PTSD by Design

audio version of PTSD by Design

Your first minutes in boot camp are when it begins.  You and those with whom you arrived all line up in some semblance of a formation in whatever clothes you made the trip in.  Your Drill Instructor though, is resplendent in an immaculate uniform.  So is his superior officer and so are his subordinates, all of their uniforms look like a carefully photoshopped advertisement for perfection.  You are part of a rag tag, shoddy group of nobodies but they, they are the ruling class and you can immediately see that they are and why.  You have barely arrived and your indoctrination has begun with a bang.

You are soon introduced to your "barber".  Whether or not he has any real skill at styling hair or any particular barbering abilities is something none of you will ever know or need to know.  He is going to cut all of the recruits’ hair off on this visit and on any subsequent visits.  After the hair removal, you all line up to be issued "uniforms".  Oh no, not uniforms like your Drill Instructor's.  Your uniforms will never be described as "resplendent".  They are working clothes, drab and functional and quite intentional.  You are not now, nor will you ever be the equal of that god-like Drill Instructor in his sartorial perfection or any other way.  That is what your indoctrination is telling you and it is a very compelling argument.

Off you go to learn to march.  Even though marching has not come in handy in combat for 300 or so years, you learn to march in step with your platoon mates.  It is the most obvious indication of the effort to diminish individuality and convert you all into a single machine of many parts.  You learn various drill maneuvers and you practice them until you actually do them in your sleep.  There is also plenty of instruction in exactly how you are to keep your uniforms and how you are to wear your uniforms.  The rank structure is explained to you in excruciating detail over and over and over again.  Pretty much everything you are expected to know is explained to you that way and then, you are expected to practice it.  All of that knowledge, all of the actions will become as automatic and familiar as the movement of your legs and arms.

There is much more to learn and as you progress, the knowledge you have already acquired is built upon.  That is completely normal and predictable.  What might not be as obvious is that the indoctrination is following a similar path.  You have been taught to do even the simplest things a very specific way to achieve a very specific outcome.  You have been taught through military drill to follow orders immediately and without question.  You know at a glance who you must show respect and who (if anyone at this early state) is junior to you and must show you respect.  You know how you must address anyone you encounter.  You have also been taught that you all are a single unit and any failure is a failure of the unit.

By the time you leave boot camp you have acquired an impressive amount of knowledge and habits in a brief time.  But you're not done, not by a long shot.  The things that you learn in boot are expanded and refined throughout your professional training and indeed, throughout your military career.  Every day, every minute you are in your indoctrination continues and is made stronger and more permanent.  Regardless of the job you have chosen (been assigned), the unit you join or, the rank you achieve, your indoctrination continues.  That is completely by design.

Training is not the only place to receive the indoctrination.  Actual operations, doing the job you have been trained for, will continue your indoctrination.  Combat in particular is an intense and accelerated aspect of military indoctrination.  No matter the activity, in recreation, in recovery from illness or injury, in training or at work, in ways subtle and overt the indoctrination continues.

Until you get out.  Then it stops.  Cold Turkey.  Immediately.  You are traumatically separated from that you have been relentlessly trained to identify with.  At best it is about like running out of the hot water in the mix to create your nice warm shower.  Going from luxuriously warm to harshly cold in a few seconds gets your attention.  At worst it is like waking up from a nap with a limb missing.  Either way it is a traumatic shock.  Sometimes you learn to deal with it.  The conditions under which you served, the justness of your cause and other aspects of your service can make your transition a lot less impossible.  Still, it is a shock.  It is supposed to be.  You have trained and lived and eaten, slept and breathed a different way of doing things until the day you no longer did.  

The alienness of civilian life - even the things you love, the familiarity of the military - even the things you hate, are different for every service member.  The existence of those concepts however, is consistent across the board.  Again, it is by design.  It is supposed to be that way.  You are expected to be 100% committed to your shipmates and job anytime you are assigned to a military command.

I am not a doctor and psychology is not my field of expertise.  Still, it is my considered opinion that the conditions I describe above conspire to insure that anyone who makes it more than a couple of weeks into boot camp has some level of PTSD.  The longer you are in, the more intense your service, the more sensitive you are, the greater the conflict with your belief system, the more drastic the differences between your life before the military and your time in, can all influence how "bad" your PTSD will be.  It may be so mild you think it not worth mentioning but, it is still there.

I used to “wake up” hearing a cryptographic machine alarm and walk into the living room looking for the machine so that I could correct the problem.  Of course, there was no machine in the living room and I had been out of Navy for months or years when I heard the alarms.  I still occasionally rush to do something that hasn't needed me to do it in 35 years or so, ignoring the fact that the materials I would need and the equipment I would work on could not possibly be around.  With decreasing intensity as the years roll on, I still lament the loss of friends and shipmates and feel guilt that I made it when they did not.  The closest I ever was to combat was the occasional bar fight.  I didn't fly a plane or shoot a big gun (or a small one for that matter).  Nothing ever exploded close to me.  All of the things the public has been led to expect to be present in PTSD cases have nothing to do with me, except the indoctrination.  My indoctrination was as complete as anyone's.  My issues, and trust me - the above descriptions are nowhere near a complete inventory, exist because the indoctrination took.  PTSD is by design.  If we ever decide to honor our debt to those who sign up and serve, as a nation we will fund and create a de-indoctrination program that will have to be a part of every service member's exit.  We need to invest in the time and energy it takes to undo SOME of the psychological changes necessitated by being in the military.  I am not ashamed or regretful of my service at any level.  I have largely readjusted to being a civilian (but boy did it take a while) but my situation was not everyone's.  There are men and women coming back who have gone through hells that I quite thankfully, cannot imagine.  If I could have benefitted from such a de-indoctrination program as I suggest should be in place, just think of the good that could be done for them.

As is all too frequently the case, PTSD is in the public awareness again because of a tragedy.  The deaths of movie subject Chris Kyle and his business partner at the hands of an afflicted individual and the subsequent and ongoing trial, serves to alert distracted citizens that potential problems walk among us.  The attention will not last but the problem will.  Those who can source their PTSD to military service are everywhere in this nation. They are your neighbors and coworkers, your elected officials and law officers.  They are members of your family.  If you are lucky, their experience with it is as mild as mine.  If you are not lucky, you - or your survivors - may come to agree with me that we need to be as active and intentional and comprehensive in our approach to treating PTSD as we are in instilling it.  No, I do not believe that we desire or intend our combat vets to return home “straight up crazy”.  The extreme cases have causes all their own.  But for an awful lot of us, our PTSD is by design.  If our veterans are to ever be free of that malady, it will have to be by design as well.

Nuclear Act One

Nuclear Act One audio version

We will never see another voluntary relinquishing of nuclear weapons/capability. The reason for this is us.

Wait, let me rephrase that. The reason we will never see another voluntary relinquishing of nuclear weapons is the USA. We could have done things differently but, we didn't.

During 45's term he inexplicably chose to vacate the agreement that had been negotiated by a previous administration with Iran. The result of that was that Iran made the perfectly rational decision to renew their efforts to join the nuclear club. Because he chose not to honor a reasonable international agreement, no leaders of other nations will ever consider such an agreement "ironclad" ever again.

When the USSR broke up, some of the former constituent nations had nuclear leftovers. Those who didn't want the hassle and expense of maintenance and upkeep voluntarily gave up that nuclear material. Ukraine was one of those nations. The USA tacitly agreed to ensure there were no negative repercussions from their greater good act. Then Russia invaded them and we did diddly squat. 47 has shown a distinct preference for interacting with autocrats and Putin is his favorite. So even the monetary and weapons assistance they have gotten from us is at risk immediately upon 47's inauguration.

The rest of the world has no problem seeing this. The entirety of the world in no longer under the delusion that the USA will protect them if they give up their nuclear ability or ambition. The rest of the world will have their fingers crossed behind their backs and a smirk on their lips as they sign "ironclad" agreements with the USA knowing full well that the next POTUS might just decide to not honor it.

Governance at all levels, from the hyper-local to the international (and probably beyond in the not-so-distant future) is predicated on the willingness of the populace to be governed. When the population refuses, governance doesn't happen. When the population has no trust in the documents and agreements of governance, they are significantly less likely to participate and/or adhere to the conditions of the agreement. We have burned such trust and good will as we had acquired post WWII. The next time we want to talk to a nation about their nuclear abilities/ambitions, we will need to show up with money and will probably still not be trusted.

You might be forgiven for kneejerking to the idea that this is not something you, on American soil, need to worry about. I think you're wrong. The expense of nuclear technology includes the cost to secure the facility and/or the material and/or the device(s). With no known threat, there would be extreme temptation to save money by reducing security. There are probably a thousand terror groups in the world actually salivating over the prospect. A lot of them want to kill you. The potential for terror groups that want me dead of having access to nuclear weapons/material is something that I think bears watching.

Either way, we have screwed the pooch. Once a nation's leaders decide to sell their nuclear materials, it will be difficult to justify not going with the highest bidder regardless of who that is. I can pretty much guarantee that we are not going to like the repercussions of our actions.

I ain't psychic but, I can see.

Savant or Saboteur?

 Savant or Saboteur?

Audio version of Savant or Saboteur?

Have you ever donated blood? If yes, are you dead? Why not?

No really, explain to me why taking a significant percentage of your blood did not kill you. Feel free to pause your reading right here and explain in comments why that didn't kill you. I'll wait here.

If I were to speak of the breadbasket of the USA, what picture comes to mind? For many of us, it is the Mississippi River valley and plains. Apparently areas the Mississippi River floods into are really good for human agriculture.

In CPR training years ago, we were taught that our exhaled breath contained enough oxygen to justify sharing that breath with someone in desperate need for whatever reason.

There are certainly other examples you can think of on your own but I'm just gonna start here. If your body was a truly efficient machine, it would have exactly as much blood as it needed. Any loss of blood would be fatal. If your body was a truly efficient machine, you would metabolize all of the oxygen taken in with each breath. Since we know that flood plains are good for agriculture, farming there would be more efficient than constructing reservoirs that keep that prime property under water.

There is much to like about a simple process or machine that is as efficient as possible. But that simplicity is key. As a process or machine grows in complexity, the most efficient points are frequently also known as SPOFs or Single Point Of Failure.  Recently, there have been several news stories about “Ransom Attacks” wherein a network of computers is hacked to deny access to the rightful owners until a ransom is paid.  Business, government and hospitals have been attacked making the network or elements of the network, SPOFs.

I probably don't need to explain why it would be a bad thing to have a paper cut's amount of lost blood to be fatal. (there would be very few female humans past the age of puberty). I like being able to swim under water for a couple of minutes with no ill effects. There are obvious reasons why there are places that efficiency simply isn't desirable. As a general rule, it is reasonable to say that as an entity becomes more complex, we must be very judicious in our pursuit of efficiency.

A human liver is a pretty complex entity. Other human organs are not noticeably less complex. So humans are complex collections of complex entities. Collections of humans, whether family, community, county, city, state, nation or geographic region, cannot be less complex than the entities that are their constituent parts. Governance of those collections of collections of collections of complex entities, cannot help but be complex. An effort to make government efficient, is the process of determining where one wants to place the SPOF.

Now, I am not telling you secrets here. What I am saying is what almost any intelligent and/or educated individual would know - if they cared to. The existence of "savants" in human culture has been known for centuries or longer. They are those folk with an extreme knowledge or awareness of just one thing. They are not generalists and if they were, the word would mean nothing.

So, are they savants or saboteurs? Elon and Vivek are allegedly very highly educated. They have clearly shown a savant level of ability to make money. Can they both really be so clueless as to not understand Complex Systems Analysis? Because I have trouble seeing an option other than they really are ignorant of most everything outside their areas of education OR they have the goal of sabotaging the USA.

I like having my government be robust. Robustness always comes at the cost of efficiency - always. I do not wish for there to be a Single Point Of Failure in my government. I have nothing but antipathy and disgust for those who through ignorance or intent are attempting to ensure the government of the USA has an accessible SPOF. In the old days, we called such people traitors.

 GIGO

audio version of GIGO

The operator of a motor vehicle is an integral part of that motor vehicle during said operation. The operator decides what the destination is and what route to take. They decide the urgency level of the trip. They make decisions concerning the safety and efficiency of the trip.

The operator, whether they are actively aware of it or not, makes use of a LOT of factors including their familiarity with the area(or the lack thereof), the weather conditions, time of day, physical health of the operator, what they are transporting other than themselves etc etc etc. Not to mention monitoring the output that the vehicle sensors send to the dashboard.

The condition of the vehicle, the design of the vehicle, the condition of the driving surface, the chance(s) that an animal of one sort or another will dash into the path of the vehicle are all considerations and the operator must do the considering.

We humans have a pretty large capacity for ignoring things that are functioning as expected. So we might not think about things we consider automatic even as we make decisions based on them. The look, smell, sound and even feel of an area can (and should) affect choices the operator makes.

The ongoing effort to automate vehicular operation specifically by the immigrant oligarch that understands far less than he claims, appears to be ignoring the truth of the previous sentence. In deference to the perversion masquerading as capitalism, he wants to use as few sensors as possible to keep material costs and development costs down. To paraphrase an old canard, things should be as simple as possible, but no simpler.

It is my considered opinion that fewer sensors are not better. Even if your visible light sensors can see from infrared through ultraviolet, relying solely on visual sensors seems irresponsible. Radar sees better in rain and fog. The last several times I have moved over for an emergency vehicle, I heard it well before I saw it. Why would we not have audio sensors incorporated into the design of the electronic operator of the vehicle? As a matter of fact I honestly believe that olfactory sensors, barometric pressure sensors and temperature sensors should be included with the LIDAR, RADAR, cameras and precipitation sensors that are available to the industry.

In the old school programming traditions there was a saying that applies here. "Garbage In, Garbage Out" generally abbreviated to "GIGO". I see no reason for humanity to be controlled by the lowest bidder. We need the electronic vehicle operator to be at least as sensitive as I am - and in an ideal world, it would be 10 times as sensitive.

Recess Appointments

Audio version of Recess Appointments 

Allow me to tell you some stuff you already know.

Travel these days is pretty easy, especially compared to travel a couple of hundred years or so ago. Back then there were no airplanes or airports. The surface vehicles mostly had one or two horse power in that they were being pulled by one or two horses. If you were lucky, you might get to make the majority of the trip via train but, that is a train with no HVAC and not a ton of speed.

Yep, as far as travel goes, things are far better now than back when - say, the Constitution was being written. Pretty obvious so far, right?

As it turns out, in general there have been some pretty large technological changes in human culture not just in the transportation sector. But we need to acknowledge that back when the Constitution was being written, there was no Zoom, no telephones - mobile or otherwise, no digital file sharing. To effectively collaborate with someone or several someones, you really needed to be in the same building.

In the early days of the US government, there was a lot of collaboration going on. But most of those doing the collaboration did not live in the same specific area as their collaborators. The distance of separation could be miles or several hundreds of miles. Several hundred miles of travel using one or two horsepower can take a while. Also, bad shit could happen along the way. So the collaborators attempted to make sure that the functioning of the government did not stop just because of some travel hassles on the part of current or future officials or collaborators.

I find it incredibly unlikely that they intended their efforts to be used as a means of circumventing the other rules, laws and guidelines they put into place.

Look, if during a Congressional break, the Secretary of Defense has a stroke and dies, yes the POTUS should make an appointment during the recess to keep us fully staffed. However, if there is a strong chance that the Senate will advise POTUS to not hire a given individual OR they appear to be heading towards declining that individual's confirmation, it was almost assuredly not the intent of the founders that recess appointments be uses as a means of circumventing the Senate. They were there at the beginning. If they did not want the Senate to have that responsibility, they could have left it out.

Unfortunately partisan divisions have functioned as predicted by some of the founders and candidates that are to all appearances fully qualified for the position have been blocked as a means of wielding undeserved power. Also unfortunately, unqualified candidates have been installed by waiting until Congress recesses. Rather obviously we need to watch out for this and avoid it when we can. However, the Senate needs to take their "advice and consent" mandate seriously and carefully evaluate each candidate and confirm or deny as appropriate. Assuming the Senate (at least in part) feels like they can willfully abdicate that responsibility, the citizenry is not doing their job.

A Test After Not Having Used This Thing In Forever

 Due to some drastic changes in my social media life, I find myself in need of a place to publish my mental meanderings that does not require me to break it up into idiot sized chunks.

I was not sure I still had access here even after I was reminded of its existence.  So we do a test that will also serve as clear demarcation line after the idle period.

Perhaps others will resume posting as well.  As an easy way pissing off a trumptard I expect to like it.

Routine VA Visit

Read about it Here