Google & Co; One Ring to Bind them All

GOOGLE'S CORE MISSION;  READ THE SMALL PRINT

 "Googlers (Google employees) solve complex problems everyday in the name of our core mission:

 to organize the WORLD'S information and make it UNIVERSALLY accessible*

*to our users

Thank you dear Google for allowing me to say this on my Google blog.

And indeed to access the aforementioned blog through your Search Engine

And indeed for owning my blog and everything in it.

Oh Great Google I thank you, you are the ground of my virtual being.  

And thank you for knowing all about me through the information I give you, from my shared photos and personal communications, my blogs,  from Google groups, gmail ... and for sending me creepy compilations of my own pictures from which your machines have gleaned information about where I was and what I was doing anywhere in the world.   I know that this is just a tiny foretaste of your true power, of the world power to come;  the power of influence is yours oh great One World Google.

Yes indeed I am thankful to the individual 'whole self' Googlers who are faithful to the Mission, who bring their individual differences, their freedom, their real concerns for real people to  

 'create and leverage technology for the greater good' 

through 'the power to impact'

Dear Google, I know that I am never out of your sight
thanks be to your Great Machines
Soon will come the time when
We shall all be your Users
In the Name of Your Core Mission
Ah WHAT???


PS could you arrange for this to go viral by any chance?
No?

Reply to Fry

Asking an atheist what he will do when he arrives at the Pearly Gates is bound to be a non-starter.  Gay Byrne, Irish TV presenter, regularly asks his guests this question, so Stephen Fry must have prepared this reply;   “I’ll say: bone cancer in children, what’s that about? How dare you how dare you create a world where there is such misery that’s not our fault? It's not right.  It’s utterly, utterly evil.   Why should I respect a capricious, mean minded, stupid god who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?"

He's out and he's proud and he's very very loud.  Thank God someone is prepared to care and be outraged.  

I'm speaking from the heart when I say that.   A family member of a friend, an only child of 12, is in hospital with bone cancer.  His parents have just been given one day to make the following 'choice':   allowing their child to be mutilated (his lung removed, his kidneys poisoned, his hearing destroyed) because if not he will certainly die very quickly, but then again with this 'treatment' he will probably die anyway.  If they don't act, they risk feeling responsible for not trying, if they do, for mutilating and causing even more suffering to the child they love with all their being.  Faced with such a 'choice', whatever they choose, they fall into the abyss.   Whatever the ancient and recent past events leading up to this, and any imaginable transformation in the future, it's a diabolical illness, a diabolical choice, and for those who love, living this experience is hell. We all pass through hell on earth to some extent or other,  and some stay there to the end of their days.

In the 12th and 13th Century Cathars were prevalant  in Southern Europe, in particular the Languedoc region of France.  As Christians who had not been got at by the Roman Church of the time, they believed in women priests, understood reincarnation and that human life on earth is composed of body, soul and spirit.  They rejected the prevailing religious climate that 'God is in his heaven and all is well with the world' (sound-bite from R. Browning), including any evils the Pope and his gang planned to perform in the name of God.  For the Cathars it sufficed to take one look at the world to know that God was in his heaven but the other guy was in charge of the world.  Their response was to do all they could to connect themselves to God in terms of their personal 'inner' spiritual work, to aim for a 'good end' to their life when they would be returned to their true home, to help others through their active and loving social work, and to take 'consolation' from the beauties of the world when they could.

Stephen Fry has joined the ranks of those who are stopped by the following kind of logic:
 
Maxim: God is omnipotent, God is love

• If God is omnipotent, he can therefore allow or or prevent suffering, he can cause it or heal it. 

• A loving God would not cause horrific pointless suffering,  or allow it to continue without intervening, or design a life that is inherently one of suffering and injustice.   

• This is not consistent with a loving God. 

• He could be either omnipotent or unloving, but he cannot be both. 

• If he is omnipotent, then can rail against him (should he exist) and if loving, then he must be powerless.

The Cathars too faced this choice.  Either a loving God 'allowed' the world to be governed by evil, or the evil one was as powerful as God;  they chose the latter interpretation, much to the horror of the Catholic Church.  After all, at the most basic level God is Everything, there cannot be anything else, and it certainly did not hold with an evil one being as powerful as God.   Both groups accused one another of being churches of Satan.  Tragically for humanity and above all for the Cathars the possibility of continuing the debate on 'the problem of evil' and dualism was ended when the Pope and his hierarchies had all the Cathars tortured and killed.


I listen to and respect Stephen Fry as a compassionate fellow human being, but I'm not too keen on accepting his wisdom on the nature of God, as he's never really looked into it.  From what he says he's looked out at it;  in the same interview, he goes on to speak about the 'God' of today and the difference between this and the Greek gods,  and he gives all the impressions of being learned man.  If ever he managed to look deep into his own soul, I guess he didn't recognise anything of God in there either.  But if he has not dedicated his life to the search, sought out the knowledge, thought about it and made it live in a special way, then he can't help me on questions of God.

Logic is logic, but at each stage of the process, the premises can be in need of adjustment, and the reasoning can be called into question, as can the final conclusion of such a process;  in this case that God is highly unlikely or does not exist, the position of an atheist.

Stephen Fry's definition of God, the one he rejects, is pretty crude.  I reject his idea of God too.  What can this kind of God be?  A sort of 'someone up there' behind the master controls of the Cosmos, who dominates and dictates our world down here, who sees everything and sees to everything, from the inside of our heads to the outer reaches of the planet to ensure we all exist in a state of perfect, suffer-free justice?    Anything less, and we rail against him, that's the price of being an omnipotent, omniscient omnipresent pure-love dictator.   Or is he sadistic and careless creator of a bad world which he abandons?  But is this what humanity is talking about when it talks of God, is it even what God meant in history and is it what it means now?  Is this what individuals experience when they experience the spiritual and dare to call it God?    Is it the right maxim from which to start the logic process?

I don't understand how you can approach the question of God, the divine, the spiritual, without serious dedication, without discernment and all kinds of clear thinking.  How can you lump all religions and traditions and history of religion and history of the misinterpretation of religions together as 'religion' and call God and religion 'them', the illogical deceivers who do evil in the name of religion,  and call the atheists 'us'?

Such thinking, and such thinkers tell me next to nothing about God.     As with any science or field of knowledge, we need underpinning principles and knowledge to be able to understand and to do our own experiments.    Those who have no experience or memory of the divine, are unable to 'see' or recognise (re-cognize, re-think) the divine in themselves or the world around them, and do not seek to do so, are not going to be the experts who can explain God to us, or the ones to inform us reliably that God does not exist because he is logically impossible.

The hardest thing to understand is that while we can follow scientific 'Method' to explore the spiritual, we cannot use most of its current methods or tools.   Our senses for the outer world are given to us ready formed.  The tools we need to continue on to the God realm exist only as a potential, as a kind of 'seed', which must be discovered within us, planted, given conditions necessary for growth.    We have to discover, ignite, develop, refine these tools of self and God-discovery, it's an active process.

We have been given something, as part of our nature, which we can choose to activate, and which we can choose to work on.  The choice and the hard graft is up to us.  Our senses are given to us, the ready-meals of the world of consciousness, but in the case of becoming conscious of our true nature and of God, we have to inform ourselves from the very beginning on how to grow our own food from seed and from scratch, and we have to work the land.    So much easier to grab a ready meal and throw it in the microwave.  So tempting to think that's all there is.  If we set out to become the self sufficient 'farmers' of our knowledge of God, we have to start from the mud and muck, we have to learn everything again, but the rewards are not only good nourishment, but self -sufficiency and independence, sometimes called freedom by philosophers.     This is the area of 'thinking plus', of raised or heightened states of consciousness (love, prayer reflection, art, music soul-searching, multiple forms of meditation, pausing our thoughts, thinking to the source of our thoughts...). In particular, it's the area of 'thinking about thinking', of turning our attention inwards, using inner thinking tools to explore, and of being in a state of attentiveness to receive the answers to our questions, our burning questions.

There are very few people who have understood and practised this in the past, very few who understand and practice it now, fewer still who succeed to any great extent, but these are the people to whom we must turn if we want to know enough to set off on our own path, rather than bumbling along a pre-thought out path to atheism.   If you continue on this path, to atheism, you will not find God.  A path to atheism is not a path to God, atheism is not God, that must be obvious to the most minor logician.

Perhaps in our space-time world, and in our time, God is not 'someone up there'.  but exists within us, 'down here'.   Pretty much all religions and spiritual traditions maintain that human beings on earth contain a spark or drop of the divine.  This would make God here and now, is a highly individual matter, even if, on another plane,  God Eternal is the same as he ever was.  This does not mean God on earth is nothing but a multitude of subjective opinions and therefore has no objective truth.   God is to be found somewhere in the region of the individual truth of the individual human being, and as the 'ground of all being', the set-up of the world, its substance and its possibilities.  

If this spark or drop of the divine within us is not longed for, searched, 'discovered' if we don't become conscious of it, and this consciousness is not the start of a process of spiritual development of consciousness,  then the 'God in us' does not manifest, remains potential.  For as long as the divine does not develop in us, then God may be in heaven, but he sleeps on earth.  While God sleeps, devils come out to play.  Even if the set-up is good, without Love at the controls of each one of us,  other deeds are done, and quite other things created, and quite other consequences set in motion.

Socrates said 'know yourself' and so did Christ.  There's a lot more in there than we think.  Perhaps intolerable suffering will make us try harder to 'realize' God in ourselves, to have the knowledge and to think, and to have the possibility to act to end the suffering, pain and injustice we meet on earth.  The Cathars understood that our world was taken over by the devil, and worked hard to purify themselves and to help others purify themselves in order to be able to escape it.  Perhaps we could also work on illuminating and transforming our own 'world' and so together 'The' world, rather than escaping it?    That's what I'm working on.

The Secret of The Secret

How we came across The Secret
Last night JC, R and I watched a 'self-help' film called The Secret.  When I bought it in a charity shop I thought it was entertainment, but we watched it anyway.  R was sceptical before the play button was pressed, decided it was impossible, and left after 10 minutes, JC and I nearly turned it off one third of the way through, but curiosity to see how it ended made us see it through.  www.thesecret.tv/behind.html

This morning I'm of a mind to try to understand the secret of The Secret and so I draw out my favourite thinking tool, Po.  Po was invented by Edward DeBono, it is a word which means 'neither yes nor no' and allows us to respond to an idea, run with it, see where it goes, and avoid 'yes or no' before we start which prevents us from exploring it.    edwdebono.com  

This 'Secret' idea is running pretty quickly so I will have to make an effort to run pretty quickly with it.


At its simplest, The Secret is revealed as the Law of Attraction.  To be more specific, the thinking/feeling inner law of attraction, rather than an 'outer' physical sense-perception law of the world we are born into and of which we are a part.

It is a law like a physical law, such as gravity, in that it is an automatic consequence, the result of applying it, and does not rely on any being deciding on an outcome, or any preconceived judgement on whether an action is 'right or wrong'.  It is a law which allows 'inner' reality to become an 'outer' manifestation.  Unlike the law of gravity, we don't understand much about how it works,  it suffices to practice, and the law will work itself out in its own sweet way.


The Secret is;   what we give full, passionate attention to, what we think about all the time, is what we attract.  If we are careless or muddled or negative in our thinking, we attract things which make our lives muddy or unhappy, if we unthinkingly think our woes every day, we maintain a life of woe.    We can 'decide' to attract the things which make us happy, and the film contains instructions on this from a group of successful practitioners most of whom are wearing shiny clothes.

It's presented in this sort of way:

• Browse my world catalogue, decide what I want
• Decide what I really want
• Be specific about exactly what it is I want (reference no. of catalogue checked against the photo)
• Raise my consciousness in a very particular way.  Raise it to a state where I am happy and satisfied and overjoyed to be in receipt of, to be living what I want.  
• Think all this, feel it, and be grateful.
• This kind of consciousness state is one of absolute faith
• Practice this state at least once a day
• Leave to the 'Universe' to organise 
• Be attentive to the steps that lead to what you want
• Be attentive to the moment of reception
• Receive

Now, whether our understanding of the world is a purely physical matter, or whether we strive for spiritual development towards a personal and greater good (in which case we are likely to have come across this kind of idea already) is this true, possible, ok, and if so, how, and why?   

I decided to start the 'po' approach to the best possible form and understanding of this idea, to see if it would hold, to find out what it is really made of it taken to its full conclusion.

Further Analysis of Important Elements Underlying The Secret

• My catalogue at any moment is limited to what I know about the 'outer' world
• My capacity to want something is limited by the above and my knowledge of my 'inner' world, what I really want, what creates my happiness, (could be on a scale from satisfaction of need to bliss). 
• 'I'  am a human being, as such I contain a 'spark of the divine', and as such what I really want, and what makes me happy is 'divine' 
• I am of the same 'stuff' as the whole world/cosmos/universe, I am part of the world and it is part of me
• This law is 'given' to me as part of my human being nature, I did not 'create' this law, I cannot will it otherwise.
• The 'universe' is capable of realizing the law for me (its nature is not explored in any depth in the film)
• Raising my consciousness is key.  You have to know how to do it, you have to be able to do it.  Although all of us can theoretically do it, can we in practice?
• We also have to persevere with this consciousness, keep the faith, keep it raised!  We have opportunity to give up or destroy our order before it can be delivered.
• If I am not in touch with my 'true' desire, joy, faith and gratitude, I won't be able manifest my one desire in full consciousness. This conscious manifestation is a heightened version of normal life.  In casual every day consciousness, not based on true desire -  then I could still manage to manifest my true desires, on the other hand, when a 'lower' part of myself wants something, not the 'true me', my true desire won't manifest, and something quite other will.  
• If I am unable to achieve this state of joy and gratitude, presumably I do not 'really' want it or I lack faith.  I am limited by my ability to know what I want, to want, and to believe, by my ability to raise my consciousness in the required way, and to keep it raised (keep the faith) long enough for the delivery to be made.
• This 'true desire' relies on my 'knowing' or at least 'reaching' temporarily, my true self
• What I do not want and what makes me unhappy is an indication that I should change my want and end my unhappiness in order to 'be who I really am' 
• Life is abundant - there is more than enough to go round, given that we are all different, given that we practice this particular state of conscience.
• And if it's my true self it's 'good', for me, as I am good and part of the world, it is good for the world of which I am a part.

Know Thyself
To know what I truly want, I would presumably need to know who I really am.   Anyone who has tried this will realise that this is a tall order.  It is for most of us at best an ongoing process, and if attempted purely on the physical plane, impossible.  However, The Secret would allow 'instants' of true self to manifest even if the whole story of the true self is not known by the person applying the law at any particular instant.

Evolution
As you evolve, the things that you used to want and made you happy may no longer do so, but then you would continually renew and revise your order from the Catalogue - perhaps this would take personal development in the right direction?

Other People
I can't use this law on another person.  I have to work on myself, and so do you.  Other people play a part in the plan and you play a part in their plans, but that's to do with the Universe, and not you. The theory is, if I'm joyous, fulfilled, overflowing with love and happiness, I'll have more to share.

Know what you want
This is the really tricky bit for me.  How do I know what I really want?  How do I want it?  How can I be so certain that I can want it enough?  I don't feel qualified.

Most of the things I really want are pretty grandiose, involve humanity or at the very least a chunk of it, and I'm not sure how to formulate that or find it in The Catalogue.  Then I started thinking asking for health improvements and went into a tailspin of hyperchondriac inventory, and then the horrible thought arose that if I asked for health I'd have to see a doctor, probably more than one.  Ugh, too horrible.
  
Then I tried to think of something small, and all I got was food items that will make me fat.  Can I ask for the food items without getting fat?  What about Lovejoy, the thinking woman's crumpet?   I want that.   Although it really isn't the same since Lady Jane Feltham left in series 4, oops, negative thought.    However, I can stream that myself from Watchseries.it.com so it's no good asking for what I already have, even though I am very grateful of course.  I have to want something I don't have.

Wearied with indecision, I plumped for the kitchen surface of my dreams.  I've been visualising it for years.   I never did want the one I've got, it was an accident caused by my neighbour who is the O'Riley of builders.  I mean, I caused it by attracting it to my life and giving it my negative attention every day since.  So, I would like a glossy, pale blue-green stone composite surface.  But then again, doesn't this scratch? Would it show the stains, have to be polished obsessively, is it very unecological?  Did people suffer in its manufacture?  How will I insure the installation is professional?  Is it right that I should want such a thing, when there is so much want in the world?  How different from the pure longing of the little boy in the film who wanted a bicycle.   Will I ever manage the clarity, joy and faith needed to achieve this thing, will I, will I?   Also why would I resort to the Secret when I could save up, source it and find someone other than the O'Riley of builders to fit it?  It would take a ridiculous chunk of money though.  Can I get it free?  Is that morally acceptable?  Do I have to want something I can't have?

True Cost
What if it a case of my mother's favourite saying;  you can have what you like - as long as you pay for it.  Do we have to suffer known or unknown, present or future 'consequences' of our demands for satisfaction of our desires?  Does the stuff we get cost us something?

Happy Practitioners
The successful practitioners did not describe any of this kind of doubt and confusion.  They claimed to have happy and wonderful lives of continuing ever increasing happiness and wonderfulness.  Is this because they have a special ability to simplify things, a propensity for faith, a gift for raising their consciousness?  They would claim that as you work on your happiness, you radiate happiness and invite abundance and that if we all did this we would all be happy.

Material goods & services = happiness on earth?
Desire comes in the form of goods and services, and happiness on earth results.  Is this all we should take into consideration?  Might there be other 'spiritual' elements to take into consideration?

Who wants?
How can we be sure who wants the stuff?  If I want it, it's ok, because I'm part of the divine, but religions and spiritual traditions do bring in, um, the other side, the baddies.    The Secret makes no mention of this.  What if the wanting process
 is somehow intercepted?  How would I know?

What next?
JC is quite keen for me to manifest a large sum of money.  He seems to believe I can do it.  'Why are you asking me to do it, why not you?'  he does not know.  'Do you somehow believe that I am the only one naive enough to blast open the heavenly safe?  He smiles.

 I'm going to sleep on it now and we'll see how I feel in the morning.  Next I'm going to look more closely into into how the money materialises, because it doesn't fall from the sky.

Terror meets West

How do terrorists meet the freedom of the West?

Article One of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: 
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Certain members of a terrorist organisation can be persuaded to kill themselves and others in the name of the cause, and they tend to follow a certain profile...

• They mistake 'freedom to do what you like' for true freedom, have no understanding of levels and types of freedom, they are weak on 'reason and conscience'...
• Have more 'freedom' (to do what they like in the lowest sense) than they can handle;  the auto-destruction of alcohol abuse, drugs, unhealthy relationships of all kinds, lack of effective education/fulfulling employment crime, violent crime...
• And/or see in the West the people who can't handle it, (or can't at the moment) and people and organisations manifestly morally degraded, harming society and humanity, and judge the entire Western freedom culture on the basis of this.
• When they terrorise in a 'free' country,  they meet the opposite extreme, the price of abusing freedom;  condemnation, punishment, control, ejection, rejection.
• When they meet their extremist terrorist Muslim 'family', they meet a strong father, rules, structure, limits and respect.  They lack this structure, they are 'saved' from their damage and self-destruction.  At last they are 'freed' from their meaningless lives, have a sense of self-worth and a place in a family/society...a sense of brotherhood (and personal power, particularly if prepared to lay down their lives)   They feel in their guts, they live in their experience, how the Islamic Shariah can save, the others can be saved, and if they won't accept this, they must be forced.  The Infidel refuses salvation and will not therefore be saved...(and can and should be killed).  
• They perceive terrible suffering in the world and understand the West's part in this in history and today, from a particular perspective only.  Upon 'waking' to this immense suffering,  experiencing it as happening to their brothers,  they undergo terrible trauma.
• They perceive and understand that the West is attacking them as Muslims, and their saving law, the Shariah, and Mohammed himself, the most sacred prophet of the God Allah.
• They perceive themselves to be in a state of War, where the rules of war apply, some targets are 'fair game', the enemy, civilians may get killed, or in extreme cases, civilians of all sorts, as Infidel, are legitimate enemies to kill.
• They perceive themselves at war with the West, and with the freedom of the West

PHEW!
So what can we do?
In a free, or towards freedom society, state, or Western world, how to we begin to tackle this?

Firstly the suffering and war in the world IS a terrible trauma, it IS happening to our brothers and sisters, and we can be grateful that someone in the world at least is waking to it, facing it, feeling it and wants good for the world, rather than concentrating on the latest nail bar.

Secondly, and finally, we can work on ourselves.  Too many of us don't know what true freedom might be or how to work towards it, or why it's important, (even though we might be living something of it in our souls or society).  What would happen if each of us made an effort to work with the particular people and experiences which arrive at our doorstep each day, to respect humanity in its particular form, to recognise and transform suffering, to get in touch with and develop our own inner morality, to become more fully conscious of who we are, who we can be, who we choose to be?   I think this is what we are doing!  We have in the West enough freedom, each of us, to be able to tread our own highly individual path of personal evolution.  Terrorism can be used as a call to intensify this work on ourselves...which in turn is vital for all of us.

Too many of us are unable to handle the 'freedom' of the West, are on a path to auto-destruction and the destruction of others, can we help them?   What do we need to understand, to do, to surround and embrace these suffering individuals who make us suffer?

If we can't at least try, with all our might, do this for our own 'family', for the citizens of our own state how can we expect to handle the problems underlying the Islamic State?  If we meet the hate with hate, the war with war;  then we will have a world of hate and war, it's a simple logic.

Protection, or Military State?

Giving up freedom for 'freedom' from terror;  do we want to become a military state?

I cannot help but notice that the 'political' response to the recent French terrorist attacks places emphasis on physical defence;   soldiers police and guns. I can discern very little heartfelt or thorough thought about freedom, or about the tracking and monitoring of known terrorists, which seem to me effective ways of preventing terrorism.

For example, I watched an interview with General Denis Favier, Directeur Generale de la Gendarmerie Nationale and the gist of it was 'our police were very well co-ordinated' - he obviously couldn't say very much, for security reasons.    It was like listening to someone evaluating his performance in a video game.  But one thing I read from behind the public performance,  is just how seriously the police take this, and the sneaking feeling that they can't manage alone.

Francois Hollande's ghastly mediocre mutterings in the aftermath seemed to be largely about the same subject, blank praise for the police, and as for the rest, it was as if he were reading out the minutes of a boring meeting.  As far as I'm
concerned, hearts and minds were not touched by our state representatives.  They are touched by people making strong, individual moral stands, posted on social media sites.  Unless of course these statements manufactured by politicians with atavars, or murky manipulative characters).


In France we will soon be quite used to Muslim and Jewish schools behind metal fences guarded by armed soldiers or police.  The La Defense shopping mall near where JC works is today patrolled by armed soldiers. School-guns, shopping-soldiers, normal associations?  It will become a way of life, and we will feel
grateful for the visible 'protection'.  Perhaps we will not realise we are marching happily and willingly into a police state, it's appearance and mechanism at least, supposedly there to guard and represent our life and freedom, without a thought for who is, or might one day be behind a move to 'militarise', or take advantage of the structure being in place.   In the meantime, with all this army drama, are we as individuals, going to neglect to think about freedom, and talk about it and strengthen it in our hearts and strengthen our loving and compassionate relationships and do the things which really generate peace?

Surveillance of the Kouachi brothers behind the Charlie Hebdo massacre had been called off only six months before the attack because they were deemed low risk, French media reported on Saturday. WHAT WHAT WHAT???  Please read this again!

I can understand that the people charged with national defence against terrorism, from the top secret 'experts' down to the every day policers of our state,  cannot direct their attention to everyone, but please, known terrorists?

What happens with known terrorists, or any other significant criminal suspect, is that the police go cap in hand to the Powers to ask for information.  The Powers nowadays are those with Information such as Google, or telephone companies.  The deal is, these Powers sell us something which we can't live without in normal society (phones, social media networking) and we supply them freely with all the information they need to get complete pictures about each of us and all of us, for them to sell it and become very rich and powerful;  and in turn take over other companies and become an unelected and unchecked world superpower.  The people who make the most important decisions about our national security are in large part information company executives, and their staff, perhaps even a terrorist who is on the staff who knows? 

But anyway, for the moment, these companies are willing or obliged to give information to the 'defenders of the nation' on demand.  However, technically, the police cannot ask these Powers to release information on just anyone because after all, we do believe very strongly in freedom of expression and movement, confidentiality, private life...um, do we?  We're giving it away hand over fist, without a thought about what we are giving away, and who we might be giving it to!

It doesn't make any sense to me to not use this power of information to track terrorists, and to pay instead for armed guards for...everyone?    And it doesn't make any sense to me to parade people with guns in front of our schools.  There were two policemen with guns outside Charlie Hebdo and they got shot.  The police I've seen on the news outside a Jewish school (24 hour guard for the foreseeable future) have no head protection, they can be killed just like the rest of us.

Here's an example of what I'm trying to get at;  if we took protecting ourselves and our freedom seriously,  we would be tracking not only extremist hate-think indoctrinators, but getting to know the people vulnerable to their attacks, and doing all we could to protect them from indoctrination, and finding out whether they have been recruited, and tracking them if so.   And when such a vulnerable person is in prison, (Cherif Karouchi, Amedy Coulibaly) would we allow him access to a free residential radicalisation training course with Djamel Beghal or Farid Benyettou?  Well would we?  Can we not control radical terrorists in prison, in France?  And then not track the newly radicalised when they are released?   If our national security people think radicalisation wears off in time they need to think again.   Are we directing our attention in the right place?

(Perhaps one of Google's machines is tracking key words in this piece and if it's part of a general trend, will flog it off to someone who wants to know...)

Killer thoughts

Amedy Coulibaly's mother has condemned her dead son's horrific actions and called for them to be dissociated from the name of Islam.  He was radicalised whilst in prison for armed robbery, by Djamel Beghal.

Djamel Beghal, hate-thinker, but not the top hate-thinker...

Amedy was described by a psychiatrist as an 'immature and sociopathic' character with 'poor powers of introspection'.


Amedy was a poor thinker, with a poor ability to get in touch with his own interior humanity, and was easy prey for hate-thinkers.  These are the 'outside' thoughts which armed him and primed him for suicidal terrorist action;

One 'Us' (good) and One 'You' (bad);   no individualisation, no individual thinking on the part of the killer
We are one (that is, members of The Islamic State under "The Caliphate"/ Islamic Governor, with no distinction between any individual Muslim;  obvious inconsistency, his friends killed a Muslim and he could well have done)
You are one (no distinction between any individual French or world citizen, or between French citizen and the French State, the French state and any other state, country of the world etc)
You attacked us for following Islamic Moral Law (Sharia) (v. questionable interpretation)
You don't own the world
We fight back
Don't play the victim, you asked for this and you deserve it.
What I do (individual suicide terrorist killer) is just and legitimate under  the law of Sharia (and not from personal introspection.  It is innacurate to say the law legitimises, someone thinks it all out for him, his individual action in his individual circumstances, using a human interpretation of Sharia;  others decide what is  legitimate for Amedy to do as an individual, and this human intervention is mistakenly called The Law)
(Thoughts distilled from video posted by Amedy Coulibaly)           

Summary:  Amedy had very little capacity for individual thought and therefore very little true freedom, and gave up any freedom he might have had, and his life, to hate-thinkers.  Hate thinking in the form of Amedy, murdered:

Clarissa JEAN-PHILIPPE Yoav HATTAB, Philippe BRAHAM, Yohan COHEN, François-Michel SAADA and Amedy COULIBALY himself.


We feel terrible emotion about terrorism.    But when we are tempted into hate-thinking, let's think again. 




(Thoughts distilled from video posted by Amedy Coulibaly)             

Penser Liberté

En France, nous pensons beaucoup récemment à la liberté, grâce à Dieu.

Jusqu’à maintenant nous n'avons pas trop pensé à notre liberté, et nous ne l'avons pas assez défendue.

Comment défendre la liberté?
Comment avons-nous manqué notre devoir envers les dessinateurs de Charlie Hebdo, et les autres qui ont été tués?  Avons-nous échoué à les pourvoir avec une défense militaire suffisante?  Les frères Kouachi étaient pourvus eux de deux kalachnikov et les compétences requises pour s'en servir, et pouvaient en tant que libres citoyens français conduire jusqu’à Paris centre un beau matin, tirer sur les deux policiers en garde à la porte de Charlie Hebdo, forcer la personne à l'accueil à ouvrir la porte (sous peine de tuer son tout-petit qu'elle venait de prendre de la crèche) et tuer quiconque leur faisait offense.

Combien de soldats armés, d'hélicoptaires, d’espions, de politiciens, commandants militaires faut-il pour protéger chaque personne considérée « offensante » par l'un ou l'autre terroriste?

Un cancer une fois développé nécessite un traitement 'violent', d’être excisé par la chirurgie ou attaqué par les tueurs connus des radiations ou de la thérapie chimique, ainsi un terroriste armé en liberté doit être arrêté par la violence.  Mais la protection véritable de la liberté n'est gagnée ni par la violence, ni par la non-violence physique du cyberterrorisme (comme le collectif « Anonymous » par exemple). Il faut décourager le développement du terrorisme, empêcher qu'il prenne prise;  la liberté est protégée par le penser - le penser individuel, et le penser collectif du plus grand nombre.

Nous représentons ce fait symboliquement par la réponse « Je Suis Charlie' ». Nous « comprenons » immédiatement;   « toi, terroriste, tu peux assassiner un penseur libre, mais qu'est-ce que tu va faire quand tu te rendra compte qu'à partir de ton acte, les penseurs libres se multiplient, que nous sommes tous des penseurs libres, que nous sommes légions, et solidaires ?»  Certains ont écrit ce symbole sur leur front, endroit archétypal du penser.  Mais est-ce que nous avons vraiment pensé la liberté? 

Les vraies armes des actes de terrorisme suicidaires, sont des pensées de haine.
 Un certain type de pensées, dirigées au bon moment vers des personnes faibles sont susceptibles de donner naissance aux monstres que sont devenus les frères Kouachi.   Farid Benyettou a armé Chérif Kouachi et l'a rendu prêt à l'action ainsi:  "Farid m'a dit que les Écritures donne la preuve véritable du bien des attentats suicides.  Il est écrit qu'il est bien de mourir en martyre".

Les chaînes d'influence,  ou commencent-elles?

Abu Qatada, qui a influencé...

....Djamal Beghal, qui a influencé...

...Farid Benyettou....

Qui a armé Cherif Kouachi avec la pensée de haine...

Ces penseurs-haines sont souvent nés, élevés ou habitent dans des pays qui s'efforcent de construire une société libre, comme La France, La Grande Bretagne, Les États Unis.  Ils sont souvent dégoûtés par la souffrance de leurs frères du fait des guerres, de la pauvreté et la misère, et le contraste avec la décadence de l'ouest.

Anwar Al-Aulaqi,Americain d'origine Yemeni,  depuis l'age de 7 ans il passe son enfance au Yemen et rentre en Amerique pour ses etudes universitaires.   Son père etait un érudit et une personalité publique respectée

L'indexe qui pointe nous indique « Je sais La Loi d'en Haut».  La Loi des temps anciens, quand l’humanité était un tout-petit enfant qui avait besoin de directives strictes et protection, mais qui ne s'applique plus à notre temps, où nous nous efforçons et luttons pour créer une société libre, pour gagner chacun notre indépendance.  Mais, nous gardons des lois sacrées quand  même,  individualisées, vraiment ressenties, au fur et à mesure que nous évoluons, essayons de devenir qui nous sommes véritablement.  Personnellement, j’évite de dénigrer ou de profaner quelque chose qui est sacré pour l'autre, parce que je tiens l'autre sacré en tant qu’être humain (ou au moins potentiellement, au coeur).    Cependant je dirais « Je suis Charlie » parce que la liberté d'expression est vitale pour l’évolution de notre société, où chaque individu a besoin de coévoluer sur son propre chemin pour faire évoluer le 'tout' qui est notre société, notre pays, notre monde.  D’être offensé par quelqu'un n'est pas une raison de tuer, bien que nos passions puissent être enflammées.

Comment traiter les gens qui sont en quelque sorte « dépassés », qui essaient d'imposer leur loi comme La Loi?

Abu Hamza al-Masri, ex-Imam de la Mosquée « North London Central » est arrivé en Angleterre de l’Égypte et a dit;  "l'Angleterre est un paradis où tu peux faire tout ce que tu veux".  Il n’était pas habitué à une telle liberté, il ne savait pas comment s'en servir.  Il a passé son temps au paradis en apprenant comment le détruire par le terrorisme; il est rejeté de sa Mosquée et du paradis, pour terminer ses jours dans une prison Américaine.  Qu'est-ce que cette liberté dont nous sommes si fiers?

Le mot « liberté » se lève encore et toujours depuis l'assassinat de Charlie Hebdo.  Qu'est-ce que la liberté?  Pourquoi est-elle aussi importante pour nous?  Nous sommes presque là avec la pensée/sentiment "Je suis Charlie" que nous tirons de cette attaque.  La terrorisme chez nous peut nous apprendre que nous ne pouvons plus laisser les philosophes, les érudits, les défenseurs des Droit de l’Homme, les politiciens à penser pour nous; pour défendre la liberté nous devons tous penser liberté.

THINK FREEDOM

We've been thinking a lot about Freedom recently in France.  Thank God.

Up until now, we  haven't been thinking about our freedom much, and we haven't been defending it properly.

In what way did we let down the cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo, and all the others who were killed?  Did we fail to supply enough police and military defence?  The Kouachi brothers supplied with kalachnikovs and the skill to use them were able, as free French citizens, to drive into Paris one morning, shoot the two policemen at the door of Charlie Hebdo, force the person at reception to open the door (on pain of killing her toddler whom she had just collected from daycare) and shoot anyone who offended them.

How many armed soldiers, helicopters, spies, politicians, military commanders are needed to protect each person considered offensive by some extremist or other?

Just as cancer needs a 'violent' response once developed, cut out surgically, or attacked by known chemical and radiation killers, so a terrorist at large has to be stopped by violence.  But the real protection of freedom, one which prevents terrorism from developing and gaining hold, is gained not by violence, not even by physically non-violent cyberterrorism (think Anonymous), freedom is protected by thought - the individual and collective thinking of the many. 

We are representing that in the immediate 'Je suis Charlie' response - we 'understand' straight away that you can murder one free-thinker,  but what are you going to do when faced with all of us free thinkers, multiplied and multiplied?  We've written a sign of it on our foreheads, the archetypal place of thought, but have we understood freedom?


In a way, the right kind of hate-thinking directed at the right moment allowed the birth of the monster that the Kouachi brothers became.  It's happening again and again - hate-thinkers finger pointing suicide killers into action.     Farid Benyettou took the person who was Cherif Kouachi-so-far, armed him and made him ready for action with the following thought, here in Cherif's words;   "Farid told me that the scriptures offered proof of the goodness of suicide attacks. It is written in the scriptures that it's good to die a martyr".

Chains of influence...where does it start?

Abu Qatada, who influenced

....Djamal Beghal, who influenced...

...Farid Benyettou....

Who influenced Cherif Kouachi with hate thought...

 These hate-thinkers are often born or bred or live in countries which strive to be free, such as France, or England, or America.

Anwar Al-Aulaqi,American of Yemen origin, he lived his childhood in Yemen and returned to America to study, his father was a prominent academic and public figure.

 The finger-pointing indicates 'I know The Law from on High', The Law from ancient times, when humanity was a toddler and needed strict guidance and protection, but which no longer applies to our times, when we struggle and strive to create a free society, to gain individual independence.   We still have sacred laws though, individualised and truly felt, as we evolve, as we try to become who we really are.    Personally, I would avoid  denigrating, defiling what other people hold sacred, this is because I hold other people as sacred (or at least potentially so, and at heart).  However, I would say 'je suis charlie' because freedom of expression is vital for our evolving society, and being offended by someone is not a reason to kill even though it can incite our passions.

How do we treat those in our society who are 'out of date', who try to impose their law as The Law?

Abu Hamza al-Masri, ex-Imam of the North London Central Mosque arrived in England from Egypt and commented that England was  "a paradise, where you could do anything you wanted."  - he was someone not used to freedom and quite unable to understand it or live by it, who used his time in paradise to learn how to destroy it by terrorism,  and who was thrown out of his Mosque and paradise and into an American prison for life.  What is this freedom paradise that we are so proud of?

The word that came up over and over again in the crowds gathered after the Charlie Hebdo attack was 'Liberté' - freedom.  What is freedom?  Why is it so important to us? We're almost there with the feeling-thought which is dug out by this attack;  Je suis Charlie.    Terrorism teaches us that we can't leave it to philosophers, intellectuals, human rights campaigners and politicians to do the thinking, we must all think freedom.

Ahmed Merabet

 

'Ahmed Merabet died protecting the innocent from hate. I salute him.' a tribute from someone who loved him

Ahmed Merabet was a muslim policeman shot dead yesterday during the attack on Charlie Hebdo

"The longing in the depth of the heart for absolute good, and the power, though only latent, of directing attention and love to a reality beyond the world and of receiving good from it - constitutes a link which attaches every human individual, without exception, to that other reality...because of this, we hold every human being, without exception, as something sacred to whom we are bound to show respect..."  Simone Weil

#JeSuisAhmed

I noticed this message outside the Jewish supermarket, as part of a shrine for the dead, accompanied by flowers;

Je suis Juif
De la part d'un Muselman

(I am Jewish, from a Muslim)

Je Suis Charlie

We can be proud of what we strive for.

la liberté d’expression totale, illimitée, pour toute opinion quelle qu’elle soit, sans aucun
restriction ni réserve, est un besoin absolu pour l’intelligence.   Simone Weil


Complete unlimited freedom of expression for every sort of opinion without the least restriction or reserve is an absolute need for intelligence


(Simone Weil, God's gift to France!)

COMMENTS coming in from my friends of conscience
Yes, terrorism is a terrible thing. I sympathize with the inhabitants of Paris and the people of France.
Juliy, Ukraine 

Applauded
John, UK

Thinking of you
Dawn, Australia

WHO AM I?  je suis Charlie, je suis le journaliste tué qui a dénoncé la bêtise, la connerie, la saloperie
et
je suis aussi le terroriste  
(I am Charlie, I am the journalist who was killed, who denounced the stupidity, bullshit and crap...and I am also the terrorist...
Eric, France

We too are at Charlie's side, I was very impressed by the dignity and calm of the thousands of people who gathered to give hommage to the victims of a barbaric act which is incomprehensible to me...

Nous sommes également des Charlie, et j’ai -  pour ma part - été très impressionné par la dignité et le calme de ces milliers de personnes venues rendre hommage à des hommes victimes d’une barbarie incompréhensible pour moi. M. France

Thank you for the quote - it brought a deeper perspective to the thoughts we had after the horrors
Hester, Sweden 


We've been following all the madness in Paris.  I hope you are all fine.  Our thoughts are with all the families that have lost loved ones.
R, England

I've been wondering how you are all dealing with the events in your adopted country at the moment.  I know you wouldn't have been immediately effected - but I am sure that the events have resonances through your lives ... 
Jenny, Australia

We all agree - Nous sommes tous d'accord
Christine, France

Please note Mustapha and Ahmed died too.  Mustapha was an orphan from Algeria whose friends paid for him to start a new life in France and who became an editor.    Ahmed was a muslim, a family man, who died pleading for his life,  

 'Ahmed Merabet died protecting the innocent from hate. I salute him.' (a tribute from someone who loved him)

Computers and their games

Oh me oh my computers and their games and temptations, oh sigh - they have taken over the world of my teenagers, and therefore the world of my family, and indeed the whole world, and I've tried, I'm trying, but I can't do a thing about it, for computers have lead my teenagers away from me as surely as the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

It's beyond me this computer gaming, it truly is, it's beyond me over the hills and far away;  nothing could be further away from my interest, my inclination and my ability than these ill-drawn and ill-conceived fast-moving ugly-sounding screen representations and their endless battles.  But beyond me is exactly where my children are to be found (along with their excitement, enthousiasm, joy, determination, concentration, fun, friendship, achievements and new skills...).

All that I know is what's left behind;  irritating clickings and noises, and the absences:  of my children in my life,  their helping hands around the home, their ideas and projects, the pleasure of their company and the fun they used to have with me.

So today I decided to go after my teenagers and find them where they are, and find out just what the temptation is, and I determined to find the positive. I can't, I just CAN'T play the games, so I decided to do an interview with B instead:

What skills and aptitudes are you developing from computer games?

• Ability to take in a 'wide range' view, multi-focus, the 'all at once' that is going on all around - a kind of mental agility of hopping instantaneously from one thing to the other to get the whole picture.
• Think strategically (research the game, observe the game, guess the game, strategy to win)
• Think and act quickly and well (or 'dead', lose)
• Be fully alive and attentive to the task on hand
• anticipate situations (to get help, avoid danger)
• quick and good analysis of situation (to get help, avoid danger, win)
• Team cooperation of thinking, strategies, action (need the other to win, of other fails, all fail)
• Automated hand response rather like playing a musical instrument
• Perseverence, concentration (on the game) (by the way not on much else...mother comment)
• Working with the unknown, in a mad (bad dangerous) world, and carrying on

Why always war, always attack and destroy?

I was trying to see the positive, perhaps this kind of situation brings you alive, makes your fully concentrated and present, to stay alive.  B's reply surprised me.  "Not always war" he said, and he described a game called Portal.

Playing the Fable

Who are you, where are you, why are you here?
The game designers write a modern fable, a tale for our time.  Instead of reading it, or hearing it told, you play it.  You are dropped into the fable, you 'wake up' on a hotel bed, you don't know who you are, where you are in time or space, or why you are here. 

and where here do you think you're going...?
What motivates B is the challenge, the intrigue, the discovery, the hunger for knowledge, to know what's at the heart of it - like a mystery story or a detective story.  He also appreciates the jokes, the absurd, the comments on the dreadful aspects of our society, the just-like-life mind-twisters;   "where do you think you're going?  Because I don't think you're going where you think you're going"

In this fable, you gradually discover you are a 'test subject' - at first your only guidance and option is intoned by a robotic (female) voice which gives you instructions.  You pass from room to room, in each room is a puzzle to solve before moving to the next, the way into another room is opened by a 'portal gun' which shoots a blue oval portal onto the surface it's pointed at.  The player goes into a blue oval, comes out of an orange one into another unknown challenge.

He meets a robot who follows him on a type of monorail.  This robot seems to dodge the perfectly controlled mechanical world, he makes cock-ups and does unexpected and unexplained things, such as helping the player, and saying 'if you take me off the monorail I die', and when you take him off, he doesn't die.  With the help of this robot, who is called Wheatley, you break out of the test area, and gradually learn (if you play it right) that you were a test subject, controlled by an immense Artificial Intelligence called Glados, who has wiped out her creators with neurotoxins and taken over the lab, where she tests for the sake of testing and for no other reason, because that is her created nature.  

You find yourself enslaved in a senseless mechanical world, and you just carry on...and of course eventually you learn your fate, and escape.

The more I heard of the fable, and applied it to our life condition, our modern times, the stage in our human evolution, the more amazed I was...and the more I realised what the generations coming and to come are after.  They are training for it mechanically.   At some point, they will have to live it.

RoboRoach, Cyborgs; the real ethical issues

When I first learned about "RoboRoach" I can only describe my reaction as a 'shudder of the soul', a shudder of horror.  Am I over-sensitive, over-compassionate?  Or is the soul shudder getting at something?

Technology project or life issue?
Moms are recommending it for kids to learn about neuroscience, young people twitter about it to their friends, BBCco.uk review it as hands-on learning, TED Global is sponsoring it, mugs and t-shirts are available...the media show is full-on, is nobody is asking any questions?

Questions for RoboRoachtm Fans

• Do you think a living being is a machine which you can override?
• Do you think a living being is an inert component of your construction?
• Do you think animals are computers that you can hack into?
• Or do you think you have to right to treat living things we think of as 'vermin' as though they were the above?
• Do you have any respect for life, for the wisdom of nature?
• Do you have any compassion or sensitivity towards living beings?
• Have you thought about where this could lead, the next step? (this is the 'first' commercially available cyborg' according to the backyardbrains site)
• Do you have any 'feelings' of discomfort in operating on a live cockroach, or if you don't have these feelings, are you aware of any in the people around you, do you think these human feelings have any value, point to anything important?
• Do you think it is right to train children to have no respect for life or the wisdom of nature, to conduct invasive experiments on living beings, to treat life as though it were a machine, to maim living beings, to control them with their childish ideas?
• Do you really think this is amusing?
• Do you think this is an acceptable way to make neuroscience 'accessible' to children and youngsters?
• How exactly does the RoboRoach toy/educational 'tool' available so that 'everyone can be a neuroscientist' (backyardbrains.com) contribute to research into neurological disease?

Teaching children about life on earth...or teaching them to disregard it?
Most of us teach our children to have respect for animal life and find their children have a natural affinity and love for animals and nature.   One of the early signs of sociopathy/psychopathy is a child who tortures or kills animals and shows no 'feeling' for another's life...  
When I was 16 and studying for A level biology, we had to dissect a cockroach.  When I got my cockroach I 'felt' it was alive.  I told the teacher, but she assured me it was thoroughly dead, from a poison in the form of a sand like powder which had entered through the 'spiracles' (little holes) on the cockroaches back.   Reluctant, I splayed my cockroach on its back, pinned down its legs, cut open its abdomen, and extracted its long white gut.  At this moment my cockroach starting jerking at its pins, ripped off its own leg, tried to run away with its guts hanging out.    I experienced another 'shudder of the soul'.  I walked out of the biology lab and never went back to dissecting.  Next term R will have to cut up a rat for biology, he will be 12 years old.   He doesn't want to do it, and feels unhappy that the rat is being killed for a casual experiment.   I don't believe it is necessary for children to cut up animals killed for that purpose, there are other better ways of learning about animals and their anatomy, plenty of virtual tools, however what it does teach them is undesirable, to harden against living creatures and treat them as experiments.

Children and experimenting on  insects;  When I was a child, whenever I saw children - I think it was only boys in my childhood - being cruel to insects - pulling their legs and wings off, trapping them and burning them with magnifying glasses, I felt the very same shudder of the soul.  I did all I could to stop them, persuade them, argue with them, set the insect free. But I knew I was the only one sensitive to the issue, that these guys didn't feel it, and that when I wasn't there, nothing would stop them having another go.  Some children do and some can't, I still feel more comfortable with the people who can't.  Should we be taking the spirit of puerile insect experimentation and selling it as fun, or as an educational tool?

I shouldn't be so sensitive, it's making an issue out of nothing?
No doubt the scientists and scientific fans of the company that 'invented' the non-living part of the remote controlled cockroach would berate me for my feelings;  they're quite used to killing and cutting up animals for their biology training and experimenting on live ones too, perhaps they are totally habituated and de-sensitised to such things;   and after all,  cockroaches are vermin they would say, they get killed all the time, they are not like humans, they're just insects, I should stop being over-sensitive, it's debateable whether cockroaches even feel pain, they get used to being overriden, there's no ethical issue at all.    But perhaps I have good reasons for being sensitive?

More Detail on the RoboRoach Project
The 'inventors' sell you the idea and a kit with all you need to make your own electrode pack, and we can all have access to a youtube video about how to make it, and about how to operate on a live cockroach.   If successful, you can get it to do what you want using your smartphone as a remote control, eg:  jump off high places, scare people, invade cockroach colonies and get them to deviate their natural behaviour, the gaming options are limitless...

The idea is you dip the cockroach in iced water which 'anaesthetises' it for a short period,  or at least stops it moving (ask no questions and I'll tell you no lies).  Then you stick it to a board and sandpaper its head to get the wax off and superglue some plastic onto it, then you pull open its wings and pierce a hole in its exoskeleton to insert a large electrode pack though the skin of its thorax, and then you cut off its antennae and replace them with components, and stick a massive (for a cockroach) plastic backpack on with hotglue.  The video gives the impression that it is teaching you how to change a plug...and you rob that cockroach of its natural state, and you impose your ideas upon it via your remote control.  When Greg Cage, 'inventor' does a demonstration of cutting off a live cockroach's leg in front of an audience a high school audience (on TEDed), the audience is visibly disgusted, and Greg comments 'yeah I know it's gross - but they can grow another one...'    He is demonstrating how an amputated leg twitches to music, a show called 'Cockroach Beatbox' (sounds like a toy/game to me).

RoboRoach;  "The world's first commercially available "Cyborg"?!?...so claim the inventor/marketers on their site.  What is a Cyborg, I hear you ask.  A 'cyborg' is a 'cybernetic organism'.  It's a science fiction creation, and the inventors of RoboRoach claim that their 'real' animal/machine is a Cyborg.  That is to say, apparently it is now an acceptable reality to take living creatures, perform invasive surgery on them in order to take away their ability and freedom to behave according to their nature and impose our will upon them...for amusement, learning or financial gain, and that this is only the beginning...

And what next?  Ideas are flowing, and new technology always obliges.  What about fish, do they feel pain?...or octopuses, or rats, they're vermin, or dogs, now that would be fun, you could get it to chase after people you hated, or what about a remote controlled sex slave, you could get her to open her legs by remote control whenever you wanted... 

Disregard for life is a dangerous thing, even if it has small beginnings.  What is going to happen if we let our most puerile, low, cruel thoughts control nature, taking life away from the wisdom of nature, which is something we have hardly even begun to comprehend?

Here is a picture of someone who stopped being over-sensitive, who readjusted her natural morality to fit with a new group (you can read about it in 'The Lucifer Effect;  why good people turn evil' by Dr Philip Zimbardo).

This all American girl with excellent orthodentistry is joking around with the body of  an Iraqi who has just been tortured to death in a horrific way by her army colleagues.  She will later help the CIA dispose of the body and make sure no questions are asked.  And here is Josef Mengele, who forgot Jews were human when he experimented on them and killed them...or the Milgram experiments where volunteer subjects 'killed' a fellow volunteer because the man in a white coat told them to...it seems to me that the idea of kidnapping a living creature and turning it into a 'robot' under your control is unhealthy, the tiny root of something which could become every bit as horrific as the above examples.   

Problems with the Inventors' responses to ethical questions
I can understand the ease with which modern science and technology and the joys of human creativity could lead us down this path, above all when our young are saturated in a virtual world of  robot video games, toys and films where the distinction between machine and life is blurred.  I recognise that the company Backyard Brains,  has responded to ethical concerns and has published its ethical statement where it  justifies itself before each claim.

• I'm not convinced by their claim that they 'sold' the idea as a game/toy but this was only to shock and raise interest, because neuroscience is so little known, and that it is 'really'  a scientific tool for the good of the animal kingdom and humanity.  Firstly, I don't think it's true, selling the word's first commercially available Cyborg which you can operate with your smartphone is going to sound like a game to most teenagers and young men, so I think it's a cover-up after the event, and secondly, pretending it was a game is a form of lying and manipulation, this doesn't recommend the company to  me as fit educators.  
• They claim that children and young people are more likely to appreciate cockroaches with the Cyborg version;  in that case it might occur to those children that they should observe these creatures in their natural setting, and that it is cruel to mutilate them and take away their freedom to follow their natural behaviour.
• They admit that a cyborg might not be the best way to teach children about animal life and they are constantly surveying the animal kingdom for easier and less invasive ways of unequivocally demonstrating neural activity. How come they are so  proud to be the first company to market a cyborg then? (ref comment to financial backers on their site) 
• They claim their experiments are done under humane conditions and the creatures do not die but live out their natural life-span happily.   Firstly, I'm not sure how they 'retire' the cockroaches now with superglued backs and no antannae, do they try to recover the equipment, or leave it on?  Secondly,  I quote the business site:  Teenagers who have bought this circuit have often done the experiments under the guidance of their parents as an educational experience.  'have often' would imply the majority have not been supervised.  Now the project has gone global, after all, 'Backyard Brains enables everyone to be a neuroscientist!'  Youtube videos are available to encourage anyone to do it at home using a smartphone.  The supervised, humane and serious side of the argument is... laughable.
• Whatever the packaging, the whole idea of a life-based 'cyborg' is deeply flawed, abhorrent thinking.

 http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/backyardbrains/the-roboroach-control-a-living-insect-from-your-sm
and their ethical statement here:
http://wiki.backyardbrains.com/Ethical_Issues_Regarding_Using_Invertebrates_in_Education


RoboRoach and the mentality which surrounds it, is puerile cruel and potentially dangerous, yet the idea is fully backed by adults, aimed at children and youngsters and taken to the heart of their education.  It has has horrific implications:  it's right before our eyes and we don't seem to see it...