As a kid, I deliberately cut myself with a knife. Several times. I did it on my own, no-one made me or encouraged me in any way. The proximate goal was to experience the pain of a flesh wound without actually being stabbed. It was extremely painful for a child, but I did it again. And again. More than the knife or a potential infection, I feared the adults would catch me do it or see the blood. There would be endless explanations followed by whining (not mine, obviously), arguing, possibly calling the doctor and the Armenian pope. I would not see the end of it for days and months. THAT would be pain.
I’d spend off-school summers at my grandparents’ farm and that’s where I ran all sorts of secret experiments (I don’t remember ever getting caught). We had livestock, fowl, even a farm dog, so there were plenty of animals around to torture. The animals I fed, groomed, cleaned after; the experiments I ran on myself. (No, I did not need an ethics class or a special message from “morality” to figure any of that out.) I did the trials for two reasons. The first one was curiosity and desire to understand the world around me. Ultimately: to tame fear of the unknown, of all that could happen, of death itself. My instincts must have told me that I had to figure myself out before laying claim to the world.
The second reason was that I was usually bored to death. There was only so much farm work that the adults would let me do, and there weren’t any kids around that I would want to play with. My despair was such that sometimes I would walk the country roads in the high-noon heat of summer, when even the birds hid from the deadly Sun. Just so I wouldn’t have to stay caged in the house doing nothing or in the slow decay of sleep. I suspect I instinctively felt that the distress and exhaustion would somewhat alleviate my existential dread. And of course, at least initially, the walks were another test – of how much heat and dehydration I could take.
Towards Wizardry
All my family cared for me, yet I had a most miserable childhood. Mind you, my parents didn’t impose any unusual restrictions on what I could do. When I was about 8 or 9, I inadvertently formatted my father’s only working computer and made all manner of unique data irrecoverable (again – out of boredom more than curiosity). I expected some form of dressing down for thinkering, but no. His genuine reaction was to have a laugh over not being able to recover anything because of how well I had done it. I couldn’t believe it, but immediately understood the lesson. We set about getting the machine to work right away. (I don’t want to imagine what helicopters do to their young to protect them from failure.)
It’s not like I did not have other strategies to fight boredom. I’d bring a pile of books when going to my voluntary exiles on the farm, but I’d run through them in days. An abyss of empty weeks and months would then stare at me before the dreaded school-year started (moar boredom). Thinkering was not just a way of life, but a way of survival. One of many desperate days, I climbed into the attic of my grandparents’ house and started digging through the old boring books for adults which nobody read. There I stumbled on a handbook about child development, which my parents had probably never cracked open.
The book, written about 1960-1970 in the Soviet Union, discussed things like sex, puberty and child psychology. I was 10, possibly much younger. That remains the most terrifying day of my life, although I have had three near-death experiences. I was so horrified that I could not put the book down; I had to start rereading it as soon as I had finished. Overnight I would hide it away, so it wouldn’t be used as kindling or “reorganized” somewhere.
It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience.
— Julius Caesar— Daily Zen (@dailyzen) October 19, 2017
When I was about 13, I wrote my first essay on the psychology of the unconscious (for philosophy class in school). The teachers couldn’t believe what I had written and thought I had somehow cheated. That day was the first time I realized you cannot tell people what they are – you can only show them. (I would have to relearn that lesson many times.) I also got my first indication that people never really change their minds. You had to bulldoze over their predispositions and literally destroy their beliefs before anything new would be allowed to take root, let alone flourish. So I shifted my focus to books with more indirection and practical knowledge like “How to Make Friends and Influence People”.
None of this was some childish rebellion. It was the same inner drive, searching and being redirected less haphazardly and more constructively. I had effectively gained my independence from any parental control by about 14-15. That little adjustment took the shape of my not eating for three days, which I was already experimenting with secretly. I don’t remember the occasion and it doesn’t matter. Probably it was because of some parental lie which incited savage retribution. I could take any advice, bad decision or criticism from my parents, but lying got NO KUARTER.
As a teenager, my focus shifted from boredom-based experimentation to more deliberate savagery because girls. This included the obvious: physical training like lifting weights and doing 700 sit-ups in one go, or picking up karate – although the idea of being beaten up on the dojo in front of dozens of people absolutely petrified me. By age 16-17, I would get up at midnight, do any homework/studying that needed to be done (perhaps), take a cold shower by 5 and be on the public bus to school before most adults had even brushed their teeth. This after martial practice, which frequently ended late at night. So I could have coffee (and not infrequently vodka) with girls socially before first class for the day started. Thus, most “adults” were physically excluded from my daily life; I’d only see my parents having their morning coffee, and perhaps for a cigarette together before I left for “school”. And school was ludus hominum.
By the time I was 18, I had long been aware that people are irrational (myself included), and that many educated people are imbeciles regurgitating vacuous platitudes like “math is the language of the universe”. (My high-school math teacher didn’t say that because he was not an imbecile; teacher-wise I was very privileged.) Throughout my adult life, any attempt to share my experiences and discoveries crashed into a wall of fear, scientism and the illiterate junk that pervades popular “culture”.
Say less.
— sᴛᴀʀᴛᴜᴘ ᴅᴀᴇᴍᴏɴ (@startupdaemon) January 26, 2018
On the very last day before my high-school graduation, the philosophy teacher was doing oral exams for students who wanted to make up a grade. Girls in my class had nicknamed her “The Joker” because of the mounds of makeup on her face. Some minutes in, The Joker pontificated that the meaning of life was the pursuit of knowledge, possibly while (mis)quoting some ancient Greek author. By then, I knew better than to argue with idiots, but I was so aggravated that I could not contain myself. I explained politely that she was basically begging the question and there could not be received meaning to life on that basis. She suddenly was so infuriated that she stopped examining and many students didn’t get to improve their grades. I felt terrible about that, but after class, people were congratulating me instead of worrying about their grades. Even the worst students sensed that she was a fraud, and enjoyed having her exposed in public.
Scientistic Fraud, Slavery and the Base
Most of public education, particularly in the United States, is based on and proliferates some form of scientistic fraud. The differential diagnosis for scientistics is that the person assumes credibility for anything that follows the phrase “scientists say”. Scientistics includes the religious belief in science (scientism), but also the corrupt use of pseudoscience for imbecilic or untoward purposes. Most “science” coverage in the press is a form of scientistic fraud. Scientistic fraud is luddic almost by definition because most of the perpetrators have tenure or six-figure fellowships at “research” institutes and “think” tanks.
Some days ago, I wrote a missive on public savagery as an antidote to luddic fraud. The tweet went viral when NNT retweeted it. Hours after making that writing public, I received an email from a Washington lobbyist, which presented an opportunity for savagery. Although there is no expectation for privacy for any stranger who sends me unsolicited messages, I would not make it public if it did not begin with luddic name-dropping of former associates, who surely have not endorsed the lobbyist’s purpose (the author of the email would have mentioned it if they had and they would have reached out to let me know about the reference; altered their names to protect them from “guilt by association”).
I will not pick apart the cited papers point by point. The email was striking not for using pseudoscience, but for abusing the claims of the respective authors without restraint. The Mercatus paper they cite deals mostly with federal regulation, is almost entirely theoretical and provides zero evidence for the specific issue. The Harvard paper makes no mention of credit card debt “collections” or the “statute of limitations” on them. But the lobbyists want help to defeat a Massachusetts bill that will make it easier for people with credit card debt to recover from delinquency.
This is the Base in pure form: disgusting, imbecilic, scientistically fraudulent and unabashed in its impertinence. In this case, the Base is to extend the terms of debt slavery for poor Americans, making sure that they never recover from the abuse of banks and debt collectors. In any situation where you observe the Base, there are only two paths which make sense. One is to remove yourself, the other – to remove the Base. No compromise, no kuarter. The only room in-between those options is in the solitary-confinement ward of a psychiatric hospital.
If you don’t scrape the Base off your boots, don’t be surprised if you find it in your home.
— sᴛᴀʀᴛᴜᴘ ᴅᴀᴇᴍᴏɴ (@startupdaemon) February 1, 2018
Blood in the Game
Blood in the game is the most powerful antidote to scientistic fraud and the Base because it allows the practitioner to step outside the frame of “the system” while instilling fear and confusion, paralyzing away some of the toxic output almost immediately. Scientistics fear people with blood in the game because it indicates a certain level of “madness” by painoff: forfeiting academic appointments, awards and “the respect of the community” a priori. The same “headless chicken” reaction can be observed when someone with blood in the game penetrates any other bureaucracy such as a corporate or governmental environment.
In my experience, putting blood in the game has always produced a barbell of reactions. On one end of the distribution are people who value the outlandishness and effectiveness of my output and daring. On the other are headless chicken who do not understand it nor are able to resist it while alternating between paralysis and runaround panic.
It is impossible for the individual and society at large to grasp the complexity of what is. Uncertainty pervades existence and many retreat in fear. Some in the distractions of daily life, others in the false safety of charlatan forecasts, still others in their own lies. Blood in the game is largely driven by a recognition that one’s own life and experience are subject to the vagaries of the world. To improve one’s chances in a noisy world, one inflicts noise upon oneself. The key distinction between the weightlifter heading for the gym to practice for a competition and the hunter with blood in the game is that while gym practice has a predictable range of outcomes, only one thing is predictable about putting blood in the game – the painoff.
Blood in the game is about redrawing the game board with one’s own. Someone with blood in the game often deviates from one’s own routines to “see what happens”. Self-disruption is the core distinction of blood in the game. This is not haphazard or necessarily reckless. There is a strong deterrent because routine-breaking is painful, almost by definition, and the painoff is immediate. With skin in the game, one learns from one’s mistakes by suffering losses. With blood in the game, one intentionally makes “mistakes” with guaranteed harm to oneself, with the purpose of improvement. No pain, no gain.
Take the path of most resistance.
Success and contentment are built on this simple rule.
— sᴛᴀʀᴛᴜᴘ ᴅᴀᴇᴍᴏɴ (@startupdaemon) November 18, 2017
The practice of blood in the game wasn’t born yesterday. A common theme among revolutionary thinkerers is that they frequently were social (self-)rejects and pursued innovation in spite of their immediate self-interest, often even in spite of their immediate self-preservation. Public humiliation, loss of job opportunities and even death are common amongst famous thinkerers (Galileo, Copernicus, Archimedes, Tesla).
During the 2016 US presidential election, Scott Adams predicted the win of D. J. Trump at tremendous personal cost, losing millions of dollars in speaking fees because of his unpopular views (not least, that people are irrational apes) and “guilt by association”. For well over a year, he was subjected to public ridicule and regarded as a “fringe” wacko, then gradually even the mainstream started realizing that he might be right. His stated goal and idea was to build a new public platform and change the way people “think” about popular opinion, decision-making and “rationality”.
Lack of blood in the game is a core reason social structures die because blood in the game is how innovation survives despite a seemingly “safe” environment. Steve Jobs ensured the survival of Apple and the successful launch of the iPod by merciless culling of existing products amid the discombobulated resistance of board members and executives. Then cannibalized the market appeal of the iPod (a hit product) with the iPhone. This is an example of a rare phenomenon: blood in the game implemented by a corporate head.
The blood in the metaphor is not just a reflection of the painoff. Think of blood here as a life force as well. Systems which accommodate individuals with blood in the game are more likely to develop antifragile properties than systems which stop at skin in the game. When you practice blood in the game, you become the life force of the world, but you may perish in the process.
The Great Mother Goddess and Her Son
As we often find in our distracted lives, what we see as new or profound was mundane to the ancients. Blood in the game is just another iteration – or the practical archetype – of the Thraco-Phrygian myth of the Great Mother Goddess and her Son. In the earliest known versions of this myth from Thrace and Anatolia, the Son’s blood must be spilt so that the Mother would be impregnated and the cycles of life resume. The Son’s sacrifice would ensure the renewal of the world – but not its repetition or replication. The myth was about rebirth, but it was world-ending. “What has been has been and must be set aside.” This savagery was embedded in Thracian ritual tradition. Thracian funerals were orgiastic celebrations, especially if the deceased had fallen in combat.
After the Thracian settlement of northwestern Anatolia, the cult of the Mother – by then known as Cybele – came to dominate the entire region and the later Hellenistic kingdoms of Phrygia and Bythinia. In Greece, she was Rhea, mother of all. Her main cult center may have been the Thracian city of Cabyle (KABYLH) near the Odrysian Valley of Kings. Meanwhile, the Son would evolve into the central Thracian deity Sabazios, a slaying horseman and god of sky and thunder.
Sabazios or his Orphic predecessors were adopted by the Greeks/Romans as Dionysus/Bacchus – god of fertility and, appropriately, profusion – alongside Thrace’s orgiastic traditions of honoring these gods with wine-drenched debauchery. The cult of Sabazios himself spread to Anatolia and ultimately throughout the Roman Empire. Demosthenes describes the ritual ecstasy of priestesses dancing with snakes to welcome the arrival of Sabazios, intoxicated by wine and the blood of sacrificial animals, which were often dismembered. A perfect example of mass hysteria. Even when depicted on horseback, Sabazios is often seen with an expression of rage, pain or madness, one hand reaching plaintively towards the sky.
The pervasive theme of the cults of Dyonisios, Bacchus and Sabazios is that of mystic ritual, not typical of native Greco-Roman traditions. It celebrates chaos and the abandonment of established order so that rebirth and renewal become possible. The semblance with the Hindu cult of Shiva, the ying-yang god of destruction and creation, is eery.
The cult of Sabazios may have influenced that of St George (a serpent-slaying horseman which originated in Anatolia) and St Elijah (prophet associated with thunder and the sky). The “-zios” term in the god’s name is a cognate of Greek “θεός” and “Zeus”. Peculiarly, “Saba-“ appears similar to Latin “salvare”. Can you think of any other Son who had to bleed so the world would be saved? Or should I draw you a picture?