The Moon

A short excursion into the phantastic

The moon is by far the most mysterious object in our Solar System, eclipsed only by the mystery of the Sun – Earth – Moon relationship. The very creation and/or capture of the Moon by the Earth are still areas of much debate and scientific uncertainty.

The simple truth is that we do not know the answers to many of the questions posed by the universe. We have a cornucopia of theories, hypothesis and assumptions about how reality hangs together. The one thing that is clear though is that the more we investigate and push the envelope the more we realize we are just beginning to understand the universe around us.

We need to be honest though and say ‘I do not know;’ when we do not know.

This article is a highly speculative piece that looks at the world through a slightly different perspective from what mainstream science would like us to focus on. The only overt intention here is to raise questions and invite further speculation.

The Moon – Earth – Sun relationship is really what puzzles us the most. The Moon is exactly 400 times smaller than the Sun but also 400 times closer to the Earth. This unique spatial relationship allows for the Moon to totally eclipse the Sun.

Our Moon is the only moon in the solar system that has a stationary, near-perfect circular orbit. It is also tidally locked, which means that the same face is always pointing towards Earth. This is achieved through the almost identical orbital and rotational speeds of the Moon. The Moon orbits the Earth once every 27.3 days[1], at the same time it takes the Moon 27 days to do a complete rotation on its own axis.

The Moon-Earth-Sun triumvirate is so baffling that a number of high profile scientists and researchers have gone on the record with these statements:

“There is no astronomical reason why the moon and the sun should fit so well. It is the sheerest of coincidences, and only the Earth among all the planets is blessed in this fashion.”

Isaac Asimov

 “It seems much easier to explain the nonexistence of the moon than its existence.”

Dr. Robin Brett – NASA Scientist

 “The Moon is bigger than it should be, apparently older than it should be and much lighter in mass than it should be. It occupies an unlikely orbit and is so extraordinary that all existing explanations for its presence are fraught with difficulties and none of them could be considered remotely watertight.”

Irwin Shapiro – Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

 “The Moon has astonishing synchronicity with the Sun. When the Sun is at its lowest and weakest in mid-winter, the Moon is at its highest and brightest, and the reverse occurs in mid-summer. Both set at the same point on the horizon at the equinoxes and at the opposite point at the solstices. What are the chances that the Moon would naturally find an orbit so perfect that it would cover the Sun at an eclipse and appear from Earth to be the same size? What are chances that the alignments would be so perfect at the equinoxes and solstices?”

Christopher Knight and Alan Butler – authors of Who Built the Moon? (1)

One of the most concerning questions that must be raised is to the reason why, for 50 years, we have not returned to the Moon. In fact, all NASA did (and anyone else for that matter) when it came to crewed space flight were Low Earth Orbit (LEO) missions, with the astronauts being little more than glorified bus drivers.

What spooked us and everybody else so that we did not venture back out further into space, at least not as far as crewed missions were concerned? In other fields of science and exploration those 50 years saw astounding advances. For instance, we now have more computing power in our watches than NASA had in total at the height of the Apollo program.

Did we find something on the Moon? Did something find us? Were we trespassing? Were these 50 years required for the Moon to be ready for our renewed interest of recent days? We will get back to those important questions in due course.

Three questions blow the moon mystery sky high.

  1. Why did Moon enjoy such an elevated, even supreme status in the cultures of the ancient world?
  2. Was there a time without the Moon? And if there was, when did the Moon appear?
  3. Is the Moon hollow? And if it is hollow, is it artificial?

These three questions, odd as it may seem, are intimately connected.

The Moon as prime deity

Humanity’s fascination with the Moon is, of course, not new. Ancient cultures afforded the Moon an unlikely place in their respective Pantheons. The Moon, compared to the Sun, is quite pale. The Sun will always outshine the Moon in terms of brightness, warmth and sheer presence.

Why then did some ancient cultures venerate the Moon above all others? The Sun is hotter, brighter (by many magnitudes) and completely dominates the day sky, while the Moon competes with the Milky Way and myriads of other stars.  Would it then not be more sensible to look up at the Sun as the highest deity? One might think that any supremacy would naturally fall to the Sun. Not so for some of the ancient peoples.

In Babylonian cosmology the Moon-god Sin (Nanna) was considered to be the father of the Sun-god Shamash (Utu) and was commonly addressed as father Sin. Sin was naturally regarded as the head of the pantheon. Sin as ”father of the gods;”, “chief of the gods;’ “creator of all things”, and the like. “The sun was of smaller importance than the moon in the eyes of the Babylonian astrologers.” (2, 3, 4, 5)

According to the Dabistan (ch. 29), a Persian work of early Islamic times, the Ka’abah of Mecca was originally dedicated to the worship of the Moon. (6)

The Greeks regarded the Moon as of greater importance than the Sun: “The sun’s subordination to the moon . . . is a remarkable feature of early Greek myth. Helios was not even an Olympian, but a mere Titan’s [Hyperion’s] son.” (7)

Christoval de Molina described sacrifices to the Moon by the natives of Peru in the sixteenth century. (8) Also, the Indians of Vancouver Island assigned greater importance to the Moon than to the Sun, as did several tribes in Brazil. (9)

The Assyrians and the Chaldeans referred to the time of the Moon-god as the oldest period in the memory of the people: before other planetary gods came to dominate the world ages, the Moon was the supreme deity. Such references are found in the inscriptions of Sargon II (ca. -720) and Nabonidus (ca. -550). The Babylonian Sin—the Moon—was a very ancient deity: Mount Sinai owes its name to Sin. (10)

A cuneiform text describes the first appearance of the Moon: “When the gods . . . fixed the crescent of the moon, to cause the new moon to shine forth, to create the month. . . . The new moon, which was created in heaven with majesty, in the midst of heaven arose.” (11)

Franz-Valéry-Marie Cumont, a noted Belgian archaeologist and historian, highlighted the prominence of Sin in the earliest historical period in Babylonia and found it “remarkable that at first the primacy was assigned to the Moon.” (12)

The Moon, appearing as a body larger than the Sun (the Moon illusion when the Moon is near the horizon), was endowed by the imagination of the peoples with a masculine role, while the Sun was assigned a feminine role. Many languages reserved a masculine name for the Moon – Yoreach in Hebrew, Sin in Assyrian, der Mond in German, Mesiatz in Russian, and so on. The attribution of the male gender signifies a higher rank of the Moon in those particular male dominated societies.

Cumont’s ‘primacy’ of the Moon leaves us baffled. However, what if the ancient peoples had it right and remembered the time when the Moon appeared for the first time in the night sky.

If truly there was a time when the moon was moved into orbit around the Earth, the ensuing upheaval, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, potential meteorite impacts (as the newly arrived Moon would have disturbed the orbit of smaller Mars-like moonlets in orbit around the Earth), storms, floods and general mayhem would have left a lasting impression on the peoples of the time.

Might it have been a civilization-ending event?

We know that virtually all civilization around the globe recall a cataclysmic event that reshaped the world as they knew it. Some cultures have memories of many such events. The Hindu, as well as the Mayan traditions speak of many world ages. Plato recounts in his Timaeus that Solon, upon visiting Egypt, was told by an Egyptian priest, that the Greeks are like children, remembering only one flood, whereas the world was destroyed by fire or flood many times.

The arrival of the Moon would have been such a world-ending event, no matter how much engineering prowess had gone into it. Do I propose that the Moon arrived here 10, 15 or even 20 thousand years ago? No, I personally believe that the Moon was placed into orbit many tens of thousands of years ago, but not so far in the dim and distant past that we no longer remember it.

There is an interesting side note here. In the German Martin Luther Bible, Genesis 9:13 reads –‘… Meinen Bogen habe ich gesetzt in die Wolken; der soll das Zeichen sein des Bundes zwischen mir und der Erde.’ Which translates to ‘…I set my bow/crescent/arc? into the clouds; it shall be a sign of covenant between me and the Earth…’

Specifically, a bow, and not a rainbow. I think the rainbow reference was added later to make more sense of the passage. Is it possible Genesis 9:13 echoes a dim memory of a time when a new thing appeared in the sky? A thing, that spends most of its time, looking like a bow?

Ancient cultures have indeed preserved a ‘memory’ of a time when there allegedly was no Moon.

Life before the Moon

Many ancient writings, legends, oral traditions and historical reports mention a time and even peoples before the arrival of the Moon.

Democretus and Anaxagoras mention that there was a time when no moon could be seen in the night skies. (13) In describing the history of the Greek region of Arcadia, Aristotle writes that the Pelasgians lived in the area since very old times; at a time when the moon did not exist. (14)

 “Theodorus writes in his first book that the moon had appeared a little while before the war which was fought by Hercules against the giants.  Aristochius and Dionysius Chalcidensis, in the first of their works, confirm the same.”  “Mnaseas said that the Arcadians were born before the moon, and so they were called ‘proselenian’; meaning, ‘before the moon’.”  (15)

Apollonios from Rhodes mentions something similar; he talks about a time when not all of the celestial objects existed in the sky; before the time of Deucalion’s and Pyrra’s generation (before the cataclysm); when the moon did not exist and the only humans that existed were the Pelasgians living on the mountains of Arcadia (region in Greece). (16)

These inhabitants of Arcadia where also known as Proselenes (meaning “those that were before moon” in Greek), and of whom it is said that they dwelt on mountains and fed on acorns, before there was a moon.” (17)

In Plutarch’s work “Morals” we find the following: “There were Arcadians of Evander’s following, the so-called pre-Lunar people.(18) Similarly, Ovid wrote: “The Arcadians are said to have possessed their land before the birth of Zeus/Jove (Jupiter), and the folk is older than the Moon.” (19)

Censorinus also alludes to the time in the past when there was no moon in the sky. (20)

The Kalevala of the Finns recalls a time “when the Moon was placed in orbit.” (21)

Even Giordano Bruno (a 16th century Italian philosopher) makes reference to this in his ‘De Immenso’: (Bk IV, x, pp. 56-57):  “There are those who have believed that there was a certain time (as our Mythologian says) when the moon, which was believed to be younger than the sun, was not yet created.  The Arcadians, who dwelt not far from the Po, are believed to have been in existence before it (the moon).”  (22)

The oral traditions of Colombian Indians of the Bogota highlands in the eastern Cordilleras of Colombia refer to a time before the moon. . “In the earliest times, when the moon was not yet in the heavens,” say the tribesmen of Chibchas. (23)

Africa also provides its own evidence. According to Zulu legend, the Moon was brought hundreds of generations ago by two brothers of alien form, Wowane and Mpanku.

They stole the Moon in the form of an egg from the “Great Fire Dragon,” and emptied out the yolk until it was hollow. Then they “rolled” the Moon across the sky to the Earth which brought about cataclysmic events on this planet that ended the “Golden Age” of the past. (24)

There is also an ancient Australian Aboriginal story about a time before the Moon. This story comes to us from the peoples of Cape York.

“Many years ago, people realised that a light was needed at nighttime because they found it difficult to walk around or to hunt. The Sun lit up their daytime — something was needed to light up the night. They tried to light a big fire, but that was not bright enough.

One member of the tribe had great idea: why not make a special boomerang that would shine, throw it high in to the sky and at night this boomerang would give enough light to allow people and animals to see at night.

And, indeed they made a giant boomerang, but nobody was strong enough to throw it high into sky.

Then, a very thin, old, weak man stepped forward and politely asked if he could try. The old man threw it high into the sky. It went higher and higher and higher and finally stayed up in the sky as the Moon, shining down onto the people.” (25)

The textual and legendary/mythological references notwithstanding the notion that the Moon was placed into Earth’s orbit in humanity’s living memory must surely be a joke and without foundation.

Not quite.

Let us take a look at the hollow Moon theory. As farfetched and unscientific as it may sound there is compelling evidence for the existence of enormous cavities inside the Moon.

The first and most obvious is the apparent low density of the moon and the attendant weaker gravity – one sixth that of Earth. The moon’s mean density is 3.34 gm/cm3 whereas the Earth’s is 5.5gm/cm3.

In 1962, NASA scientist Dr. Gordon MacDonald stated,

“If the astronomical data are reduced, it is found that the data require that the interior of the moon is more like a hollow than a homogeneous sphere.” (26)

Nobel chemist Dr. Harold Urey suggested the moon’s reduced density is because of large areas inside the moon where there is “simply a cavity.” (27)

MIT’s Dr. Sean C. Solomon wrote,

“the Lunar Orbiter experiments vastly improved our knowledge of the moon’s gravitational field… indicating the frightening possibility that the moon might be hollow.” (28)

The idea of massive cavities inside the moon is not so farfetched, and it would certainly explain the low relative density and attendant lower gravity of the Moon. There is, however, an equally massive problem with this position. According to our best understanding of planetary formation a hollow object simply cannot form naturally, at least not an object the size of planet or moon.

The heavy materials are usually assumed to stay closer to the sun and form the core of the inner planets, with the lighter materials to be found in the mantle of the inner planets as well as the in the gas giants (which are significantly less dense than the inner planets) further out from the Sun. This model generally holds true pretty much for our Solar system. The notable exception is the Moon, who has a density comparable to Io, the largest Jovian moon.

What this model cannot account for is the formation of a hollow sphere or a sphere that has significant cavities.

In Carl Sagan’s treatise, Intelligent Life in the Universe, the famous astronomer stated, “A natural satellite cannot be a hollow object.” (29)

To lend further weight to the argument of large cavities or hollows in the Moon the seismic equipment on the Moon registered substantial reverberations on November 20, 1969, after the intentional jettisoning of the Apollo 12 lunar module’s ascent stage back to the surface. Not only did the Moon reverberate “like a bell,” it did so for over an hour.

‘After Pete Conrad and Al Bean landed at the Ocean of Storms on November 14, 1969, they left the lunar surface 142 hours into the flight. Eight hours later, they were reunited with Dick Gordon in the command module and sent their spent lunar module back to the Moon. It impacted about 40 miles away from the Apollo 12 landing site with the force of one ton of TNT. The resulting shockwave built up and peaked in just eight minutes. Then it took an hour to fully dissipate.

Something similar happened on Apollo 13. The S-IVB impacted the Moon 85 miles from Apollo 12’s ALSEP — CMP Jack Swigert joked at the time that it was the only thing on that mission to go right. It hit with the force of 11 and a half tons of TNT. This translated to a seismic impact peaked after seven minute with shockwaves 30 times greater and four times longer than those from Apollo 12’s LM impact.

The vibrations from these two impacts lasted longer than scientists expected, far longer than any equivalent vibrations last on Earth. It was almost as if the Moon was ringing like a bell. This strange result forced scientists to think differently about the Moon and its composition.’(30)

This implies that the Moon has large hollows or cavities that allow for the propagation of those shockwaves. To put it simply, the shockwaves did not encounter enough substantial material to stop them.

Marcus Lowth (Writer/UFO researcher) suggests that:

‘Despite the suggestions that the Moon might indeed be hollow—based upon NASA’s own experiments—the findings were largely downplayed by NASA in the years afterward. At least to the public’s knowledge, this has not been studied further.’(31)

Absurdly, the only theory that completely explains and account for all of the Moon’s anomalies and mystery is a theory that has been pushed to the fringes of pseudoscience. Perhaps, a little too hastily.

Spaceship Moon

In July of 1970, an article entitled “Is the Moon the Creation of Alien Intelligence?” was published in Sputnik by two members of the then Soviet Academy of Sciences, Michael Vasin and Alexander Shcherbakov.

Vasin and Shcherbakov’s thesis was that the Moon is a hollowed-out planetoid created by unknown beings with technology far superior to any on Earth. Huge machines would have been used to melt rock and form large cavities within the Moon.

The Moon would, therefore, consist of a hull-like inner shell and an outer shell made from metallic rocky slag. The “Spaceship Moon” was then placed into orbit around the Earth. It has been found that asteroids and meteors not only create shallow craters on the Moon’s surface, but produce a convex floor to the crater instead of concave as expected, supporting the idea of a rigid shell.

Their hypothesis relies heavily on the suggestion that large lunar craters, generally assumed to be formed from meteor impacts, are generally too shallow and have flat or even convex bottoms. They hypothesized that small meteors are making a cup-shaped depression in the rocky surface of the moon while the larger meteors are drilling through a rocky layer and hitting an armored hull underneath. (32/33)

All of the Moon’s mysteries, including the Sun – Moon –Earth relationship would be neatly solved if the Moon were indeed an artificial construct.

Our immediate reaction is derision, scorn and even anger. What a preposterous allegation!

Is it though?

We marvel at the Pyramids, the Jupiter temple of Baalbek, the Inca walls and many other construction feats of the ancient world without fully understanding how they were achieved or even why. In fact most we cannot duplicate today, or only with a completely uneconomical effort, stretching ourselves beyond reasonable limits.

Yet, the monuments exist.

We even dream up what advanced civilisations out there in the universe might be capable of. In 1964 Nikolai Kardashev, a Russian astrophysicist, proposed a scale by which to measure a civilisation’s technological achievement.

  1. A Type I civilization, also called a planetary civilization—can use and store all of the energy available on its planet.
  2. A Type II civilization, also called a stellar civilization—can use and control energy at the scale of its planetary system.
  3. A Type III civilization, also called a galactic civilization—can control energy at the scale of its entire host galaxy. (35)

In this scale our current civilization would be a Type 0, meaning we are not even on the scale. A Type II civilization, for example, would be able to build a Dyson sphere.

Considering the assumed age of the universe is 13.7 billion years, and our Earth is meant to have been around for 4.5 billion of those years, it seems almost staggeringly implausible to assume that there are no Type I, II or even III civilisations out there.

If there are Type II and Type III civilisations anywhere in this galaxy, or neighbouring galaxies, then the construction of a moon for a very specific purpose and according to very rigid specifications would not be an impossible or even amazing feat.

The question would be ‘why?’ – which brings me to the question I posed earlier on. What did find on the Moon and why did we not send a crewed mission in 50 years? In fact why did we not send any crewed space missions anywhere?

Apollo 17 was the last crewed mission, in December 1972.

Artemis 2 is a NASA planned crewed mission for 2022, but only Artemis 3 is scheduled to land on the Moon in 2024, intending to bring a man and a woman to the Moon.

52 years to get back to the Moon.

In light of recent events, such as the US Navy release of the Tic Tac UFO footage and the broadcast scientific findings on the Skinwalker Ranch documentary broadcast by Netflix one must ask if those 50 years were indeed some kind of moratorium that was placed upon us. Is humanity different today than it was 50 years ago?

Absolutely, we are. The last 50 years have seen an unprecedented increase and growth in our knowledge, technology and culture. The past 50 years saw us inundated with Science Fiction themes and Alien interactions.

We saw Science Fiction became reality, the almost pervasive internet (the new oracle), smart devices everywhere (Star Trek communicators), computing power beyond our wildest dreams and advances in smart materials, genetics, nanotech and global reach for all who can afford it.

Are we more ready today to face disclosure than we were 50 years ago? The answer in my estimation is, unwaveringly, yes.

In fact, 2020 might be best suited for such information to be released. After all, how much worse can the global situation get?

As stated in the beginning, this article is highly speculative and only wishes to raise questions, seeking genuine answers. The impossible, as our experience tells us, is just around the corner. All peoples in their respective ages held firmly to the belief that their view of the world was correct. Only the few questioned and attempted to alter the status quo.

Was the Moon build? By whom and for what purpose?

References

  1. https://www.lifedeathprizes.com/amazing-stuff/is-the-moon-real-36822
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin_(mythology)
  3. C. Bezold in Boll, Sternglaube und Sterndeutung, p. 4.
  4. S. Langdon, Sumerian and Babylonian Psalms 1909, p. 193.
  5. (Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans, p. 124; cf. Lewy, “The Late Assyro-Babylonian Cult of the Moon” ).
  6. Dabistan (ch. 29), On Moon worship among the ancient Arabs, cf. also Tuch, “Sinaitische Inschriften,” Zeitschrift des Deutsches Morgenlaendisches Gesellschaft III (1849), p. 202, and Osiander, “Vorislamische Religion der Araber,” ibid., VII (1853), p. 483. Cf. I. Goldziger, Mythology among the Hebrews and its Historical Development (1877), p. 72ff.
  7. (R. Graves, The Greek Myths [London, 1955] vol. I, sec. 42.1).
  8. Christoval de Molina (An Account of the Fables and Rites of the Yncas, transl. by C. R. Markham [London, 1873], p. 56).
  9. (E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture [New York,, 1929], p. 299), (ibid., loc. cit.)].
  10. See Sargon II’s “Display Inscription,” lines 110 and 146: “since the distant days of the age of Nannaru.” Cf. H. Winckler, Himmels und Weltenbild der Babylonier (Leipzig, 1901), p. 31: “Die aeltere Zeit bezeichnet Sargon II als die Zeit der Nannar—eine Erscheinungsform des Mondgottes.”
  11. R. W. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament (New York, 1912), p. 46.].
  12. D. D. Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria (1926-27), II. 870; cf. J. Lewy, “The Late Assyro-Babylonian Cult of the Moon and its Culmination in the Time of Nabonidus,” Hebrew Union College Annual (19xx), pp. 443, 461ff., 486.
  13. Hippolytus, Refutatio Omnium Haeresium V. ii.
  14. Aristotle, fr. 591 (ed. V. Rose [Teubner:Tuebingen, 1886] ). Cf. Pauly’s Realencyclopaedie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, article “Mond” ; H. Roscher, Lexicon d. griech. und roemisch. Mythologie, article “Proselenes.”
  15. http://www.halexandria.org/dward200.htm
  16. Argonautica IV.264.
  17. https://www.historydisclosure.com/there-was-a-time-when-the-moon-did-not-exist/
  18.   Plutarch, Moralia, transl. by F. C. Babbit, sect. 76.
  19.   Fasti, transl. by Sir J. Frazer, II. 290.
  20. Liber de die natali 19; also scholium on Aristophanes’ Clouds, line 398.
  21. Kaleval, (Rune III.35)]
  22. http://www.halexandria.org/dward200.htm
  23. A. von Humboldt, Vues des Cordilléres (1816), English transl.:Researches Concerning the Institutions and Monuments of the Ancient Inhabitants of America, (1814), vol. I, p. 87; cf. H. Fischer,In mondener Welt (1930), p. 145
  24. https://doowansnewsandevents.wordpress.com/tag/zulu-mythology-about-the-moon/
  25. http://aboriginalastronomy.blogspot.com/2012/01/origin-of-moon.html
  26. https://hypnagogia.wordpress.com/2016/01/22/who-built-the-moon/
  27. https://hypnagogia.wordpress.com/2016/01/22/who-built-the-moon/
  28. https://hypnagogia.wordpress.com/2016/01/22/who-built-the-moon/
  29. https://hypnagogia.wordpress.com/2016/01/22/who-built-the-moon/
  30. https://www.popsci.com/does-moon-sound-like-bell/
  31. https://listverse.com/2017/11/15/10-weird-anomalies-and-bizarre-conspiracies-of-the-moon/
  32. http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/luna/esp_luna_16.htm
  33. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Moon
  34. https://www.gaia.com/article/the-hollow-moon-theory-is-the-moon-an-artificial-satellite
  35. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale

Further reading:

  • “Who built the Moon?” by Christopher Knight and Alan Butler

[1] This is called the sidereal month

Technology, Social Change and the New Paradigm

Racism is as old as time, as are abuses of power, inequality, stratification of societies and the general notion of injustice.

Each revolution brought with it a distinct ‘before’ and ‘after’. The change involved in getting from the ‘before’ to the ‘after’ was usually prolonged, painful and generational. The fall of Rome ushered in a thousand years of darkness in Europe, the fall of Constantinople, on the other hand opened the flood gates of knowledge that led to the European Renaissance.

The Industrial Revolution saw the rise of worker’s rights, unions and labour agreements. In fact, most of the conditions we consider normal in our every day working lives, such as paid holiday and sick leave, overtime pay, the right to strike, regulated working hours and conditions as well as worker safety were hard fought for and painfully gained over decades of struggle.

What we have witnessed in recent times is an increase in the instances of change, each decade, each year, and then each month change was the only certainty. Technology is rushing us along the path of our accelerated history. Moore’s law seems to be limping behind.

Now this change is upon on us on an almost daily basis.

So, what? What have Racism and Revolution to do with accelerated technological change?

There are two fundamental issues we are facing presently. The institutionalized racism towards indigenous peoples (The First Nations of the Americas, the Aboriginals of Australia, the African nations and tribes long traumatized by colonial rule and many more) as well as the institutionalized racism against the imported slave labour in many countries but specifically in the Americas.

The levels of brutality, inequality and despair are beyond the understanding of anyone who has not experienced it. The murder (systematic – some might say) of these minorities is as plain a fact as the gravitational pull of the moon that causes our tides. It is not new.

What is new is that for the first time we witnessed the perfect storm of technological enablement, opportunity and atrocity. Our bandwidth speeds, the all-pervasive devices – video and audio enabled, the legion of social media platforms and streaming services, our very ‘connectedness’ have made us witnesses to murder most foul.

And crucially, we have a population that is technologically aware. Soon there will be nobody left who remembers not being connected. It is changing the very fabric of our human interactions.

No longer was it part of a news report or a statistic quoted in some paper or droned on about by some professors or social commentators. No, this was visceral, this was unprecedented. We watched the murder of a human being as it unfolded. There was no filter, just the raw reality.

We watched it and we did not understand why George Floyd had to die. We watched it but could not do anything. Some might have thought what if this was me or someone I love? The bystanders made us all eye-witnesses. Technology made us face the ugly underbelly of reality. We could no longer hide behind ‘I did not know’ or ‘I did not realise…” – we saw a man, suffocating, calling for his mother. He is now Anyman.

This is not the first time it happened, and I am certain that much worse things have happened, even in recent history. But it is the first time that so many of us were there. Our technological age will, no matter what else it may bring, usher in the answer to the age-old question of ‘Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?’ – Who watches the watchers? We all do.

Our revolution is a revolution of social change, enabled by our technology, not a single piece of technology but the ecosystem of technology we created. Individuals are being held accountable, senior figures resign in disgrace or protest, entire institutions are being dismantled.

All because we have the bandwidth, devices, protocols, social media platforms, cloud computing infrastructures and ability to be almost everywhere at once.

We must be wary of how to deploy our technology lest we mindlessly move like a great organism, individuals nothing but cells in this great behemoth. We must remain moral and ethical human beings. We must continue to reason and seek the right answers. Too easily can one be swept up in the Mob. This too technology enables – anonymity and the abdication of individual responsibility.

We must act responsibly and wisely. If we can I do not know.

Thoughts

These, then, were the Floyd wars.
Or the Epstein wars. Or the Pell wars. Or the trade wars.

Or the never ending wars on ideas, concepts, slogans – immaterial, impossible to define but, oh, ever so profitable.

It was a time when men of God raped their flock, and all knew and none were punished.
It was a time when the billionaires no longer wanted to be the ‘have-most’s’, they wanted to be the ‘have-it-all’s’
Wealth of nations disappeared into coffers of the few.
It was a time when the rich no longer answered to the laws.
It was a time when the few rich were sacrificed to protect the tribes of the rich in their depravities.

It was a time of slavery and abuse.
It was a time of failed systems and dying institutions, but, zombie-like, they marched on, unaware and unwilling to acknowledge the rot deep in their bones.

It was a time of unequaled advances, potential health and wealth for all but greed festered uncontrollably in every corner.

It was a time of disease.
It was a time of homelessness and forgotten veterans from wars that served no moral purpose.
It was a time when hundreds of millions could not work, could not hope, could not build.

It was a time when Twitter presidents and tyrants and despots and self-serving bureaucrats determined the fate of nations looking to blame each other for all the ills and hoping none would look too closely.

It was a time when many said ‘No more’ and were jailed and killed and tortured and disappeared and silenced and ignored for their troubles. Lucky to be ignored.

It was a time when they could bear no more and violence and provocation and false truths reigned in the world.
What came then was the mighty upheaval, waking the long slumbering leviathan, the wrath of the many, the poor, the forgotten, the inconsequential, the ‘useless eaters’.

What happened then many saw coming, but few recognised for what it was.
The end of all certainty.
A time of flux.
We are writing the story. Not some unknowable force.
We are responsible to history.
We will be judged.

The Age of Clone

Please, oh please, dear lord, make Abrams stop.
I sat through six seasons of ‘Lost’, expecting a massive pay-off in the final episodes but was left thinking – really? I mean really?
This was followed by one of the biggest hypes in recent movie history – Cloverfield, and again I was left wondering what had happened in those two hours I will never get back. (Now there is going to be a sequel – but why?)
Clearly too stupid to learn from my mistakes I then went on to watch the rebooted Star Trek franchise, which did not upset me too much. Except they were the same storylines only with a Bizzaro world twist. Everything was mirror reversed. Spock shouting ‘Khan’, instead of Kirk and the like.
Ok, I can deal with that, especially after Scott Bakula destroyed the TV Star Trek franchise – one Quantum Leap too far?
But now that I have seen Star Wars VII I know – to some extent – how audiences felt in 1977, at least as far as the story goes. Because it was the SAME movie!!! Only with a bigger death star and better special effects – really? I mean – really?
There was nothing else in all the worlds of imagination that they could put to paper and then onto the silver screen but the same story? I guess Disney is to blame as well  – Avatar was just Pocahontas in space with cool special effects – same formula.
I predict that this our age will become known as the age of the reboot and clone flicks, with Disney the grand temple of profit and Abrams its supreme priest.
Please, oh please, give me a few more original pictures like ‘They live’, ‘The man from Earth’, ‘The game’ (with Michael Douglas – how about that ending?), ‘Casablanca’ (there is no cooler final scene) or even ‘Spirited away’. You notice something here? No sequels. No franchise. Just great self-contained stories that will leave an impression.
I know the gods of profit reign supreme, but one can hope.

Musings

All of us have favourite books we re-read time and again. These books are places where one can hide, rest and imagine different lives, different times. They have a familiar feel to them, they smell  just right and as soon as the words scroll by one is displaced and captivated.

They allow us to return to times in our lives long thought lost by recapturing vivid memories and associations we had at the time of reading them for the first, the second, the tenth time.

I, myself, have five such books. I will re-read them from time to time. I am drawn to the stories they reveal, the emotions they conjure deep within me. I am happy when I read them, content. I am transported, changed, as each reading will reveal a new detail or a forgotten connection, triggering dormant sections of my mind.

These books are, in no particular order, Healer by F. Paul Wilson, Tuf Voyaging by George R R Martin (written well before his GoT fame), What Mad Universe by Frederic Brown, Hurra, wir leben noch and Es muss nicht immer Kaviar sein, both by Johannes Mario Simmel, and, I fear, not translated into English.

The books by Simmel have the added advantage of purportedly being true stories. Simmel chronicled the events of both books, taking the point of view of the respective protagonists, Jakob Formann (not his real name), a self-made industrialist in post-war Europe, and Thomas Lieven (not his real name), whose story is too unbelievable not to be true.

The other three works are all Science Fiction, but Science Fiction with a decidedly human bend. A man displaced into an alternate reality, similar but maddeningly different from his. It is all he can do to stay alive. Another man unwittingly sharing his body with a second, invading mind, whose consciousness reaches down to the cellular level, leading to inevitable immortality and all its trappings. The final man, not so much a man, but a stylised symbol of a man, stilted, exceedingly well-spoken, philanthropic, fragile and omnipotent – an itinerant merchant without a sense for business in the possession of one of the most powerful weapons ever dreamed up by Science Fiction.

I am not entirely sure what these books say about me, but they are my favourites such as they are. I would take them on a one-way-trip to Mars, pack them in my steamer trunk as I set out to the Paleolithic and strap them to my chest as I tumble down the Einstein-Rosen bridge.

I have learned (and still am), upon reflection, much and more from those books. Mostly how to deal with the unexpected, the shocking, the new and frightening. All the protagonists are anti-heroes, they are all flawed, they are all, in the end, completely dependent upon their own wits and ingenuity to survive and carry on another day.

Maybe you can look at your favourite books anew and ask yourself what they say about you.

Another night at Lau Pa Sat

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The sounds, smells and atmosphere at one of Singapore’s best night food markets is unbeatable. As soon you enter you will be approached by various food hawkers proffering their wares. The selection is second to none and since it was recently renovated it has become a little more upmarket – I miss the old more gritty feel – it seemed more authentic. Nonetheless, a definite – die, die, must try – there is something for everyone.

Make sure you get the stretch tea, but ask the purveyor before you take pictures – common courtesy.

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We had a group of about 10, so no, I am not a glutton – 😉 Go with a large group and try as much as you can! Afterwards some nice cool juicy fruit or an ice kachang do not go astray.

Naturally, we were served by the ubiquitous Tiger Beer ladies and also enjoyed the cold fresh lime juice.