Monday, December 31, 2018


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- New Year's Day in a few hours. Everything in the world stays the same as we jump from the end of the calendar back to the beginning. Let's celebrate. Tell me one of your stories, something for the holiday, about how measurement of life becomes a substitute for life.
- I think I can, but I warn you, it's a stupid story.
- Just right for a stupid holiday.
- You know how we learn when children our social roles, unconsciously, fleeing from punishment and running towards reward? We develop habits that make us recognizable to strangers, giving them a sense of what to expect from us. We dress like we're in business, like a man our our age, of our wealth, etc. Note the two factors: being pushed from outside rather than by inner choice, and probability. Now in these new times that are upon us we are becoming familiar with omnipresent surveillance: Internet, email, telephone, etc. Perhaps you haven't noticed that the same two factors are involved in this surveillance as in unconscious learning of social role?
- I certainly haven't.
- Then I'll begin the story. One overcast morning this week I'd locked my bike to the rack up by UCLA's research library. The sun was slipping between tree branches to warn just the spot, so I stood where I was, by my bike, getting a little warm. Big mistake. For when I do decide to go, I hear: 'Sir! Sir! Stop.' It's the University Police. They've had reports someone of my description was possibly stealing bikes. Do I have I.D.?
- I do. But why should I show it to you when the law doesn't require it?
- It is procedure when we detain a suspect.
- I'm being detained?
- That is what is occurring.
- What am I suspected of? Stealing that bike over there? That's my bike. I will unlock the locks, proof that I'm not a thief, therefore cannot be a suspect, therefore not be detained, and not have my I.D. demanded. Let's go to my bike.
- No. Show us your I.D.
- Or you'll continue to detain me?
- What did you do?
- I showed them, under protest, my passport, and they let me go unlock my locks. Whereupon they didn't go anywhere, but proceeded to ask questions about what I'm doing there on campus, my connection to the University, where I was coming from earlier, each question an attempt to elicit an answer that would indicate I had higher than average probability of being a criminal. Note that again here are the two factors: external force, in this case, being detained by the police and threatened with further detention, and probability, but now our enforced task is to avoid having the probability of social role - that of criminal - imposed upon us.
- We are in a fight over probability.
- Yes. Now the story I'm telling is about how having to escape probability of social role can be just as confining, undermining of freedom, as taking on social role. You see this four-year old little Chromebook I use? Sometimes I thought, Wouldn't it be nice to have one of those super-delux Apple computers I see everywhere, wouldn't it be nice to find one as I often find things riding my bike? And this same week I was walking my bike, one in the morning, down Beverly Hills' Rodeo Dr., the street elaborately lighted for Christmas, and there, in front of the Bulgari jewelry store, under one of the cafe chairs left out all night, is a backpack, about the size of the one I use.
- Inside was an Apple computer?
- Yes. Also notebooks, and several envelopes, one from an insurance company, showing name and address. What a shame! I thought. I can't have the computer. And maybe I shouldn't touch this bag. Is it a trick by the police? There are cameras everywhere on this street. The police station is less that a minute away. I put the bag down where I found it, get back on my bike. Coming my way is one Los Angeles' tens of thousands of unhoused, searching through the garbage containers. I should go back and take the bag before he does, right?
- Right!
- I do, and ride off down the street. But this is terrible! Every thought now, every action I take, I'm considering for its probability of making me out to be suspicious! If stopped by the police - it's suspicious to have one bag on my back, another on the handlebars - how do I explain myself? Shouldn't I get off the main streets where the cameras are? But if I'm stopped on the dark residential streets how do I explain my riding there at this hour? Hasn't my probability of criminal appearance increased?
- You went and returned the bag again.
- I did. But the man going through the trash was still coming this way, on the same block now.
- So you took up the bag again.
- Yes. I decided I'd take it to the police.
- Who will steal it themselves.
- That's what everyone says. I didn't care at this point. All I had to do was ride the short distance to the police station and I'd be free of these constant calculations of probabilities that had completely taken over my life. And you know what?
- What?
- The bag having been dropped off, I was filled with a supreme happiness!
- What happened with the police?
- When I went back to check I was told they had a record of my dropping it off, but after that, record disappears.
- Told you!

Further Reading:
The Calculus Of Consent