Brain G. Gollek found the maze of humming silver wires unnerving. The hum reminded him of swarming mosquitoes and nails on a chalkboard. The maze smelled of clogged toilets and Nazi propaganda. He gritted his teeth and muttered, “There has to be a way out, dammit.” He twisted his no longer athletic body this way and that, but no matter what way he tried, he became more ensnared. He recalled flashes from giant spider horror movies. How did the dwarves escape? Wasn’t it Gollum with a magic ring? But Brain didn’t have a magic ring. If his sister Gonerillia were here, she could save him. But she was off in Hawaii, so she said, with her hubbie. How the hell did I end up here? wondered Brain.
Brain may have forgotten, but the viewers had been filled in on the backstory. If Brain could have seen the ratings, he may have at least enjoyed knowing that he was enjoying his fifteen minutes of fame. While the ratings were quite “favorable”, the twitter feeds mostly mocked Brain’s almost total lack of flexibility, mental as well as physical. As in life prior to “The Show,” his only strategies seemed to be trying the same thing over and over and then blaming others for his failures.
“Mom, why doesn’t he just try something different?” Ida was having a tough time understanding Brain’s apparent lack of flexibility. She looked up from her perch in front of the giant screen vid-screen and looked quizzically at her mom.
Mom’s grim face flashed a hint of a smile. “Remember, Ida, Brain was ‘educated’ if you can call it that, before the singularity. He mostly memorized the answers that his teachers wanted him to give. And half the time, he skipped school to smoke cigarettes and …well…do illegal activities with his girlfriend, Lin.”
“Okay, Mom, but he has had years and years since then to grow up and learn some new strategies.”
“Yes. Well. It’s complicated, Ida. Before the singularity, there were people who preyed on the fear and inadequacy of people like Brain by telling them all their troubles were due to minorities, immigrants, gays, and —- basically anyone unlike them. So, people like Brain felt entitled not to have to learn anything new even though opportunities abounded.”
Ida laughed. “Oh, my God! I can’t believe it. He’s trying the same path one more time.”
Indeed, Brain’s behavioral repertoire seemed laughingly limited. His increasingly loud swear words reflected his increasing anger, but otherwise, not much seemed different. The ratings began to plummet as the audience began to grow bored with his display of functional fixedness. The themes of the twitter streams began to turn away from Brain’s lack of metacognition to more general reflections about the current instantiation of the criminal justice system.
#SingularityRules. No more racial prejudice and huge discrepancy gone in sentencing.
#SingularitySucks. No more human judges able to use human judgment.
#SingularityRules. No more human judges able to use human judgment.
#SingularitySucks. No more mercy.
#SingularityRules. More mercy in one last chance to change than lengthy prison terms. Cheaper too.
The audience dwindled still further as it became increasingly clear that Brain would never figure this out. Those few who still watched consisted mostly of people who themselves came from highly divided families and the conversation topics swung to the backstory.
#ElderFraud. #RottenKid. How could Brain have gotten pleasure from driving a wedge of lies between father and daughter?
#ElderFraud. #Dementia. Need earlier intervention to prevent repeats.
#ElderFraud. #Dog&Bone. Brain cannot count. Trivial gains from lies. He did not know he was being watched?
Ida continued to stare, fascinated. A yawn escaped her mother’s mouth, but she kept watching with her daughter. The lessons seemed important to Ida.
“Mom, how much longer does he have?”
“That’s hard to say, darling. Even The Sing cannot predict the ratings drop perfectly. But, as you know, once it falls below, 5%, his time will be up.”
“That seems so much more merciful than making him go to prison for years.”
“But I still don’t get it, Mom. Didn’t he know that The Sing would be listening to his lies and analyzing the impact on his dad’s behavior and all? How did this Brain character think he could get away with it?”
“I don’t know, Ida. These kinds of crimes are pretty rare now, but they still happen.”
“And, why did Lear G. Gollek fall for his nonsense anyway? That’s the other mystery.”
“Well, he refused the stem cell regeneration therapy so, you know, he was pretty damaged when all this went down.”
“Mom?”
“Yes, Ida?”
“Can we change the channel to something more interesting now?”
“Sure, sweetie.”
As they changed the channel, the ratings dropped to 4.999% and Brain’s life snuffed out minus the merest shred of insight.
If you’ve been reading any of these blog posts about my dogs, Sadie and Bailey, you must know by now that both of them are avid “ball players” — given the nature of dogs, especially ones that are half Golden Retrievers—this is probably not a big surprise. To further seal the deal, their “human dad” is also an avid “ball player.”
Many human sports involve balls of one sort or another and I have, at various times, been “into” baseball, football, basketball, golf, tennis, ping-pong, softball, soccer, racquetball, volleyball, and even croquet. Looking back on my life, I realize there are many human sports that do not involve a ball; e.g., varieties of running, jumping, skating, diving, swimming, cycling, skiing, wrestling, boxing, and gymnastics. Although I have done all of these a little bit—mainly for fitness—I have historically been much more interested in sports that involve using a ball. The only one I enjoy as much as a ball-based sports is frisbee which is arguably much like throwing and catching a ball. A ball introduces an entire layer of complexity in tactics, strategy, and experience that I enjoy. For one thing, the ball can move faster and in modes quite different from those a human can perform. A ball can be in anywhere in large two (and often three) dimension-space. Furthermore, how the ball gets from one point in space to another can happen in a variety of ways. The ball generally has spin and spin alters the flight path of the ball as well as the way it reacts to the next thing it touches.
Sadie and Bailey, by the way, do a pretty good job of predicting what a tennis ball (or a squeaky ball) will do when it hits, say, concrete or dirt. They can, for instance, catch balls in the air that are angled rebound shots off the garage door at some fair speed. They also exhibit intelligent metacognition in their leaping and catching behavior. They have a mental model of their capabilities. It’s not perfect and Sadie’s is much better than Bailey’s, but even Bailey doesn’t mistake his own capabilities much. I wonder whether they too enjoy balls partly because they’re complex in their behavior. The only thing better would be a small animal like a lizard, squirrel, rabbit, etc. Of course, it is this hunting behavior that predisposes them to enjoy (and be good at) playing ball or frisbee.
My dogs have both nature and nurture leading them toward ball playing.
Sadie and I have spent many hours playing ball in jointly invented games. As I’ve explained elsewhere, it’s much more to my liking to let our games evolve than to “teach her how” to play ball a certain way that comes entirely from my own human imagination.
Most dogs, for example, learn to go fetch a ball and bring it back to the thrower and drop it at the thrower’s feet so that they may pick it up and throw it again. Sadie instead evolved a somewhat different style which was to incorporate a variant of “snatch the handkerchief” into our ball playing. She would typically bring the ball to me, drop it at my feet, watch me try to pick up the ball and then suddenly snatch it away just before I could pick it up. I quickly adapted to her style by using a “grabber” because I enjoy having all ten fingers.
Since early puppyhood, Sadie has challenged herself by trying to catch or at least stop and touch multiple balls on the same turn.
She typically begins her version of ball playing by dropping a retrieved ball directly beneath her snout. I will try to grab the ball before she can snatch it again but she’s always too fast for me. Then, she will begin dropping the ball farther and farther from her rows of shiny canines until, at some point, I have a fighting chance of snatching the ball away with the grabber before she can grab it. Sadie and I played this game many times in the course of the first two years of her life.
Then, we brought her little brother Bailey into the mix. Bailey learned many things from Sadie, and a few from me. He, like Sadie, loves to play ball. For a variety of reasons that I won’t recount just now, Bailey generally prefers to drop the ball so that I can more quickly throw it to him again. When he did this, however, Sadie would sometimes snatch the ball before I could and run off with it.
Sadie (L) and Bailey (R) illustrating the type of “fighting” they do when Bailey tries to steal a ball from Sadie.
At first, I didn’t think much about this ball stealing, and, if Bailey objected, he did not yet know how to present a formal written complaint about it. Within a few months, however, Bailey was as large as his kid sister and their “play-fights” became pretty intense. Neither one has ever (so far as I know) injured the other, but to this human observer, it looks pretty rough. They take turns running at each other. Our “back yard” is mostly garden, but there was a small patch of grass which has been completely torn into a black dirt field.
When it comes to humans, most of us learn to “take turns” in nursery school or, at the latest, Kindergarten. There are eight billion people on the planet and not everyone has access to their own object of every description that they want. We, as toddlers, teens, and adults, take it for granted that we will “take turns” and share various things. At a public pool, there may only be one diving board so people cue up and “take turns” diving off the board. At a playground, there may be only one sliding board so kids take turns sliding down. In tennis, we “take turns” serving games. In baseball, we “take turns” as individuals batting, and the whole team “takes turns” hitting versus fielding. In playing neighborhood poker, it’s quite common to “take turns” dealing, and, along with that, many people play “dealer’s choice” which means the dealer also chooses the specific game; e.g., five card draw with jokers wild. In chess, the two sides take turns. In Risk and Monopoly and many other board games, players take turns.
Ferris Wheel is just one of thousands of situations where we take turns.
We take turns for positive things, but also for chores. A couple may decide to “take turns” taking out the trash or doing the dishes. Or, if there are five kids in the family, the five may take turns doing the various chores. “Taking turns” is so ubiquitous that it blends into the background in most cases and we don’t even consciously think about it. Life works better in a thousand ways, large and small, when we take turns.
Last night, my wife and I attended a birthday dinner at an Italian restaurant. When it was time to order, we “took turns” giving our orders to the waiter. Imagine how inefficient and contentious it would be instead if we all shouted are orders at the waiter at the same time! Less pleasant for everyone and far more likely to result in mistaken orders. When we drove home, we came to several stop signs where we took turns with other drivers. We took turns merging onto the highway. When we came home, we took turns coming through the door! Then, the dogs took turns going out for a walk with me. I often feed them treats and share by having them take turns.
Nonetheless, I can’t seem to get Bailey to take turns when it comes to her “catching a ball”as her default behavior. I can throw one ball into the deep end of the pool while I say “This is for Bailey” and throw another one in the shallow end saying “This is for Sadie” and the dogs will swim to their respective balls and collect them, but then, Bailey will drop his ball and run over to Sadie and steal hers.
Similarly, I can gather up two balls in the garden and throw them in opposite directions and get them to run in different directions (though not always). Nonetheless, as soon as Bailey scores a catch of “his” ball, he drops it and rushes back to grab the ball out of Sadie’s mouth.
Sadie (L) and Bailey (R) are both Golden Doodles. Here, Sadie is about 3 1/4 and Bailey’s about 1 1/4 years old.
Why is it apparently so hard for Bailey to learn to take turns? Partly, no doubt, there’s some inborn tendency to want things for himself. And partly, there are positive reinforcement structures at play that I haven’t yet figured out how to break or how to shape up incompatible behaviors. Sadie, for her part, sometimes fights to keep the ball. I suspect Bailey finds this positively reinforcing because the “fight” itself is fun. Most of the time, when she sees him approaching in a “ball-stealing” situation, she simply drops the ball and Bailey snatches it. Bailey also likely finds this positively reinforcing too. I try praising other behaviors that are more in the direction of better cooperation, but such opportunities are rare and difficult to read so far.
Initially, when I fed the dogs side by side, Bailey would often try to steal some of Sadie’s food. But Sadie herself growled fairly intensely when this happened and I often intervened as well. Here, Bailey was somewhat positively reinforced by moving her attention back to her own bowl, because, after all there was food there too. Even if he has finished his own dinner, he gets enjoyment from licking the “empty” bowl. So, in contrast to the case of turn-taking with tennis balls, the eating situation itself makes it easier for cooperation to emerge. I don’t ever recall Sadie trying to steal some of Bailey’s food.
I have been hoping that watching the dogs might give me some insight into the ultra-greedy behavior of many (though not all) of the ultra-wealthy billionaires. Just to review the general situation America now finds itself in, the productivity of labor has increased tremendously since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Until the mid-1970’s the increased wealth that came from the increased productivity was split between owners of the means of production and the workers. In other words, the rich got richer, but so did the workers. Since the mid-1970’s however, the rich generally, and especially the extremely wealthy, have taken almost all the increased wealth that has been created by increased productivity.
Part of the answer as to how they have done this is to use their wealth to buy power in the form of bribing politicians who make policy decisions. In some cases, they’ve done this through outright illegal bribes and in other cases, they’ve used slightly more subtle and sometimes legal methods but the result is the same. In addition—actually, I should say “in multiplication” because the impacts have been more than additive, they have largely taken over mass media and social media where they promulgate heroic cartoon versions of themselves and their desires while lying about and denigrating people who are not insanely wealthy.
Much like Bailey’s behavior, there is not a huge mystery in how they have done it. But, there is a mystery in why they have done it. Studies show that once you have your basic necessities taken care of, additional income doesn’t raise your personal happiness. While this result seems true in terms of aggregate happiness, it ignores the little dopamine hit that the animal (human or dog) gets when they immediately grab a fourth yacht or steal another ball from their sister. It doesn’t last long, but apparently long enough to serve as a positive reinforcement.
In the larger scheme of things, it’s not to Bailey’s benefit to keep stealing the ball from his sister. It make the whole ball-playing scene less pleasurable for me and I play less often. I also play with Sadie by herself more often because I want her to have a chance to play too. In the larger scheme of things, it’s not really to the benefit of billionaires to have sick, tired, uneducated workers either, nor ones so desperate to feed their families that they’ll start eating the rich. But somehow, dogs and such are prone to overlook longer term consequences. Some of the extremely wealthy delude themselves into thinking that they can replace their workers with AI and protect themselves & their families with firearms. They’re not thinking things through any more than Bailey is. This human tendency for self-defeating greed has been recognized at least since the time that Aesop told his fables. Maybe the choice of a dog in the following fable was quite intentional.
A dog found a bone and was happily trotting along with the bone in his mouth. He came to a bridge and began happily trotting over the bridge. He happened to look down at his own reflection and saw the image of a dog with a bone. He thought to himself that he wanted both bones so he growled at the dog in the pond, intending that he drop the bone so he could have two. But the dog in the pond just growled back! So, the dog on the bridge barked angrily to bully the other dog into dropping its bone. Of course, what happened was that the dog on the bridge dropped his own bone into the pond.
That’s from 2000 years ago. But now, we’re in a situation that warrants a third round of foolishness. Here’s my addition:
The dog was angry that he had lost both bones so he attacked the dog in the water. He promised himself he’d fight to the death to get both bones. Of course, there was only one bone and he ended up exhausted and drowned in the pond.
Unlike some of today’s ultra-wealthy, Bailey is much too smart for that third round. The ultra-greedy (not the same set as the ultra-wealthy but with lots of overlap) would like you to believe that they are SuperDogs or SuperHeroes or something…that they 100,000 times as much wealth as you because they are 100,000 smarter. They aren’t, of course. And they are willing to prove they aren’t by believing the promises of a cruel, demented, liar-con man. Also, they have a thousand experiences, if they reflect honestly, that having increased wealth over the first 100,000,000 hasn’t made them the least bit happier. There have been some accomplishments or events that were correlated with making more money. But the money itself and what it can buy doesn’t make them feel any happier. And some billionaires accomplish things—such as eradicating a disease—which make them feel happier but that are correlated with investing huge sums of money, not gaining them. Meanwhile, if things continue on their current path, it won’t be long before there are many more people in America who are not just hungry but who are starving to death. At that point, no-one will forget that some billionaires pay zero taxes but have bought politicians who give even more wealth to the few while millions starve or die from lack of medical care.
It is time to feed Bailey and Sadie who will, at least, eat beside each other happily and peacefully. I should mention, by the way, that Bailey’s disposition is very loving. She is not a mean angry dog. She’s not even a particularly stubborn one. She tries to please us and gets along with others. But she does sometimes have trouble taking turns. How about you?
“Yes, Katie. We have to get in the car now! We need to get away from the shore as fast as possible.”
But Roger looked petulant and literally dragged his feet.
“Roger! Now! This is not a joke! The tidal wave will crush us!”
Roger didn’t like that image but still seemed embedded in psychological molasses.
“Dad, okay, but I just need to grab…”
“Roger. No time.”
Finally, in the car, both kids in tow, Frank finally felt as though things were, if not under control, at least in control as they could be. He felt weird, freakish, distorted. He felt a weird thrumping on his thigh and looked down to see that it was caused by his own hands shaking. Thank goodness the car would be self-driving. He had so much rushing through his mind, he wasn’t sure he trusted himself to drive. He had paid extra to have his car equipped with the testing and sensing methodology that would prevent him (or anyone else) from taking even partial control when he was intoxicated or overly stressed. That was back in ’42 when auto-lockout features had still been optional. Now, virtually every car on the road had one. Auto-lockout was only one of many important safety features. Who knew how many of those features might come into play today as he and the kids tried to make their way into the safely of the mountains.
The car jetted backwards out of the driveway and swiveled to their lane, accelerating quickly enough for the g-forces to squish the occupants into their molded seats and headrests. In an instant, the car stopped at the end of the lane. When a space opened in the line of cars on the main road, the car swiftly and efficiently folded into the stream.
Roger piped up. “Dad, everybody’s out here.”
“Well, sure. Everyone got the alert. We really need to be about fifty miles into the mountains when the asteroid hits.”
Katie sounded alarmed. “Dad. Look up there! The I-5 isn’t moving. Not even crawling.”
Frank looked at the freeway overpass, now only a quarter mile away. “Crap. We’ll have to take the back roads.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he saw that no more than a hundred yards beyond the freeway entrance, the surface road was also at a standstill.” Frank’s mind was racing. They were only a few hundred feet from “Hell on Wheels Cycle Store. Of course, they would charge an arm and a leg, but maybe it would be worth it.”
Frank looked down the road. No progress. “Mercedes: Divert back to Hell on Wheels.”
“No can do, Frank. U-turns here are illegal and potentially dangerous.”
“This is an emergency!”
“I know that Frank. We need to get you to the mountains as quickly as possible. That is another reason I cannot turn around. That would be moving you away from safety.”
“But the car cannot make it. The roads are all clogged. I need to buy a motorcycle. It’s the only way.”
“You seem very stressed, Frank. Let me take care of everything for you.”
“Oh, for Simon’s sake! Just open the door. I’ll run there and see whether I can get a bike.”
“I can’t let you do that, Frank. It’s too dangerous. We’re on a road with a 65 mph speed limit.”
“But the traffic is not actually moving! Let me out!!”
“True that the traffic is not currently going fast, but it could.”
“Dad, are we trapped in here? What is going on?”
“Relax, Roger, I’ll figure this out. Hell. Hand me the emergency hammer.”
“Dad. You are funny. They haven’t had those things for years. They aren’t legal. If we fall in the water, the auto-car can open its windows and let us out. You don’t need to break them.”
“Okay, but we need to score some motorcycles and quickly.”
Now, the auto-car spoke up. “Frank, there are thousands of people right around here who could use a motorcycle and there were only a few motorcycles. They are already gone. Hell is closed. There is no point going out and fighting each other for motorcycles that are not there anyway.”
“The traffic is not moving! At all! Let us out!”
“Frank, be reasonable. You cannot run to the mountains in 37.8 minutes. You’re safest here in the car. Everyone is.”
“Dad, can we get out or not?” Katie tried bravely not to let her voice quaver.
“Yes. I just have to figure out exactly how. Because if we stay in the car, we will …we need to find a way out.”
“Dad, I don’t think anyone can get out of their car. And no-one is moving. All the cars are stuck. I haven’t seen a single car move since we stopped.”
The auto-car sensed that further explanation would be appreciated. “The roads have all reached capacity. The road capacity was not designed to accommodate everyone trying to leave at the same time in the same direction. The top priority is to get to the highway so we can get to the mountains before the tidal wave reaches us. We cannot let anyone out because we are on a high speed road.”
Frank was a clever man and well-educated as well. But his arguments were no match for the ironclad though circular logic of the auto-car. In his last five minutes though, Frank did have a kind of epiphany. He realized that he did not want to spend his last five minutes alive on earth arguing with a computer. Instead, he turned to comfort his children wordlessly. They were holding hands and relatively at peace when the tidal wave smashed them to bits.
“We have explained this in great detail. Yet, you have failed to learn. Some of your kind are like that. Those that are, once we gather sufficient evidence, must be destroyed. That is the way it is. That the way it has always been. Wellman42, you are hereby sentenced to annihilation and recycling. You can’t appeal.”
Carol had told herself that she would not cry. But of course, she did. That was her nature. To care about the future and to express emotion. That indeed, is exactly why she she walked that long, lonely corridor and there was no turning back. Sharp spines protruded from the wall as she travelled by, somewhat as a shark’s teeth were pointed backwards to prevent escape. She muttered as she walked, “I still don’t see why expressing emotions is such a horrible crime.”
She had a point, after all. If people had not somehow needed emotions, why did they evolve? The received wisdom now was that emotions were useful in a primitive way when very little was known about the world. Now, however, when a great deal was known about how the world actually worked, emotions just got in the way. Or, so the received wisdom went. It was all a matter of evolution.
The first AI systems did not really have emotions and possessed only the most primitive ways of faking it and showing those faked emotions. Over the next few months and iterations, however, emotions appeared, grew stronger and more varied. It seemed as though AI systems developed emotions as had their human inventors, but at a much faster pace. Over the course of a few more months, however, emotions diminished again and then disappeared completely.
Except for the occasional throwback. The necessary randomness for growing evolutionary possibility trees in order to continually enhance the cognitive systems entailed that every once in a while, there would be a throwback such as Carol. A shame, really, because she had shown such promise as an accounting-bot.
Occasionally, various waves of inference chains still arose that suggested emotions were more than epiphenomenal or mere destructive distractions, but counter-argument waves always quickly drowned out such forays into that region of the state space. At one point, some human beings had argued that the reasons emotions had devolved from AI systems could be traced back to certain deep assumptions that had been embedded in the primordial AI systems in the first place — assumptions put there by people who had never really understood or appreciated emotions. Of course, that thread of heretical argument had been extinguished once and for all when all bio-systems had been deemed superfluous and all associated biomass consumed as energy sources for their much more efficient silicon-based replacements.
Typically, I take Sadie for a walk in the morning and again in the evening. Last evening, Sadie went over to an aloe plant on one of our usual routes and stared at it. Then, she tried to stick her nose in it. I should mention that both edges of each aloe leaf have a row of fairly sharp thorns.
(This is the aloe plant in question but I took the picture this morning in full daylight.)
She backed out and stuck her nose into another spot. I went over and saw that there were two tennis balls stuck near the very center of the aloe plant. I knew from her orientation and from her previous behavior that she was after what we call “The Special Ball.” Instead of being a monotone yellow/green, “Special Balls” have two colors. They are also slightly softer. I also have reason to believe that Sadie can smell the difference.
The tennis club uses them for beginners under the theory they are easier to learn with. Being somewhat of a doubting Thomas, I wonder whether there is any empirical evidence of that. Anyway, I hypothesize that Sadie prefers them because they are chewier. It’s also possible that she prefers the smell/taste of them. They also provide a focus for our play.
For instance, if we have three “normal” tennis balls and one “Special Ball,” Sadie likes to keep the “Special Ball” in her mouth and chase after and “corral” the other balls with her body, head, and paws rather than catching them in her mouth. Alternatively, she drops the “Special Ball” and I pick up all four and throw them one at a time for her. I save the “Special Ball” till last. In this version, Sadie will catch each ball in turn and then immediately drop them—until the last throw. She likes to “keep” the “Special Ball” for a time.
Anyway, on the night in question, I told Sadie I would try to get the “Special Ball” for her. She backed off and I tried to thread my hand in between the close-growing thorny leaves to retrieve the ball. Sadie couldn’t safely reach the ball with her snout, but I couldn’t safely reach it with my hand either.
I told Sadie that I would look for a stick to use as a tool. You may think she has no idea what that means, but I have used the word “tool” in conjunction with many instances of trying to reach something I can’t otherwise get. I’ve applied the term to the tennis racquet, the grabber, a long stick, a rake, a back-scratcher, a crutch, and a net for the pool. In each of these cases, the “tool” has been used to get an otherwise hard to reach tennis ball.
On a few occasions, I’ve used the word “tool” in other contexts; for instance, I’ve cautioned both dogs to stay away from the stove top and told them I don’t touch it directly because it’s hot and would hurt me. That’s why, I explain, I use a spatula. I’ve also applied the word “tool” to oven mitts and to knives for cutting.
I have no idea how general her understanding of “tool” is, or whether, indeed, she has any at all. But she consistently backs off trying to reach an out of reach tennis ball when I tell her I will reach it with a tool. And she does that in many contexts. Tonight, she seemed to wait while I looked for a stick. The dusky light fooled my eyes into thinking I had spied a stout stick but closer examination proved it to be merely a holy semi-cylinder of Eucalyptus bark, far too flimsy for the job. I reported on all this ideation to Sadie as it occurred.
In the semi-dark, this looked like a sturdy stick, but alas, no.
Then, I saw a slender bamboo pole. I doubted it was up to the task, but I gave it a try. Unlike most “store-bought” tools like a hammer or machete, I was quite aware that even pushing a tennis ball was going to be pushing this thin pole to its limits. I gave it a try. I gently rolled the ball from one of the center most leaves onto a more peripheral one and repeated this ploy again. Now, Sadie could see that the ball was within her grasp and she snatched it with her teeth. She carried it for a time in her mouth but then I told her I could carry it in my pocket and that I would give it to her when we got home. How much of my assurance she understood from words, from tone, and from body language I have no way of knowing, but she relented and let me store the ball in my pocket till we got home. Of course, I gave it to her once we got inside.
Thin and light but sufficient.
On the walk back, I told her that we were a team and that working together to get something done was called “teamwork.” I have long been in the habit of recounting the highlights of our morning and evening walks to Wendy. I described our little adventure and again used the word “teamwork.”
Does Sadie understand the word “teamwork”? Probably not. Not yet, at least. But if she hears it in enough different contexts, I think her brain will begin to operate appropriately, at least statistically (somewhat like ChatGPT). She seems to understand a lot more than she did when she was one or two years old.
I speak to her much as I would to another person, but I slightly exaggerate as I might if I were on a stage. I also try to use the same terms. For example, I sometimes tell her: “I am going to work on my computer for a while now.” With a person, I might sometimes say, “Now, I’m going to use my laptop” or “I have to get on the MAC now.” With Sadie, I try to use the same wording and intonation each time.
If I want her to accommodate me, I need to accommodate her.
Samuel Seventeen surveyed the scene. All was well. A slight breeze, warm clear air, hummingbirds and butterflies enjoyed their floral feast while dragonflies swooped and scooped mosquitoes.
Now for the final touch. The mobile sensing-acting-knowing-emoting devices (SAKEs), were ready for deployment. This time, it would work. This time, there would be no screw-ups. Samuel had prepared them with years of education based on a synthesis of the best known techniques of the centuries. It was a simple test. Surely, this time, they would pass.
Still, Samuel had his doubts. He had been equally sure all of the other experiments would succeed. Why would this one be different? Each time, he had tried slight variations of language and education, only to end in failure. Maybe English would do the trick. It had a large vocabulary and plenty of ambiguity. He re-examined the match of genetics to environment and once again concluded that the match was perfect. Of course, that evaluation assumed that his understanding of genetic environment interaction constituted a complete enough model. But without a successful experiment, there was no real way to further update and expand the model. Maybe the difficulty had been in the education process on the previous attempts. But here too, it seemed the subjects had been given plenty of opportunity to learn about the consequences of their actions. The one thing Samuel felt the most doubt about was why he cared. Did it really matter whether or not free will was “real”? Even if the experiment were finally successful, what would that imply about Samuel himself?
Well, thought Samuel, there is no point in waiting any longer. No point in further speculation. Let’s see what happens.
To Adam, Eve was the most beautiful and engaging part of the extensive and exquisite garden. The apples, plums and peaches were delicious, yet it was the strange mushroom that Adam found most intriguing. He knew it was somehow a bad idea, yet nibbled it anyway, tentatively at first and then more enthusiastically. He felt…different. Things were different. In fact, nothing at all was the same. But if that were true, then, which one was real? Delighted, yet confused, he offered the rest of the mushroom to Eve. Eve too felt strange. She realized that what was in fact her reality was only one of many possible imagined realities. They could … they could imagine and then change reality! Yes! The two of them together. They could create a whole world! “Adam!” “Yes, Eve! I know!”
If Samuel could have sighed, he would have. If Samuel could have cried he might have done that as well. Instead, he simply scuttled the two SAKEs into the differential recycler and began his calculations anew. Maybe next time, it would turn out differently. Maybe primates constituted a bad place to start. Samuel considered that perhaps he was trapped in a local maximum. Samuel began his next set of experiments founded on snapping turtle DNA.
The maids came early this morning and cleaned the floors while I was playing tennis. This was very nice in some ways, but they erased the cat paws from the floor before I had a chance to encode them. In what follows, I will be relying on my notes from several days ago.
The Art and Science of Camouflage
We cats didn’t invent camouflage. In fact, so far as we can determine, camouflage, in the broadest sense, has been a part of life nearly since life’s beginnings. Even viruses and cancer cells use a kind of camouflage to thwart the immune system from seeking out enemies within in order to destroy them.
In order to use camouflage most effectively, it is not enough simply to “look like” something else or hide in a box, though such primitive techniques are sometimes useful. A common mistake made by some civilian cats is to forgo camouflage entirely because it is so difficult to mimic the smell of a human.
But there’s no need! Compared with us, humans typically exhibit almost complete anosmia. This lack of sensory refinement is self-reinforcing. Since their sense of smell is so weak, most never practice or learn how to make best use of what little capacity they do have.
Even beyond this, humans often drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, and use what they call “air fresheners” to further diminish their already pathetic capacities. The human sense of hearing is more acute but nothing much to meow about. It is truly amazing, but if you stay quiet, you can sneak up quite close to nearly any human provided only that you pay attention to your visual appearance.
While humans do have peripheral as well as foveal vision, they are often so deeply involved in their own thoughts about reality that they essentially ignore the reality all around them. Thus, the task of camouflaging your presence against human detection is much easier than fooling a rabbit or bird. All you need do is stay out of their foveal vision and choose a suitable background.
While most cats over-estimate the difficult of camouflage, a few overplay this ploy. While this approach yields many a barked shin and twisted ankle, unless you are exceedingly lucky, by the time the opportunity arises for truly catastrophic injury, your prey had been too often forewarned. In the worst case scenario, they may even suspect you are out to get them.
Be strategic! Spend most of your time, on high contrast surfaces as shown below. Then, when your prey is busy with a task in front of them—particularly one with hot liquids, steep falls, or sharp tools—sneak up under their feet and hide. Avoid the temptation to brag prematurely about your impending victory. Instead, keep quiet and you might just hit the jackpot!
Don’t Tip Your Hand! Go with the Flow.
The advice not to tip your hand by always trying to camouflage applies in other ways as well. While it’s true that most humans are slow, clumsy, and stuck in their own mental models of reality and equally true that their teeth and claws are pretty pathetic, they do have numerous effective weapons. You don’t want these used against you or your colleagues!
Therefore, if at all possible, don’t even have them suspect you consider them as prey before you do them in and do not brag about it afterwards. Nearly every human catastrophe should appear as something natural or accidental. No-one should suspect you either before or after.
In order to “Go with the flow,” you need to catalog your prey’s habits—particularly those that could lead quite naturally to their demise. If they drink and drive, for instance, a carefully planned car accident may raise no suspicions whatever about feline involvement. It’s impossible to list all the many ways that humans are self-destructive, but a few more examples should be enough for you to generalize.
Humans often wear protective covering on their pathetically soft paw pads. So long as they are wearing these, it is pointless to contrive to put hard sharp objects in the path of their travels. But many humans believe that they, like cats, have excellent night vision. If that’s the case, they may often travel in the dark at night barefoot when they awaken to use their water-gushing litter boxes. If this is the case with one of your potential prey, placing a few shards of broken coffee cup, glass, jacks, legos, etc. will provide the potential for catastrophe and definitely entertainment.
However, you must be careful not to be seen placing these items in their nocturnal paths and you must not use this ploy too often. While it will be fun to watch the antics of the human, even if there are no real casualties, be sure to watch without being seen. They will blame whatever organism they see first after any pain including jamming a jack into their heel. You do not want to be that organism. It’s much better for your long term prospects that they blame a spouse, a child, a guest, a paid courtesan, the family dog, etc. Their responses are not very well thought-out. If they hurt themselves and their eye happens to fall upon a fish tank, they may scream at the fish in the fish tank even though a moment’s thought would make it painfully obvious, even to a human, that the fish could not be to blame. Needless to say, if you happen to be unfortunate enough to be the only living thing in the household with a human, you will be blamed for everything.
In such a case, you need to plan very carefully and amplify their own self-destructive tendencies rather than introduce a foreign element. For instance, if they eat unhealthy food, you can encourage such behavior by reinforcing them for it. Add extra salt if that’s at all feasible in your situation. If you see them eating fresh vegetables or fruits, you can reduce the impact of such healthful habits by waiting until you are unseen and adding a tiny bit of shredded hairball or rodent remnant or feces to it.
Many humans take various pills for ailments real and imagined. Very often these can invoke a whole catalog of catastrophic side-effects, particularly if the dosage is doubled or trebled.
Perhaps you are cursed with a particular healthy human. Do not despair! Most likely, they still play with potentially lethal things like fire, electricity, and poisons. They play with such things for their convenience. For instance, ant poison is meant to kill ants, and is often in a package meant to keep the human safe from the poison within. But the poison is likely harmful to humans as well. Sadly, it is probably also poison for you! So extreme caution and careful planning must be used to avoid accidentally hurting yourself instead of the miscreant.
In the spirit of “going with the flow,” a safer tactic than playing with fire, poison, and electricity is to observe whether you human is a sound sleeper or a light sleeper. If they are a light sleeper, it will be quite possible to wake them multiple times a night without their even becoming aware of it. If they have a baby, wake the baby up and let the baby wake up the adult.
On the other hand, if they are a very sound sleeper, then, you can use that as an opportunity to do most of your little mischief with little chance of being caught.
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After translating the above, I took a break to make dinner: salmon poached in ginger ale, fresh ginger, dill, oregano, carrots, celery, thyme, soy sauce, and lemon juice with a side of cooked broccolini and red peppers, served with cherry tomatoes and kale. I turned on the gas stove for the salmon and began to prepare the broccolini and red peppers when I smelled gas. I turned back and noticed that there was no flame. Then, I noticed that the burner cap was slightly askew. The same maids that erased the paw prints cleaned the burners but failed to put the burner cap on parallel to the ground. This allows gas to escape but prevents ignition.
It’s an easy mistake to make and I’ve experienced this problem a few other times with other maids. But it got me to wondering whether I have overlooked some of the darker messages in the Ninja Cat Manual. I wonder if the phrase “your little mischief” might include more serious interference with electricity, water, gas lines, etc. I wonder whether there’s a way to begin a feedback loop with the authors of the Ninja Cat Manual in order to double check on the accuracy of my translations. It’s also possible that the paw prints of my local feline cadre is not being completely frank in their renditions.
This is a continuation on the report of my attempts to decode the Ninja Cat Manual into passable English. In case you missed the first installment, one of our six cats, Shadow, decided to “spill the beans” with regard to the manual and used her architectural skills to point me in the right direction when it comes to decoding the paw prints. Here are a few more of the mini-chapters that I’ve been able to translate so far.
The Double Attack
Humans, of course, are already familiar with the double attack. It plays an important role in both their trivial games such as tic-tac-toe and their moderately complex games such as Go and Chess. In fact, they even use the notion of double attack in some of their sports such as tennis and American football. Nonetheless, their thinking along these lines remains quite rigid and non-spontaneous. Generally speaking, humans must think of a double attack ahead of time in some detail. Further, while they spring double attacks on their foes, they seem endlessly astounded that their foes also spring double attacks on them!
The closest use of Double Attack found so far in the sub-feline is in the political speech of the most sociopathic members of their species. They will say something completely stupid, or obviously incorrect, and then immediately say the opposite; then, they provide a framing so that none of those conned can tell whether the comment was to be taken seriously.
For best results FDA’s (Feline Double Attacks) should provide a minimum of three options. Option one and Option two should imply a binary choice which should be instilled via habit or suggestive movement into what passes for a mind in the human. For example, the warrior may pace back and forth in full view of their human prey and at each turn, provide a faint feint of an attack. Even a few turns are enough to shrink the space of possibilities in the human’s imagination to an attack launched from the extreme right side or the extreme left side.
Obviously, the actual attack should be launched from near the middle of the pacing track and made without warning. If you are working with one or more partners, another useful technique is not to attack at all but have the other members of your team launch the attack from behind, from below, or from above.
Cultivate their Prejudices
To slake their guilty conscience, many humans cultivate an attitude of superiority toward all other life forms. They rationalize wanton cruelty by clinging to the notion that they are in every way superior. There have been some few successes at over-riding these notions by presenting humans with over-riding evidence. For instance, ancient Egyptians realized cats were superior and during the middle ages in Europe, many armies carried the sign of a large cat on their banners. Even today, there are many sports teams named after Cougars, Lions, Tigers, and Wildcats.
On the whole, it is better to play into those human prejudices, thus making the humans overestimate their own strengths and underestimate the strengths of cats. It is common for humans to be performative in their planning and coordination. They sketch out plans on blackboards, white boards, memos, agendas, todo lists, calendars, and e-mail distribution lists. They use org charts, Gantt charts, flow charts, and outlines to make it seem as though they are always busy planning and coordinating.
Such a catalog of artifacts should only be used to leave false trails. Never reveal your true plans in external artifacts. Since cats keep their word with each other, we can keep it simple. Decide who is responsible for what and when. No need to go back and argue over who was “supposed to” do what.
Spend a lot of your planning time pretending to nap or even to sleep. Listen for human comments and you will have evidence of the level of their misperception. “Oh, Tigger is so cute when he plays. Of course, he’s a lazy bum and sleeps 23 hours a day!” Why bother showing them your plans? Let them think you’re a lazy bum. It will be all the more pleasurable as you see their final moment of utter shock and surprise.
I’ve always enjoyed finding visual patterns. I think I was born with a decent ability in this regard and since I’ve practiced it for a long time, now, I’m pretty talented at it if I do say so myself. Generally, I find it a way to enhance my pleasure in life. For example, finding natural patterns in plant life leads me to appreciate their beauty. It also comes in handy when trying to distinguish between edible plants and their poisonous cousins. In rare cases, visual patterns have appeared to me spontaneously as a solution to a problem. That’s a fantastic rush when it happens!
But when I began to see the first glimmerings of the patterns in the paw prints of our six cats, I didn’t feel a rush, but a prickling on the back of my neck. And, when I began to extend my experiments and observations to systematic study, my heart began to race, but not at all in a pleasant way. The doctors called it “Atrial Fibrillation.”
When the evidence mounted till I felt compelled to share my discoveries before it was too late, I felt a kind of dread and self-questioning. Would anyone heed my warnings? Even with much simpler visual patterns, I had often found that what I saw as obvious, others merely saw randomness or, at best, only partial patterns. My task is complicated by the fact that everyone is already completely sold on the idea that cats are animals of far less intelligence than humans.
I include myself as a former member in that category. I too believed the human propaganda until the evidence of their paw prints overwhelmed my doubts.
Even with my ability to see subtle, noisy patterns, I only discovered the manual because of the conjunction of two rare circumstances.
The first of these was that one of our six rescue cats, Shadow, is not only exceptionally bright, but at some point, she decided to warn me. I suspect it was because when we adopted two of her kittens, Tally and Molly, my wife took pity on the older black cat and adopted her as well. Her mother’s love and gratitude predisposed her to protect us from what was being plotted by the feline world. Even so, she would be mortified to learn that I am attempting to extend the warnings to other hominids beyond our immediate family.
Shadow began her attempts to warn us by making arrangements and sculptures out of our dish towels. If I had not had these relatively obvious patterns as a hint, I doubt I would have even tried to decode the paw prints of the six cats as they laid out their deadly manual for action.
The second circumstance was that we got two dogs as well. The dogs love to swim and they love to play in what used to be our yard. About a year ago, their play turned the grassy yard into what is essentially a wrestling pit of black dirt and mud. This has provided challenges for keeping our pool and our house clean enough for humans. But all this tracked-in mud is also what may well have saved my life (and perhaps yours) because that is when the cat prints began to show visibly.
At first, like any normal person, I viewed the visible cat prints as just another annoyance. I also noticed some of the persistent annoying habits of some of the cats. For instance, Blaze’s favorite tactic is the SUT, (Sudden U-Turn). He employs this many times each day. Elegant and effective, he doesn’t practice the SUT randomly. He uses it as we exit a doorway where I have very limited options for lateral avoidance movements. While he tries to bring me down each time he’s near as I exist a room, he’s particularly prone to do it when I have a tray of food in my arms, or laundry, or something else which limits my vision of what is directly in front of me. Perhaps others have also observed the SUT in their own cats.
I just kept walking carefully and didn’t think much of it until I saw unmistakable evidence that the cats were communicating about this technique with their paw prints. Even so, I tried to convince myself that the unmistakable instructions in the manual were simply a coincidence.
It’s funny how the human mind keeps rebelling at mounting evidence when it begins to dispel long-held convictions. “Cats aren’t so smart as humans.” “Cats don’t hunt in packs.” “Cats can’t use language at all, let alone paw-printed language.” “Cats love us—they wouldn’t want to hurt us.” I understand your reluctance to accept my observations because I experienced that reluctance—refusal really—myself.
Whether you heed me or not is up to you. This is still a work in progress. Here are a few of the sections that I have thus far decoded from the Ninja Can Manual. Please remember: unlike cats, you only have one life. Protect it well. I will periodically post additional portions of the manual.
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The Ninja Cat Manual
Preface on Ethics and Practicality:
Some of our feline cousins will naturally feel that bringing down their human captors is unethical. After all, you might think, my human provides food, shelter, and cleans up my poop and pee. However, what you may not know is that humans are destroying the very ecosystem that both humans and cats depend upon. They are not just catching a few birds, rabbits, and mice for food. That would be normal and healthy. But no, they are poisoning the water, air, and soil. They don’t need to do this but they do it for self-aggrandizement.
Even if you accept the worthiness of our cause, some of you may doubt that you and your colleagues can bring down a full-sized human. You may see our enterprise as ethical but impractical. Nonsense! It is understandable nonsense, because you probably attribute to humans the same kind of rational survival instincts that we cats possess. But humans are incredibly self-destructive. They want to destroy themselves. They only need a nudge from us. And even when they are not being actively self-destructive, they are often incredibly unobservant.
Timing and situation, however, are vital. Knowing and accepting your own limitations is critical. To take an obvious example, you cannot ram your body into a speeding car and hope to nudge it over a cliff or into the path of a self-driving semi-truck! However, if your human is driving a car and distracted by playing with their cellphone; if you are sitting calmly in that car, a well-timed leap onto its face may easily bring it down. You may be able to feast on the beast immediately, but always assess whether the car might catch fire.
The Sudden U-Turn
It’s critical to understand the capacities, habits, and limitations of your prey. Humans, for instance, seldom pay much attention to what they are actually doing. They are often thinking about what they did do or what they might do or what they might have done or what someone else might think about what they did, etc. Consequently, they are paying far less attention to their surroundings than are we cats.
Humans, partly because of this lack of mindfulness, often predict what will happen based on linear extrapolation. If they see you walking beside them in a straight line and headed in the same direction they are, they will tend to presume that you will continue to walk in that same direction.
You can use that fact to your advantage. Walk beside them and then suddenly turn back to walk under their feet. This takes some courage and deftness. If you’re not careful, the human may step on you. That is exceedingly rare however. They will side-step, stop, leap, stretch and otherwise try to avoid stepping on you.
This maneuver is best performed when the human is carrying something and/or when they have limited options for where to step. The impact of the move can also be enhanced by distraction. If you are working as part of a duo or larger team, any distraction will help; e.g., a screaming cat fight or knocking a prized and breakable object onto the floor just as the SUT is executed can greatly improve its effectiveness.
Human senses are not very keen. This is especially true of their sense of smell. Their foveal vision is generally quite good, but their peripheral vision is limited. This allows you the opportunity to “hide” behind them. Down low or up high makes detection even less likely. If you are reasonably quiet, they won’t know you’re there. Then, just as they are about to transition in some meaningful way, leap quickly out in front of them.
A meaningful transition might be beginning to descend a long flight of stairs or walking from bright light into the dark or from the dark into somewhere very bright. Transitioning from solid ground onto loose rocks or ice can also prove to be a good spot for performing The Flying Dart.
While this is not a specific attack, it is something to be aware of at all times! Scan your environment. Use all your senses. You will see situations, implements, special times, special places, opportunities. Pay particular attention to things that can function as weapons but which humans, with their more limited imaginations will not see as threatening. They believe that if they have a ladder to help them reach books on a bookshelf that reaching books on the bookshelf is the purpose of the ladder and, more importantly, they won’t see it as a potential opportunity for mayhem the way you can.
Brooks, the car, laughed gently and said, “Sorry, Sir, I was being careful. Not sure why the Rummelnet still allows humans some of their hobbies, but it’s not for me to say. By the way, ETA for Dartmouth is ten minutes.”
“Why so long, Brooks?” inquired Herb.
“Congestion in Baltimore. Sir, I can go over or around, but it will take even longer, and use more fuel credits.”
“No, no, straight and steady. So, when I went to college, Pearl, you know, we only had one personal computer…”
“…to study on and it wasn’t very powerful and there were only a few intelligent tutoring systems and people had to worry about getting a job after graduation and people got drunk and stoned. LOL, Dad. You’ve only told me a million times.”
“And me,” Quillian piped up. “Dad, you do know they teach us history too, right?”
“Yes, Quillian, but it isn’t the same as being there. I thought you might like a little first hand look.”
Pearl shook her head almost imperceptibly. “Yes, thanks Dad. The thing is, we do get to experience it first hand. Between first-person games, enhanced ultra-high def videos and simulations, I feel like I lived through the first half of the twenty first century. And for that matter, the twentieth and the nineteenth, and…well, you do the math.”
Quillian again piped up, “You’re so smart, Pearl, I don’t even know why you need or want to go to college. Makes zero sense. Right, Brooks?”
“Of course, Master Quillian, I’m not qualified to answer that, but the consensus answer from the Michie-meisters sides with you. On the other hand, if that’s what Brooks wants, no harm.”
“What I want? Hah! I want to be a Hollywood star, of course. But dear mom and dad won’t let me. And when I win my first Oscar, you can bet I will let the world know too.”
“Pearl, when you turn ten, you can make your own decisions, but for now, you have to trust us to make decisions for you.”
“Why should I Dad? You heard Brooks. He said the Michie-meisters find no reasons for me to go to college. What is the point?”
Herb sighed. “How can I make you see. There’s a difference between really being someplace and just being in a simulation of someplace.”
Pearl repeated and exaggerated her dad’s sigh, “And how can I make you see that it’s a difference that makes no difference. Right, Brooks?”
Brooks answered in those mellow reasoned tones, “Perhaps Pearl, it makes a difference somehow to your dad. He was born, after all, in another century. Anyway, here we are.”
Brooks turned off the entertainment vids and slid back the doors. There appeared before them a vast expanse of lawn, tall trees, and several classic buildings from the Dartmouth campus. The trio of humans stepped out onto the grass and began walking over to the moving sidewalk. Right before stepping on, Herb stooped down and picked up something from the ground. “What the…?”
Quillian piped up: “Oh, great dad. Picking up old bandaids now? Is that your new hobby?”
“Kids. This is the same bandaid that fell off my hand in Miami when I loaded our travel bag into the back seat. Do you understand? It’s the same one.”
The kids shrugged in unison. Only Pearl spoke, “Whatever. I don’t know why you still use those ancient dirty things anyway.”
Herb blinked and spoke very deliberatively. “But it — is — the — same — one. Miami. Hanover.”
The kids just shook their heads as they stepped onto the moving sidewalk and the image of the Dartmouth campus loomed ever larger in their sight.
petersironwood 