I Don't Want Your "J.O.B.S." (Jury-rigged Obstructive Bureaucratized Slavery)

If the workers are properly sheltered, fed, clothed, and given a fair participation in the other goods of the economy (by a sufficient wage), then it makes as much sense to build devices to protect a land from natural catastrophe as the proper calculations of cost and benefit indicate.

All the other bullshit aside, notice how the "provide jobs" rhetoric just never goes away...
A decent human being needs only certain things in order to exist, and in that to be happy, healthy, prosperous and safe. Those things will require some effort, and sometimes ingenuity. They may require more than one person, or special persons, and these human resources may imply the need for many other types of resources, such as training and education.

The infrastructure required for such processes are as varied as the tasks and personnel involved in them. But in the end, only these activities can be called "jobs", which are tasks assigned to a person, perhaps by their own plan or someone else's, which lead to the attainment of some goal which was mentioned at the outset in paragraph one.

So the question is never "why" is someone doing something, in general. In general it is to fulfill one of the above-mentioned goals, to be happy, healthy, prosperous and safe. What is required to fulfill those aims, again, depends upon the person, the society, the culture, the environment, and so forth.

But if the issue of "good to create jobs" comes up, that is like saying that people working is good for its own sake, and that's not true. Work is not "good for its own sake". It is good for the sake of what it produces. As long as the minimum needs of a person are met by their work, and as long as they have free time to do other things besides rest, that free time can be spent as they see fit. They might do research about the forces in their world, personal or impersonal. They may better prepare for their future in various ways. They may further inspect or improve their work. They may amuse themselves and distract themselves in various ways from their weariness of some of their labors by "de-stressing" in different venues of enjoyable activity.

The bottom line is that what makes work "meaningful" and "good" is that it accomplishes the goals of the person's needs, and doesn't go against those, whether in the short term or the long term. We haven't even begun to talk about the larger scale of human work because I don't think that people actually grasp the simplicity of this sub-"micro"-economic level of work, which they might call "home economics". If they understood this PROPERLY, they'd understand more easily why "making work to create jobs" is not ever something worthwhile in and of itself. Jobs are NEVER the proper goal of ANY effort, they are the assignment of EFFORT so as to complete certain types of NEEDED OR DESIRED WORK. Jobs are only a means to an end.

Only after that is understood can someone understand whether or not their governments and other institutions are actually ripping them off and making them do senseless work. The most important example is in the SHELVING OF USEFUL TECHNOLOGY.

What makes technology useful? It saves work in some cases. It also makes new works possible which otherwise would not be, or makes them practicable (because of saving work, given the resources available at the time). Sure, 100 men can dig a good trench, but one man and a back hoe is much better, especially if you need 100 men for other things anyway. Perhaps you need those 100 men for some part of an infrastructure of society that makes that backhoe's design and production possible.

But some people just don't like the implications of saving us from work. They want those 100 men to be dependent upon them for their wage, to be "busy" doing something, ANYTHING, instead of thinking and reading and discussing the matters of their world. They want more easily managed human beings, and they want them for uses which are not actually reputable, and those uses are more justifiable when these men are busy breaking their backs for their necessities rather than reading books in the shade for the same food.

That's right. So much food is available, so much space, so much technology for production and housing and infrastructure, that if EVERY ABLE PERSON did some aspect of these tasks, in general terms, we could have most of everything we have right now at about 1/10th the work we actually do. The mechanisms of shuffling this truth out of the minds of people are hidden in the structure of the means of propaganda and cultural hegemony by means of institutions of "authority".

But people are very easily hypnotized by such bullshit, so it works, and they work, even if it means nothing and gains them nothing.

See, children of earth, men of clay, it was discovered that once technology surpassed a certain limit of complexity and efficiency, these two became synergistic when devised in certain forms. This technology is actually the ultimate meaning of the word "techne" (craft or art), which is the MEANS to reach an end. When the MEANS is very efficient, then the end is reached almost without perception of the means used to reach it. It comes almost at the speed of thought. Think of the technology of your nervous system as it enables you to surf the web right now using a body which you instruct almost without effort to do the things you intend! Your body/brain device is a very efficient means to the end of many things your mind intends.

But if the technology which enables human necessities to be met is allowed to become TOO efficient, then people will be busy enjoying themselves in the various ways they do in their free time, and "making trouble" in some cases... See the point? But making trouble for whom? Their neighbors, themselves, society "in general" etc. So what has happened is because YOU are considered corrupt by those who have access to this technology, they have decided to keep it for you "in trust" because you've accepted, tacitly and implicitly, or even blatantly and explicitly, the "guilt theologies" used to create your current socioeconomic purgatory. That is what I do understand. You have accepted your prison on so many levels that really it is your home.

BUT IT IS NOT MINE, AND YOU ARE NOT MY KIN NOR AM I YOURS. You mindless slaves and idiots can keep being toilers for naught, sacrifices in war, drooling participants in pseudo-culture and perniciously mind-destroying "recreation", but I have nothing to do with you, and you have nothing to do with me. You are controlled and your fates devised by your masters, but I refuse to share in them with you, and I don't heed your masters.

I am not judged by you, nor your masters. I am not one OF your KIND. I am not an evil wretch, needing to be "saved" from my own nature, nor trained to be better, nor needing some freedom from my sinful ways through the admonishment of other, certainly not the types who are offering these services in the world today. No, and hell no. I don't need or want to be patronized by such beings, and don't want to associate with those who toil under them in delusions which have no sway over my mind, heart and soul in any way. I have studiously discovered these facts by my own laborious investigations about what is going on in this world.

I would be happy to spend my remaining time of one year in this world's societies, in order to discover how to properly survive in some environment which is reserved for myself alone, in which to live out my days in peace. I would use that time to learn all I could about that environment, how to survive in it, and I would bring with me only the tools required for that purpose, RATHER THAN continue to endure the constant torture of being with the "rest of you damned people".

What tools would I need? Not that many, and I'd be happy to justify that my efforts in society to be a productive member were sufficiently hindered by every conceivable fraud and corruption within its "venerable institutions" that I should be allowed exactly 1,000,000 US dollars for my purposes. After this I would spend my remaining year in your "world" doing what it took to prepare for my departure, and nothing else. I would, in exchange, no longer bother the world with my viewpoint, my paradigm, my words, my ideas, my behavior, my desires and needs, my "way of doing things" (non-submissively), and my demeanor, bearing, countenance, presence and person would be also kept to my own private doings.

I would consider it a point of honor to use as little of this money as possible, only enough to ensure that I had properly designed a self-sustaining domicile, capable of enabling me to live out my natural life without any further involvement with your "world". I would probably make a "house" capable of persisting in the environment as long as I will continue in my current body, and put most of my efforts into making that as technologically advanced as possible to maximize the simple and desirable goal of living in an environment which is not harsh to my body, mind, soul, and Spirit. Mainly, this would be for the purpose of cultivating my Self so that I am prepared to depart from this filthy place you call your "earth" and return to my Origin in the right Spiritual Condition, pure and untrammeled by your poisons of each of these bodies, gross and subtle, material and energetic.

I would have a library of works to study, in all fields which interest me. I am quite sure that in a proper "world" I would be capable of producing any of them myself. I have a right to study these works. I would be able to choose from any of the libraries of the world, especially from those which are hidden by those who have stolen from the world's knowledge in order to keep people in ignorance. But if that is not possible (because of the shame and cowardice of such groups of people involved), then I'll just hit the Library of Congress.  I would learn the Truth of many things discoverable only by empirical and logical research, thanks to the confederation of the intellectually honest, among whom I am in Good Standing, and I am certain they will not mind if I look over their shoulders to add to my own research and education, because they would KNOW, as GOD is my witness, that I am not willing to use my knowledge for evil.

I would need to ensure that this domicile was maximally efficient, with minimal need for maintenance. I'm not coming back even to say "hi". I'd need to design a proper water collection system, a horticultural system for all my needed plants for food and medicine, and so I'd need a proper seed storage system as well. All that would be researched by me as well.  I would be fed by my own efforts, thanks to the kindness of my plants with whom I'd live.

I wouldn't need to hunt, wouldn't need to kill anything unless it attacked me, but just in case some wild animal or insects do attack, I'd need certain sorts of defensive systems. This will depend upon the environment into which I'd go in order to exile the world from myself properly.  I would only require such tools (weapons) for self defense, the only reason I ever need any weapons of any kind.  I would be safe by my own vigilance.  If none attacked, I wouldn't need to defend.  Indeed, this is an unfortunate tax upon my time and attention, but a somewhat unavoidable one, given the nature of this "world".

Shelter, Food, Defense, Cultivation.  Clothing is not a big deal at all.  Sufficient clothing for the rest of my life could be brought, and this sort of toil is as ancient as weaving.  I'm not going to bother learning that craft, because I really do have other things to be busy with than making clothes.  That's one of the benefits of technology, remember!  In fact, if it were healthy and possible, I'd just buy a store of food to last the rest of my life without need to grow any so that I could focus my horticulture on entheogenic medicine or herbal-chemistry.  There are many important salves and potions which are needed by those who do my sort of works.  For example, martial arts is not only about self-defense, but is literally a mode of spiritual practice incorporating transformation of the gross and subtle bodies.  Alchemy.

To this end I would need a scientific laboratory to conduct my studies of the works of knowledge I would bring with me, and to conduct further research into the various fields of study, mainly for my own edification, because I enjoy learning about such things, because I enjoy KNOWING REALITY.  I don't enjoy "working" for despicable fools and criminals.  I do enjoy studying chemistry, physics, mathematics, etc.  I would have much more time for these worthier pursuits without the "world" breathing down my neck and pretending to know how I should best go about it and to what purpose, mainly by using the age-old tactic of controlling my shelter availability, food supply, and rights to self-defense.  Those resources then under my own control and in a self-sufficient mode for the rest of my life, I could concentrate upon the more important cultivation of my Self for which my time was properly meant to be used.

I would have room in both space and time for each of my associated areas of study and cultivation. Basically I would be a hermit, and a very VERY much happier one than ANY THING I COULD BE IN YOUR DAMNED WORLD.  Someone once asked me if I wanted to be a "Pied Piper".  HA! Does this sound like the desire of such an Archetype?  It isn't.  I can't be bothered with mice or their manipulators.

I would be happy to live this lifestyle of peace, study, cultivation, reflection, and sublimation of the body into Spirit, ALONE, for the rest of my life on this earth, but preferably as far away from it as possible.  If it is globe, I'd rather be on a habitable planet or moon elsewhere.  If it is a domed area, I'd like to leave the dome.  If it is a dimension, then I'd like to be outside of it.  But if I have to be "in here with you", then I want to be as far away as possible, in as remote and inaccesible a place as can be found for this purpose.  I'm sure the world wouldn't miss me or the resources required for this purpose.  In fact, I'm sure that any pensions for disability that I may now claim or in the future, for the rest of my life would afford the majority of the balance of that fund that I would use for this purpose.  The rest would be returned.  I bet it wouldn't all be expended, and even if it would, it must be remembered that this loot was stolen from my Spirit, and from the innocence of many.  I won't be silent about that for as long as I live, so why not get away from me by letting me get away from you? Then you wouldn't have to hear about it any more.  Of course, the usual practices of murder by assassination are in your repertoire, but why implicate yourself any further in your guilt?  But of course, there are other means to settle "our beef", world, if you want to insist on your being right and my being wrong...

But until such a situation is possible in Good Faith, I will continue to exist and work "within" the system, but be NOT OF IT. I will continue to notice every evil lie, every wicked deception, every cowardly subterfuge, every insipid scheme, and I will continue to analyze them, demonstrate their nature and their existence, and go on and on about them in the hopes that I will disturb those who live in blissful ignorance or otherwise are the damnable beneficiaries of such evil, and I will continue beyond even that until there is nothing left of such wickedness.

Or if you think I'm wrong about this and you think you have the guts, why not challenge me to a duel? I know, never going to happen. But if I win, I get what I want, if you win, you can assassinate me. Deal? Why not make a pact with me in blood, with one of your knights as the opposing force? We'll see if he can defend this farce and this mockery better than I can assail it. It wouldn't have to be a duel of mortal combat in the normal sense. It could be any contest, as long as both opponents were in agreement as to their foe, and were each given the appropriate resources to prepare for the Battle. Why not you, "up on high", who think yourself the King of the World?

Positive Reality and Duality Part II: Beyond Philosophy, History, and Normality

"A deviation of a hair's breadth at the center leads to an error of a hundred miles at the rim.
When the effort is so slight, why should you hesitate to set things right?"
~Laozi

The question of what the significance is of differentiating apparently indistinct possible worlds is not merely a matter of metaphysical investigation "for its own sake".  The context in which this matter has here been broached in Part I is a very ethical, read "spiritually" significant endeavor.  It really does matter, in some cases, to split hairs, and to do so in a way which "sets things right".

To the questions philosophical which pertain to this endeavor, the metaphysical issues of "identity" and "essence" are quite relevant.  "Who is splitting the hair?"  It matters what sort of being exists and asks questions, not merely what sort of recorded questions, attempts at answers, and criticisms have been compiled by what appear to be biological androids capable of passing a cultural hegemon's version of a "Turing Test" for loyalty to the status quo of what is permitted to be understood and discussed within his empire of learned fools.  In terms of the power of silencing dissent as to what is "on the table of discourse", Foucault's analysis of the archaeology of power over knowledge, or knowledge management as a means to secure power over others, is a pertinent line of discourse. His observations are not the only voice on this topic, but it is indicated in various other tones and contexts by thinkers and writers going back as far as Plato, Kongfuzi ("Confucious", not to be confused with "Confuses Us"), Bruno, Paine, Hobbes, Machiavelli, Luther, Xunzi, Mozi, Laozi, Zartosht (Zoroaster), Szasz, just to name a few "Big Names".  There is a SHEER TON of literature on the subject of the interstitial relations between power, knowledge, and social norms.

In this literature a common theme arises where there are noted to be restrictions placed upon the raising of certain questions, and it is often posited that, whether rightly or wrongly, certain "brute facts" ordain those restrictions, overriding "The Truth" of the matter, becoming a sort of ugly truth in its own right, by the sheer fact that such a coercive influence is possible.  The economic and specific living conditions of people, for example, are brute facts which dictate a great deal about what sort of state of mind they are likely to obtain, what tools and facilities are available for their application of their minds to efforts of learning and contemplation, and what sort of complications may arise so as to cut short or otherwise delimit the quality and quantity of their efforts.  Their are social forces which are at work, on macro and micro scales, from the familial to the class structural, to the cultural and inter-cultural.  

These and other forces exert their casting and framing influences on the works of living beings, no matter what their degree of sentience and other physical, mental, and spiritual capacities.  This is not generally acknowledged to be "for the better", except by those who are resigned to some paradigmatic fantasy that declares human societies to be dignified in some way beyond the scope of any individuals which may exist either in them or outside them, a mindset described by Rand as "collectivism".  But to be clear, we are discussing the efforts of the individual, of the single and immutably unique person who, in the context of these forces which surround and impinge upon him or her, must usually conduct their best efforts in spite of these forces rather than as a true and proper harmonic of them.

It matters to the Lover of Truth, who is ALWAYS AN INDIVIDUAL SOVEREIGN in his own right, as to the questions to be decided in his mind concerning what is real and what is fake, what is true and what is false, what is good and what is evil, what is right and what is wrong, what is beautiful and what is hideous.  It isn't up to anyone else, no matter how many of them there are, who they are severally or collectively, or what they think they are properly up to doing about it.  It is up to this individual to decide, to realize, to act upon his decisions and realizations according to his own best judgement.  There is no exception to this principle of Liberty in the proper sense which defines the spiritual basis of Sovereignty as a concept.  Only this person lives his life, and only he may decide how he will live it.  Others may object all they like, but they cannot change his right or power to decide this matter for himself, not even if they destroy his body, for in this they merely deform the "portal of expression" of his Spirit into this world, they don't and they cannot touch his Spirit as such.

That is a fundamental position which answers for me what the value is in splitting this hair, whether or not there are other and metaphysical evils which underlie the phenomenal appearances of our world, and also what they are and what is to be done about them.  The position that I realize that it is not only up to me, but it is up to only me to do this work, for it is a unique work which is an expression of my very own Spiritual Essence which has as one of its hallmarks and touchstones the Love of Truth.

Love, which is a transitive verb requiring a proper object, implies that there is an evaluation of what is best.  It is impossible and senseless to speak of loving things "indiscriminately".  That is not love at all, but the caricature of a person who is nothing more than an empty tube through which the world passes without meaning.  When I love, which is to say when I Love, I resist.  Namely I resist the possibility of ignoring or passing over something, and I enter into it more.  This automatically implies that by contrast I have neglected something else, and this is simply a fact about which there is no sensible debate.  The meta-discourse on the senselessness of speaking of unconditional love is outside the limits of this essay, but rather it is assumed that the reader understands that such a notion is considered a falsification of the very essence of what the term "love" means.  

But by way of a nod in the appropriate direction I could use as a simple example the fact that I forgive the distraction from what else I love by this one thing that I love, simply because in virtue of some specific feature of this thing, and in some specific way and time, I love it more than anything else, or else I love it as a symbol or channel by which I love something even greater or other, but which only this being and nothing else has had the power to symbolize or otherwise offer connection.  My selectivity and focus upon this feature, this salient aspect which is loved more than what is therefore loved less by implication, is in no way altruistic or "other serving" or self-abnegating or "unconditional".  It is the very opposite of all these.

In the case of knowing what sort of world it is in which "we" really live, I must confess simply and straightly that I have a very personal and interested condition by which I am motivated to approach it. I am not satisfied with someone's story about what reality is, but I am going to find out for myself.  I am not satisfied with someone's insistence on what is right, but I'm going to decide for myself.  The Truth of matters, in short, is not decided for me, but by me.  I do indeed Love Truth, and I am very interested in making sure I'm not settling for a poor substitute. But to anyone else who will settle for someone's story, or someone's insistence, I say then you may do that all you please, but you will not substitute your choices for mine, nor your fate or destiny for mine.  To each, truly, his own.  So if the reader doesn't care, let him be careless and go his careless way.  But for me, I will split this hair!

Since in Part I it has already been demonstrated that there is an intelligible distinction between two possible worlds where the phenomenal appearances are identical, at least for large spaces and times vis-a-vis a normal human lifespan and intelligence (broadly speaking).  Therefore there is perhaps even no distinction for some people's lives which way this goes.  But as I've already just explained, for the Lover of Truth as I have pronounced him, there is a profound distinction.  It is not a distinction of appearances anyway, so the complaints of those who small minds or petty lives fit neatly and indifferently into the horrific folds of either universe may be ignored without any burden of explanation.  They can say I think too much, they can say I am "ratcheted too high in my vigilance" about this and that, and they can basically make asses of themselves all they want by conflating their conformation to their world regardless of its underlying realities with a proper basis for criticizing someone who is not bound by their unfortunate embeddedness. 

Perhaps they are the ones who are metaphysically truncated in some unsightly way so that they are unable to delve deeper than the surfaces of things at all, but in truth this is not likely in this universe, because the rampant and blatant evils in our world are commonly enough known by all that it really doesn't take an obsessive interest in ponerology to go beyond the surface.  The surface is so hideous as it presents itself that it even goes through the motions of caricaturizing its hideous evil in the culture, analyzing its corruption in the literature, rationalizing some of its monstrosities in various institutions of authority.  The topography of human society is built on this surface in such a way that it wouldn't even have the shape that it has unless this depth of evil within it were a fact, however it is then processed by those who have squatted their fleshy dependencies upon it.

At the end of all that drivel is the {} of incoherence, which wears on the mind of the metaphysician of the soul, the metaphysicist of the real.  He notes that the world "doth complain too much" about his own efforts, which needn't detain them if they have "better things to do", and likewise he often asks no special reward for his efforts.  Indeed, he can often demonstrate the value of his realizations in some of the more superficial layers of his research, often at the drop of a hat in any situation, no matter how petty, especially the longer-lived he is and the more familiar he perforce becomes with such picayune circumstances.  He could do this in his sleep, and still properly express a masterpiece of observation, logic, and perhaps even a touch of humor thrown in due to the absurdity of pointing out the obvious to those for whom, all too commonly, common sense is uncommon.

Then there are those who simply fear the "rabbit hole" which is implied by these massive, suffocating standing waves of absurdity!  They perhaps cannot even get their nose up far enough from grindstone to which they avidly cling so as to even perceive just how much of the world is a "rabbit hole", nor how their sinking ship of delusional normality is no less doomed to plunge deeper into its unholy depths.  Perhaps they think themselves safely on the beaches somewhere on the rim of the rabbit hole world which they go to great lengths to rationalize into one of the world-approved absurdity-conformable paradigms into which they have been developmentally embedded in this, and perhaps many previous lives, assuming that their souls are more than cardboard cutouts.  Even in this case, they can be grimly assured that the fleet of sinking vessels in the center of Rabbit Hole Lake have their moorings attached to the delicate necks of the delusional dwellers upon Rabbit Hole Beach.  It won't matter what your class of seating on the sinking ships of delusion, nor your quality of estates on the beaches of denial... you are going in the rabbit hole of "what lies beneath" no matter what.  The difference between those who do this blindly, and those who do it consciously, between those who do it with cowardice, and those who do it with honor, is the Love of Truth.  It is either in you, or it ain't.

Positive Reality and Duality Part I: Beyond Heraclitus

“If the mighty fravaṧis of the just had not given me aid . . . to the Druj would have been the power, to the Druj the rule, to the Druj corporeal life; of the two spirits the Druj would have sat down between earth and heaven” 
~Zartosht

The science which takes as its subject a field of issues concerning "existence as such", Metaphysics, as many aspects and topics within it.  It has been in existence itself for quite a long time, as long as anyone ever wondered and tried to understand why one thing seemed, and perhaps even did, lead to another (causation, one of the topics of Metaphysics).

In this science, which is also performed by the philosopher himself or herself as an art (as are all sciences by those who specialize in doing them rather than just teaching or learning about them), there are methods and techniques which aid the Metaphysicist (or Metaphysician, depending on the sub-specialty), examples from which have been seen here and there throughout the world down through the ages.

One that is often heard in modern circles is a "deep question", really a "meta-question", which "probes backwards" from the issue of consideration, asking a rather pointed question in the form such as follows:

  "In the consideration of the notion 'x', how would the world be any different right now if 'x' didn't exist"

Of course, this is trying to suggest to us that if 'x' were in fact real, then the world would have been affected by this fact so that, if 'x' suddenly were not real, then something in the world would be 'un'affected by 'x', and so would be different right now.  This is an important question to ask because it implies that assumption, namely that there is a way to detect the effects of 'x' being real.  It puts the person on the spot who presents the notion of something 'x' but cannot assure us of any reason to believe it is real.  As will later become important for our particular consideration, this presupposes that 'x' is a cause whose effects bear markers in their appearance which are distinctly peculiar to any truth of the assertin that 'x' was their cause, i.e., the usefulness of this question is restricted to cases where phenomena are the effects of causes only if those effects bear evidence peculiar to that causal origin.  Those phenomena being present or not should not, per se, be judged sufficent evidence of the existence of the hypothetical cause 'x' unless it can be shown that their presence would not be possible otherwise, and also that their abcense is not due simply to the muting of the effects of 'x' (since perhaps 'x' exists as an interrupted cause!).  This will be elaborated later below.  But let's first take a broad look at this sort of question and how it might be practically applied in some forms of scientific thinking.

For instance, if people didn't commit crimes, prisons would not exist, since the purpose of prisons is to incarcerate convicted criminals.  So we can be assured that, whenever we see a prison, that criminals must have also existed.  This might be useful in archaeology since we might not be able to find evidence of criminals directly, but perhaps we can have an idea that they existed by finding evidence of the existence of prisons in the structures still in the physical record.  We might even be able to discover a lot of things about the prisoners, and hence the criminals of those days, and therefore what the nature of law and crime were, some aspects of that people's culture, including how they treated their criminals.

All those ideas can be explored because in supposing that 'x', in this case "criminals" existed, we should be able to find 'y', which is some logical result of 'x', whether an effect of it (in this case) or a cause of it.  In this case we would suppose the existence of 'x' from the evidence of 'y', since we think that where there are prisons, surely there were already criminals to put in them, because prisons are the effect of a cause, criminals who societies desire to imprison! In related fashion, if we wanted to be sure that such a society had no laws, we would expect to find no criminals, and so we would expect to find no prisons (for some criminals may become prisoners).  

So if someone wanted to be assured that such a society had no laws, he should certainly be able to answer a question put to him which ran like this "how would that society be different than ours if it had no laws of any kind, formal or informal".  The answer would be that "It would have no prisons for the incarceration of criminals, since there are no laws to break, no criminals, hence no sentences of imprisonment for such, and so no such places for the fulfillment of those sentences".  

Of course this is not a perfect course of argument for either side, since in fact "prison-like" structures may exist with no relations to any notions of propriety and recourses to its infringement, such as places to hold dangerous animals who were never a member of society, broke no laws.  Laws may have existed, and perhaps people never broke them, or perhaps they had no punitive imprisonment.  Yet, this prison-like structure exists.  We'd have to differentiate punitive prisons from prisons which withhold natural forces, such as cages for animals, and dams for water.

Moreover, it may be the case that prisons did exist, but took forms much different than we'd expect, or else were destroyed before we could find them later, so perhaps laws existed though evidence for them does not.

So it is not a perfect "magic bullet" sort of approach to interrogating ideas, whether those in our own minds or those presented by others, but it at least enlarges the means by which we can explore them productively.  Neither of the above two situations prevents us from taking a useful approach by asking "Did this ancient society have laws?  If not, then surely punitive prisons did not exist.  Is there evidence that any did exist?"  Then, if no "Can it be shown that it is for other reasons than the non-existence of laws?"  For example, is it because they had no concept of crime, but did have laws which everyone obeyed, and because disobedience didn't occur, crime was not defined for them?  Did they have laws, and criminals, but no punishments?  Did they have punishments, but imprisonment not being among them?  Did they imprison criminals, but not in ways which we'd expect or understand? Did they imprison in the ways we'd understand and expect, but has all evidence of such since vanished from the physical record?  If the answer to the question about whether these structures existed is yes, then:  Are these really punitive prisons?  Were the "laws" broken really just informal prejudices common to the whole society but not formally codified into strictures, rules, and positive laws?  Are these really "prisons", or something else entirely?

This example shows us that many considerations enjoin even a simple exercise of hypothetical thinking about a rather empirical, and seemingly simple, issue, so imagine if things get "metaphysical"...

In philosophy it is often the case that "intangible" or "insubstantial" or "abstract" or "religious" ideas, concepts, entities, etc are sometimes asserted to exist, and those who wish to present arguments against such will sometimes ask why they should believe such a thing.  They ask, basically, "if such a notion were not real, how would the world be any different now?" If there cannot be presented a convincing reason to suppose that it would be any different, then the critic feels fine remaining in his default position of keeping his mind unchanged on the matter, of not accepting this new idea or belief about it.  After all, nothing would change in his life if it were not true, and so for all he knows he lives in a world where it isn't, and this wouldn't seem any different from the world he is in right now, which is the one he was in as an unbeliever, and so why change?  The world remains the same either way, as far as he can tell.

That's a sort of defense for those who feel put upon by the profferings of proselytizers, and one can understand their unwillingness to "play along" and invest meaning in ideas which didn't belong to them when that rather should be the burden of the one presenting those ideas.

Of course sometimes it may be the case that the world wouldn't seem any different if the phenomenon in question didn't exist, but not because the beings which are supposed to exist don't have any causal power when they don't exist, but because if they didn't exist then the world would have invented them, because in fact the world has a causal power of its own which is in a feedback loop with the entities/forces/beings in question.   It is like this:  if they didn't exist then the world would have found a way to ensure that some simulacrum of them did exist, because the world is an agent of a common principle with those forces, and not merely an effect of them.

So that means we think in this case that the metaphysical beings in question exist along with our apparent, as we say "physical" world of phenomena, as co-causal agents in how this world behaves, as a sort of reinforcing cause which is also an effect of the world's ongoing activities.  As it stand in this case, we might ask a new question:

"If the beings would have been invented if they didn't exist, then how do we know if they in fact are in existence as inventions or as naturally, already existing?"  In other words, "What if they did already exist?  How would the world be different?"

These and many other interesting metaphysical questions and considerations can be raised and explored, even without entering substantive content into the formulas here used.  Indeed, these considerations kept in the abstract, purely metaphysical form in which they are here presented can be the source of reams of theoretical exercises in thought, and would be worthwhile to conduct on their own merits for those of us with such a proclivity.  But what happens when we add certain kinds of contents into them?  That's when things get interesting, and far more interesting than just the question of what crime and punishment were like 8,000 years ago in China.

What if the issue were to know an answer to the question of what would be the difference between a world were evil existed beyond the domain of "what evil men do", and the world where no such causes of evil existed, and to make it very strict, the only evils which ever exist are those which are performed by men who are in fact evil.  What is the difference between these two worlds?

In other words, would it matter to our perceptions of our observable world whether or not men like Dr. Ewen Cameron were performing their evil experiments merely under their own inclinations, or does it make a difference if they are funded as part of a project in a group which secretively redistributes public money in order to create a de facto justification for what they do in the midst of those upon whom they do them?  Surely there is some difference, if in the first case he were simply doing his deeds of his own accord and were not legitimized by some relationship to a government agency working with his expertise as a resource, then he'd quite possibly be considered a criminal, if not an outright evil man by those in his profession as well as the public at large.  In fact this is still the case as lawsuits have been filed and won on behalf of some of Dr. Cameron's victims.  It is just that it would perhaps be more obviously, more blatantly the case if he were not semi-legitimized by the agencies involved in his research.

But even right here we have an abundant enough set of elements to call "evil", and the consequences they have wrought are sufficiently odious so as seemingly not to require any further, more remote causes, even if such were to be in themselves perhaps more sinister in their own natures, motives, intentions, goals, etc.  But what if such did exist, would we be able to detect a difference in the phenomena which concentrate around the dreaded subproject of Mk-Ultra in which Dr. Cameron partook?

If not, it may be argued by those who want to dismiss conspiracy investigators as misguided crackpots that their theories or suspicions, etc, are all unnecessary, possibly delusional excesses of thought which are worthy to be shaved off by Occam's Razor which states that whenever we are trying to account for the "why" of a thing, we should hypothesize no more entities to be involved then are necessary, so that if there are two possibilities for such an account, even if both may be true, we should prefer the simpler one.

That may be a fine point to make, but it would be foolish to assert that such a method of epistemological simplification is an iron-clad rule about how to think, research, or understand what is "truer" in the investigation of the why's and how's of phenomena.  After all, what if the simpler explanation is simply not true, and the less simple one happens to be the case?  What someone handy with Occam's Razor would suggest is that the burden of proof is upon the one in favor of the less simple explanation, and therefore let him scrounge up the evidence, and let his evidence satisfy stringent standards of evaluation.

That may be okay as well, but even if he doesn't have evidence, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and that means anyone has the right to suppose it does and to search for it.  It also doesn't mean that being unable to find such evidence is an indication that it for sure doesn't exist.  It also doesn't mean that the simpler explanation is true.  It just means that the person who wants to sit pat on it has found a nice excuse for ignoring the testimony of others, or even their evidence, if it doesn't meet his own standards, which themselves may be adjusted perhaps to ludicrous degrees of insensitivity to even blatant manifestations of the phenomena which his "simpler" account does not recognize as real.

These "Skeptics a la Mode" do exist, and they clog up the works in discussions about anything whatsoever.  This same sort of rock-headed mentality which mistakes sullen and stubborn ignorance for epistemic sobriety (or dogmatic loyalty), is found in every aspect of human knowledge and belief. In the end, it is most a form of rationalization about whether or not to be open to new evidence.  The specialist in epistemic razor blades just happens to be the someone who prefers to keep his mind a certain way and seems to prefer the evidence for thing to come to him rather than to seek it out himself, and he'd prefer that you get the memo on what he is willing to accept (we'll assume he doesn't have gut feelings, intuitions, psychic powers, heightened perceptions of probability fields, moral inspiration, and certainly not a Nous, so we'll assume he won't be interested in any such evidence on our part, indeed he often finds these attributes can even be considered as having the power to taint even solid evidence which is found by their inspiration or means).

Really, in the world of knowledge and the seeking of it, who cares about this toad on a rock in a swamp in the middle of nowhere?  Let him be.

As for us, what can we make of such a question, even if not taken to such a silly extreme of improbable investigative utility as the pseudo-skeptic finds normal for himself?  Well, we might ask ourselves that question and consider various possibilities.

1) What if we lived in a universe where the existence of such metaphysical causes of evil have special means of hiding their presences?

2) What if they had a methodology to reinforce evils which exist in man already, but prefer to do so in such a way that man thinks he is doing them himself, so they can keep man in a special state of ultimate culpability, manipulability, and ignorance?

3) What if their non-existence would be impossible (in this universe) because man's existence in his current form in this universe is directly owing to their existence as a partial cause, and so it is a moot question in fact?                                                                                                                                  

4) What if the point made in 3) is so strong that even if the metaphysical evil beings didn't exist now there would be enough inertial force in the effects formerly special to their involvement that man would coast along just as if it were unaffected except perhaps by a brief disorientation and then pernicious (and radically more culpable) resumption of the evil paths we see in the phenomenal world? (That would be an effect of their sudden non-existence, it could be argued, but it would be a hard one to detect as such an effect, being that the cause is so obscure, occult, and opaque so that even (at least?) most of those involved in the ongoing evil on the surface wouldn't have understood it).

5) What if the "machine" of human evil is run so efficiently that 4) happens from time to time in order to "kick start" and/or "upsurge" the outpouring of some energetic benefit which accrues to the meta-evil beings who thrive on this arrangement, and that this could only be possible in this particular way (with this particular level of efficiency), if they kept it a secret even from those who are involved on the "upper layers" of such conspiracies of evil as we see extant and pervasive in the world?

Then in fact, we may have, from our perspective, a world "no different than" the world in which "meta-evil" doesn't exist, and yet it would be just as evil overall, if we had a case where 5) were true. Yet it would be a very different world in fact than a world where such meta-evil didn't exist, and it seems to make a great bit of difference to the question of defining and labeling such people as to whether or not they are sane, so at least it directly affects them if their Love of  Truth pits them against such meta-evils (as well as their lower-rung evil hegemonies), since for something in their very essence, their very spirits, it matters what this Truth is, but for almost all involved in the circumstances, the world appears just as if there were not such "evil forces" behind the evil forces already "taken for granted" in the world today.

Sadly for those in this scenario, they are not only likely to be called various names and given various labels, in other words ostracized, or at least marginalized, if not outright persecuted and massacred (although it apparently has happened in the past!), but they are, in case of 5), in possession of a world-view which is The Truth, and it is everyone else which is delusional about these matters which they disingenuously deem "controversial" and "fringe".

That said, simply stating the possibility of conceiving of such a world does not in itself demonstrate its existence, or that we are here living in such a world.  How, then, could someone convinced of such a state of affairs discover the existence of such a world (in general), that he is living in one (in particular), and WHY, OH WHY would he burden himself with such a demonstration, knowing that most others would be immune even to the most powerful evidence he could present, even to the point of dismissing piles of documented facts, strung together with logic so forceful that even to understand it is to agree with it, and to disagree with it is to contradict one's own self?

That will be the topic of Part II of this epistemic foray into the realms of occult metaphysics.