The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

A well known classic about a man who becomes a bug overnight. He sees his body is that one of a bug but he is still a man. Or is he not?

Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality by Helen Joyce

I read this book as part of my #myculturewarsproject. A project I started to understand discussions I read in the media. I have previously read The Righteous Man by Jonathan Haidt, The Madness of Crowds by Douglass Murray and The Transgender Issue by Shon Faye.

This is a well-researched, well written, eye opening book about an ideology which originated from ideas by social scientists and gender ideologists but which has been spread to other areas of societies, such us governmental, political, educational, medical institutions, social media, etc. This ideology has managed to remain invisible, unnoticed, under the radar, to the eyes of the common people. However it is very influential as it has managed to gain access to key political spaces and it is changing laws which affect lots of (vulnerable) people.

The ideology is called Gender Self Identification, and it means that anyone can claim to have any gender identity they want. This ideology has influenced law in several countries. Through a series of distortions and misinterpretations, concepts such as sex, woman, man, female and male are redefined or erased. Leaving gender identity as the sole idea to guide it all. (Gender used to be understood as a social construct associated with sex. Now it is a "feeling" disconnected from sex, because sex doesn't exist.) K. Donelly says, this ideology is an intellectual illness lacking rationality and reason. And if you think how can something like this could affect you or society in general, this book explains all the implications brilliantly.

It starts by explaining the trans sexual/gender phenomena, mainly from a medical and psychological perspectives. It introduces concepts such as androphilia and autogynephilia as well as dysphoria which explain some of the causes of transgenderism. It then introduces the idea of gender identity and how through time it co-existed with the concept of sex but now it has to make “sex” disappear from the collective memory to be able to go with their expansion plans. So for example, now women or men are not people who were born female or male but people who feel like they are women or men. The words women and men are disconnected from biology. This explains why now trans-ideologists consider a transgender woman (a man who transitions to woman) a woman and a female. As this ideology has been adopted in several areas of our societies, including the UK, now a born-male person can claim to be a woman (like your mother who gave birth to you) and access for example Women’s prisons, Women’s sports, Spaces where women recover from rape, domestic abuse and the like and others.

 

Another related and disturbing issue is the epidemic of transgenderism with so many people wanting to transition to the other gender. The book explains how trans-activists groom children and young people into trans-identification, followed by social transition, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and medical interventions. All this is done by repeated gender-affirmation on social media, by therapists and doctors. The book also explains how most of these medical treatments and procedures are novel, and that there are little if any long term studies in these topics. There is no idea of the long-term consequences of using cross-sex hormones for example or how experimental are bottom surgeries are.

 

There are many more issues discussed in the book but little space here. So I will just mention one more, and it is that the gender self-identification ideology rejects biology and science. It is not based on facts and truths and it resembles a cult or religion with fanatic followers repeating mantras such “a trans-woman is a woman”.

 

I wish I could express my thoughts in a better and more organised way but I this is what I am able to do at the moment. I hope I’ll be able to write more when I manage to process all the information I have read.

 

I totally recommend this book if you are interested in the topic and/or if you are worried about children, women and the future of our society.

Embers of War, Fleet of Knives and Light from Impossible Stars by Gareth Powell

Quick read and great fun. The trilogy looks into ancient races, beings from higher dimensions, sentient ships and the imminent collapse of a human civilization. The topic that engaged me the most was that one of artificial Intelligence and how it can develop a conscience. I recently read an essay on Machine Ethics by Susan Anderson, which also looks into how AI can be considered moral agents. In the trilogy we have war AI regretting past actions and becoming more aware of the consequences of their actions but also "non-war" AI becoming genocidal machines following nonviolent moral values. It was interesting to reflect on how AI can go these two different paths in light of Anderson's essay.

Anyway that was the fun part. On the negative side I'd have to mention, one, the sometimes tiring and repetitive way in which the author recaps past events. And, two, the super annoying, random and distracting insertion of an event in the last 5th of the 3rd novel. That is, when the focus should have been on concluding the story and tidying up loose ends.

Spoiler Alert

The author shows a character, who wasn't even secondary but random, have a gender identity "crisis" 1hr or so before a confrontation with enemy battleships. The captain of the ship refers the character to the infirmary for a gender reassignment right away with a discourse on how these things can be sorted blah blah.... all this which is irrelevant to the story and happens in the middle of a space battle.

Anyway, read this if you don't mind the above 😁

Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotis" and Machine Metaethics by Susan Leigh Anderson

This essays discusses how we could create Ethical Machines. This is not the same as machines created ethically (as in computer ethics) but machines which could act ethically. For this, Anderson explains how Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics are not a got fit. More work needs to be done to develop an ethical framework which could be implemented in robots and AI.

The first part of the essay discusses how, in the Bicentennial Man Asimov rejects his own Three Laws by exposing how they would make a robot a slave. But, how can a robot be a slave if it isn't human? Well, Anderson explains how the story depicting human traits in the robot protagonist reaffirms the fact that it would be inhuman to program robots with the 3 Laws.

The next part of the essay looks into the field of Machine Ethics. First by discussing the concept of Moral Standing in machines. Anderson refers to Tibor Machan who believed that "to have rights it was necessary to be a moral agent, where a moral agent is one who is expected to behave morally". Here instead of telling a story, Anderson quotes a few philosophers' understanding of characteristics a moral agent should have to have rights or to, indeed, be a person. For example, Reason, Sentience or Self-consciousness are discussed. Using all these tools Anderson finishes the essay explaining why the 3 Laws are unsatisfactory.

No to robot slavery <--> robot rights <--> do robots have Moral Standing? <--> characteristics necessary to have Moral Standing

Excellent read for fans of Isaac Asimov.

Robo Sapiens. Tales of Tomorrow by Toranosuke Shimada

Thirteen interconnected short stories about robots. Simple but beautiful art and compelling graphic narrative. This is the kind of read that makes you think on so many what ifs... and which leaves you with questions. How much do we rely on our technology? Would we consider AI (and robots) the next step in human evolution? What would be the difference between posthumans and AI?

No-Cosas (Non-Things) by Byung-Chul Han

This is the Spanish translation but an English version has already been released. 

In this book the author makes a case on how our (excessive) focus on information and communication gives us uncertainty and thereby destabilises us. For this he first explains what “things” are: those tangible, solid, natural things which stabilise human life. Things anchor us and give us identity. In contrast, Non-Things or Information, destabilise us. Digitisation is ending the paradigm of Things. Byung-Chul Han says we do not inhabit earth and sky anymore but Google Earth and the Cloud. Currently “things” are covered with information because of this, they become “Infomats” or information-processing actors.

To explain his points, Byung-Chul Han discusses Smartphones, Selfies and Artificial Intelligence as Non-Things. The smartphone is the main Infomat of our times and has become a sort of prayer book for neoliberal capitalism. The author compares capital neoliberalism (and smartphones) with communism:

• Communism suppresses liberties. Capitalism and smartphones exploit our liberties.
• Communism involves commandments and prohibitions. Smartphones serve our needs.
• Communism makes us docile. Smartphones make us dependent and addicted.
• Communism is repressive. Smartphones are permissive.
• Communism imposes Silence. Smartphones incite communication and sharing of opinions.

Digital photos destroy our magical relationship with photograph. The digital medium transforms light into data, in numerical relationships. Selfies are not made to be kept as an memory token. They are short-lived. Real photographs are natural Things. Digital photographs are instantaneous non-things.

Artificial Intelligence cannot think. It lacks the affective-analogue dimension. AI calculate and process. AI doesn’t think.  Thought starts from a totality which precedes concepts, ideas and information. Before thought goes somewhere it is already on an basic animic disposition. It then articulates concepts the world with a fundamental animic disposition. AI will never achieve the level of conceptual wisdom. It doesn’t understand its calculations.

Quarantine by Greg Egan

Mindblowing Hard Science Fiction. A detective/spy novel in a world where humans use nanomachines to control their moods, improve their attention, access and process information, and many other things. At the core of the mystery there is a twist on actual quantum mechanics theories which try to explain the nature of reality. I think they are related to the principle of "complementarity", part of the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum theory which states that the "quantum world is both wave - and particle-like, its the act of measurement that causes it to show one face or another. " (New Scientist, Essential Guide 1&5). Greg Egan adapts the concept of measurement making it an inherent human ability, something that we ourselves do unwittingly to create and recreate our reality. And then something happens when someone discovers how to not do that. The novel can be hard to read at points. There is hard science everywhere, explaining particles, waves, smear, probabilities, etc. but the actual plot is really interesting and worth the effort.