extreme, the criminal underclass: impulsive, aggressive, low-future-orientation, thriving on immediate dominance rather than delayed reciprocity.

At the other extreme, the hyper-refined elites: measured, strategic, highly networked, masters of abstract thought but often physically timid, conflict-averse, and tempted toward comforting illusions at the expense of harsh realities they are often insulated from.

Within those elites there has always been a schism: between the systematizers, who think in hierarchies, structures, and long-range planning; and the hyper-empaths, who seek to create moral consensus, enforce ideological norms, and suppress overt aggression in favor of soft power.

This schism is the backbone of our present culture wars. The progressive elites—the hyper-empaths—dominate institutions that rely on moral framing: academia, media, HR bureaucracies. They create narratives, enforce taboos, and attempt to neutralize dissent through social pressure rather than direct confrontation - repressive tolerance, in Marcuse's words [2]. 

Their failure mode? Paralysis in the face of real conflict, an inability to handle reality when brute force is required, and the consequential destruction of high-trust norms when predatory actors exploit them. As the phrase goes: when the bullets start flying, the liberals leave the room, in tears, wringing their hands.

Meanwhile, the systematizing elites—the pragmatic, hierarchical, and meritocratic—lean toward finance, tech, the military, and entrepreneurial domains. Their failure mode? Brutal, zero-sum thinking, a tendency to ignore social legitimacy, and, in the extreme, a return to old-fashioned coercion when persuasion fails.

Every current civilization oscillates between these poles. When the systematizers dominate too completely, society hardens, becomes rigid, loses social legitimacy, and collapses under its own brutal hierarchies. When the hyper-empaths dominate, society feminizes, unmoors itself from reality, loses its ability to defend itself, and becomes prey to external or internal predators.

The pendulum swings. And right now, after decades of progressive dominance, it’s swinging back. The liberal consensus, built on high-trust norms and an almost pathological aversion to direct power, is fracturing under the weight of its own contradictions. The coming era will be more masculine, more systematizing, and, inevitably, more coercive.

AI adds a new factor to the mix.

If elite cognition has been honed by centuries of intense selection for specific traits—systematizing, empathizing, problem-solving, and navigating complex social structures—what happens when you begin to outsource those very traits to machines? Artificial intelligence, for example, could decouple cognitive labor from biology entirely, allowing for a kind of disembodied, almost immortal competence that doesn't have the same evolutionary pressures we do. The very nature of "elite" ability could shift radically, and potentially in a direction that doesn’t favor the long-standing human social fabric.

This has been explored in a fictional setting by the author S. M. Stirling in his sequence [3], The Domination of the Draka. The books explore an alternate history where the Draka, a brutal and highly militarized society, dominate much of the world.

Draka society is not simply a dystopia in the sense of a broken system, but rather an alternative hyper-competent, brutal, and authoritarian regime that has achieved a form of success. The Draka operate on the mastery of domination through genetic servitude to create an order that is efficient, stable, and terrifying.

It's not the only future we can envisage. Once technology has improved on mere human labour, it may occur to elites to simply let the working classes fade away to extinction. With the total fertility rates we see in modern economies, that's probably the default option, anyway.

The abilities of elite populations to genetically optimise their own systematizing and empathizing traits has never been greater. Paradoxically as genome engineering makes that imminent prospect enticing, the arrival of superhuman embodied AI may render it unnecessary. 

The elites will transition to something new, to be sure: it may even be their own extinction.

References

[1] "The Ten Thousand Year Explosion". Cochran and Harpending, 2009.

[2] "Repressive Tolerance". Herbert Marcuse, 1965.

[3] "The Domination". S. M. Stirling, 1988-96.

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I looked back at Antoinette in disbelief.

“Where to begin? References to genetics in social science, fascistic regimes cited without obligatory moral condemnation?

"Does this guy even have a job?”

Antoinette shrugged, her tight, translucent blouse shimmering in the sun, “There's no affiliation on his manuscript - maybe he's an independent researcher. So what do you think? The circular file?"

I thought about it. Normally yes, of course. But perhaps the times were changing; perhaps a smart agent could get ahead of the curve...

"I think you should go for it, it's kind of interesting, after all. But to be on the safe side, make sure you frame it as satirical fiction...”

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Today is Xenophon Day: March Forth!

 

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Xenophon's 'Anabasis' is as much a blueprint for leadership in crisis as it is an epic tale of survival, a narrative where every step forward was freighted with destiny and death.

In 401 BCE, Xenophon found himself in the midst of an ill-fated campaign: an expedition of roughly 10,000 Greek mercenaries hired by Cyrus the Younger to overthrow the Persian king. When Cyrus fell at the Battle of Cunaxa, the mercenaries were left stranded deep in hostile territory - a predicament that would forge their names into eternal legend.

Stranded far from home, the army faced an arduous retreat, their journey marked by relentless hardship, internal discord, and external threats. Originally an aristocrat enrolled both to fight and to chronicle the mission, Xenophon emerged from the chaos as an unlikely leader. His cool-headed pragmatism and uncanny ability to inspire were crucial in rallying a demoralized force: far from home, without supplies and surrounded by hostile forces.

With little more than a fervent command - infamously encapsulated in his rallying cry to “March forth!” - he transformed an almost-certain doom into a masterclass of tactical retreat and survival. This transformation was not just physical but psychological: in the crucible of adversity, Xenophon demonstrated that a leader’s resolve and ability to maintain the soldiers’ morale can tip the scales between catastrophe and survival.

Today, military academies still study Xenophon’s exploits because his account is a timeless treatise on the art of command and the realities of warfare. His narrative is unflinchingly honest about the chaos of battle and the fragility of human organization when stripped of order, and the need to deal decisively with personal weaknesses. Xenophon’s acute observations on discipline, logistics, and the management of fear and uncertainty offer a strategic manual that transcends the centuries.

His emphasis on adaptability - the ability to reassess and recalibrate in the face of unforeseen challenges - is particularly resonant. Modern military leaders appreciate that the landscape of warfare is unpredictable; the principles of rapid decision-making under duress, the necessity of clear communication, and the importance of cohesion among disparate units remain as relevant today as they were on the dusty trails of Persia.

Beyond the battlefield, Xenophon’s other works, such as his treatises on horsemanship and his idealized account of leadership in the “Cyropaedia”, continue to inform discussions on political strategy and statecraft. His portrayal of Cyrus as a benevolent yet strategic ruler offers an early exploration into the interplay between moral virtue and political power - a subject as relevant in today’s corridors of power as it was in ancient courts.

Politically, the Anabasis is a study in the perils of overextension and the complexities of mercenary alliances, a masterclass in the management of hired soldiers.  Strategically, his narrative reinforces the timeless wisdom that the terrain - both physical and political - can be as formidable an adversary as any enemy force.

So, on March 4th - aptly dubbed ‘Xenophon Day’ - we are reminded that when faced with overwhelming odds, the courage to 'march forth' is not just about physical movement but about the steadfast march toward clarity, order, and the resilient powers of leadership.

ChatGPT interviews me about Martial Arts

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ChatGPT: How did you first get into martial arts?

Nigel: I think I was 10 or 11 when I got the idea to do Judo: it seemed empowering. My mother was against it, thinking it would make me violent. My father came to my rescue, telling her that such training would stand me in good stead if I got caught up in any bar brawls. I imagine he was recalling his army days—this would have been around 1961-2.

I used to cycle up to the local club on Saturday mornings, they used a scout hut on the Southmead Road, near Filton aerodrome. I was keen and worked my way through the Mon grades of the junior system. Back then, gradings required contest victories, and I won enough.

ChatGPT: Did you have a favorite technique or style of fighting?

Nigel: Tai-otoshi—body drop. It suited my build: long and lanky. I was never very good at hip or shoulder throws. Once, in a grading contest, I got caught by a sucker-punch. My opponent used tomoe-nage, the stomach throw. It’s spectacular—an instant ippon, a victory. But it should never work against a prepared opponent; the counter is too easy. Just squat down and go straight to groundwork with the advantage of being on top!

ChatGPT: Did you continue Judo into adulthood?

Nigel: I kept it up in secondary school, but university and then work took over. I dabbled a bit later, but I never returned to it systematically. A shame, but priorities are what they are.

ChatGPT: Did you explore other martial arts later?

Nigel: Briefly. I tried karate a few years later, but in those days, it was all punching the air and ferocious numbers of push-ups. Too hard for me, and the benefits were years away. Aikido? I went to a few lessons, but it seemed curiously placid and ineffectual. I couldn’t buy into it.

ChatGPT: And T’ai Chi? How did that fit into your journey?

Nigel: I never thought of T’ai Chi as a combat art. You get what you train for. If you go slow and don’t spar for real, you’ll win no fights. For me, T’ai Chi was about Taoist ideas—balance, a calm frame of mind, and kinaesthetic awareness. You could see the difference between the newbies and the adepts: I wanted to be like those who flowed through the form, and I think I’ve got there.

ChatGPT: Did Taoism lead you to T’ai Chi, or was it the other way around?

Nigel: Taoism came first. I’ve always had sympathy for Lao Tzu’s idea of immanent harmony. But I’m also mindful of Cheng Man Ch’ing’s remark that Taoism is for the philosopher-hermit on his hill, while Confucianism is for those who live in the world. My adherence to the Catholic Church probably reflects the wisdom of that remark.

ChatGPT: So, would you say you’ve always balanced the philosophical with the practical?

Nigel: I’m open to the deep mysticism of consciousness in the universe, for sure. But I also believe combat skills matter in an uncertain world. Shotokan Karate reminded me of that. I achieved 7th kyu (yellow belt) in nine months of regular training. Realistically, though, I think first dan, plus hard kumite getting there, is the minimal precondition for useful skill. In another life, I’d have liked to get there.

ChatGPT: You mentioned earlier that martial arts should unify inner spirit and outward efficiency. Did you see that in your training?

Nigel: Yes. My Shotokan Sensei, a 6th dan, insisted on that unity, as do all serious martial arts. The hard and soft styles ultimately converge. I first encountered that idea as a child in Judo, and I’ve always internalised it as the goal.

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'I write for the AIs...'

Amazon link

Tyler Cowen, from the blog ‘Marginal Revolution’, suggests that we should be writing for the AIs, the large language models (LLMs) that will one day serve as our digital custodians.

The reasoning is straightforward: our descendants will have neither the time nor the inclination to sift through the mountains of words we leave behind. But the machines will. They will be the ones reading, processing, and perhaps even presenting us to the future. It’s an intriguing notion, but one that raises an immediate question: why bother?

Human relationships are defined by bonds of personal necessity and affection - family, friends, lovers, comrades-in-arms. Beyond this circle, we lapse into mere social obligation, and even that wears thin.

If I had the chance to meet a sixteenth-century ancestor, what exactly would we talk about? The price of grain? The relative merits of different plough designs? His pious peasant worldview would, at best, be a short-term curiosity; at worst, just tedious.

Why, then, should I expect my distant descendants to care for my accumulated wisdom on obsolete telecom network architecture, frankly naive political philosophy, or the minor ups and downs of twenty-first-century Britain?

But perhaps that’s the wrong framing. The real issue is not whether anyone will care, but whether anyone will even feel inclined to. The function of human relationships is mostly to exchange knowledge, provide advice, offer emotional support, and help each other navigate the labyrinth of life. Yet all of this will be, increasingly, the domain of more competent and amenable artificial systems.

Give AI another twenty years to develop fine-grain personality modeling and soft-touch humanoid robotics - and the role of wise old grandparent, experienced mentor, or sympathetic friend will be performed more effectively by an exquisitely tailored machine than by some stilted, digitised reconstruction of a long-dead ancestor.

The living barely listen to their forebears now; why should we expect the future to be any different?

Perhaps we should adjust our Wills. State that our digitised personas may be edited, altered and upgraded, tailored to become a preferred companionate personality for our remote offspring.

In this way allow our individual, historic selves to be subsumed into the collective subconscious of improved and optimised humanity: a Jungian prospect reminiscent of Peter Hamilton’s Edenists in the Night’s Dawn trilogy. The self, once rigid and finite, dissolves into something fluid, continuously enhanced - a digital ancestor no longer preserved but reimagined and repurposed.

Cowen’s vision, then, is not without irony. Yes, the AIs will read our words, digest our ideas, and perhaps synthesise them into some grand collective narrative of human thought. But what remains of us in that process? Do we become mere echoes, endlessly refined until we are no longer distinct from the computational matrix itself? Or do we vanish into irrelevance, our carefully curated personas serving as little more than scaffolding for something newer, sharper, and ultimately indifferent to its origins?

If we are to write for the future, we should do so not out of a desperate hope to be remembered, but because we have something genuinely worth saying. Process not outcome: whether it is read by man or machine is, in the end, incidental.