Sunday, November 15, 2015

A War of Intentions: the Socially Engineered American War on Terror


A War of Intentions: the Socially Engineered American War on Terror

Thinking of ISIS as organized criminals rather than religious terrorists could save the world.

Opinions need to be held in order for certain things to happen in a society. It sounds strange that our beliefs might steer actions in the real world that change lives, but it is a reality. It is one thing, for instance, to come into my home with a gun and take over my life, it is another to slowly advertise that a certain religion promotes proactive violent extremism, changing my mind. 

Intentionality can be directed, via social engineering. Some politician, some journalist, some arms dealer can partake of any position within the domain of morality, the actions result in continued premature death of otherwise useful human beings. It doesn't matter even if your personal contribution to the Socially Engineered American War on Terror is limited to liking an Islamophobic meme on facebook, everyone has to be on board. 
 
However, through the power of Anti-Social Engineering, like-minded individuals (call them "sensible") can create an intentionality of our own, to counter any such programming. First, we must reduce the ideas involved into their lowest common denominators. Their intention is that we look at the Islamic State terrorism group, if I may, as a product of Islam, the religion. This, they argue, is because ISIL/ISIS follows a strict, ancient, bastardized version of Islam and is currently involved in a holy war to convert the planet, or destroy it trying. This is true. But the Islamic State has numbers measured in the thousands, twitter followers don't count. "They" want us to equate the millions upon millions of Muslims in the world with potential Islamic State terrorists. "They" are as extreme as the terrorists.

Of course it's hogwash. Yes, the I.S. is real, yes they're killing people, mostly Muslims. But I don't think you can properly call this a war. They are definitely not a Nation. As a "religious war" it's rather one-sided. The Islamic State is a well organized group of nutball zealots. They are criminals. Dealing with them should be considered a Police action. If we start thinking about them as small-c criminals instead of Terrorists, our intentionality could change the course of action. We're not allowed to think of them this way, because Police action means kicking in doors and rounding up bad guys, dead or alive. It' much easier to just tell everyone "Be fearful of brown people, they might be trying to kill you! Oh yeah, by the way, they're all Muslim."

"They" argue that the Syrian refuges flooding in will carry with them hidden Terrorists. This is probably true. We will have to deal with these criminals as they reveal themselves, in much the same way we do now. School shootings continue to happen in America, shall we ban education? "They" argue that every time the Islamic State attacks, (more so for Western targets) it justifies their War on Terror. It justifies action, just of a different nature. You've been at this a while now, either you are ineffective or your approach is wrong. 
 
When you ask folks who live in the Middle East, even in these torn up areas, about the why of it, an ugly picture forms. America, it seems, has been stomping around the area since WWI, as have others. An Islamic scholar, a Grand Mufti of Syria, Ahmad Badreddin Hassoun was quoted in an interview by RT recently, "If you want to create a true state, you need to build it on the basis of political values and democracy. We don’t impose any religion in Syria; we don’t say that there must be a Christian state, a Jewish state or a Muslim State. These ideas come from outside. The West is instigating such ideologies. The West is playing a big part in the process. I think a state should be founded on strong political and cultural elite. What we see in Syria today is similar to what happened in Yugoslavia - Croatia, Bosnia. There were major cultural elites there. But the West began to provoke different political and religious groups in order to start a civil war, which resulted in manslaughter."

Even a cursory glance at the history of the Islamic State, America's involvement in the Middle East, politics, military action, business brings about a story that reads like a conspiracy theory. In fact, that's what they call it when it is brought to their attention, "It sounds crazy, why would be entertain such thoughts?" The problem is the whole world agrees the conspiracy is real, except the perpetrators. How can such a deep rooted lie become an Intentionality in the face of what is natural, right or even holy? It's easy: money, but that's a whole different essay. Peace can be achieved, but not without countering any war intentionality fiercely. This is our takeaway...

Do not let your friends get away with ignorance that strengthens the discord of peace. Do not let what should be a police action against criminals continue to be the Global War on Terrorism, trademark America. Do not let this police action become a race war, religious war or war against any nation, just so America can continue to hide the fact that it's a bully, stealing lunch money. Intentionality steers us like we're a flock of birds but we can steer too, in our small part. Ensure your part is, at the least, well informed.

If you would like to know more about Intentionality and the creation of reality I've published chapter 7 of Anti-Social Engineering the Hyper-Manipulated Self here

Here is the conclusion of that chapter: "For John Searle, things are either brute facts or institutional reality. Institutional Reality works because we impose functions that define power. We're not assigning rules to frivolous things that don't matter, we are not constituting intentions willy-nilly, at least, this is my hope. So it seems that the things that we are asked to believe must be important. If they are, then surely they are worth mulling over. We are not asking about God here, nor even any grand scheme of society, we wonder about ourselves. By realizing when someone or something “asks” us to believe in it, in its intention, to create some reality out of an idea, we can begin to wonder about the value of following the rule. Institutional reality gives power to ideas through intention. It empowers either the X term or the bearers of X. “This note is legal tender” doesn't describe the note, it makes it what it is. It is one of the things created in our reality, yet only if we participate. What are you creating in your reality?"

Islam has nothing to do with Terrorism


On the so-called Islamic State.

As a consequence of yesterdays suicide bomber/shooting attacks in Paris, my facebook page is full of socially engineered intentions to anger and amaze. My friends list had already been lightening due to the recent federal election. (They're still my friends, their opinions just became unfollowed.) However quickly I wanted to dash off clever chastisements to satisfy my own worth, I dared not unless something interesting happened. I am after all, a busy person.

This morning, eating my oatmeal, flipping through by news feed, there's a pic of a mushroom cloud, glowing orange. Over the cloud was "We've been at peace with Japan since 1945" underneath the cloud was "Time to make peace with Islam." I placed my fingers on the keyboard, I don't recall if I typed my first thought or not, I can't recall the thought itself. It was probably something like, "there are many things wrong with this sentence." I put no such complaint. Instead I examined what options facebook had for me. Could I report this as a violation of some kind. Hate speech? I tried, their robots (I presume) did not agree with my assessment of the picture. 

I spent a couple hours learning what I could about the sorts of ideas one can have about this "thing" they call ISIS or ISIL, or a few other words. I will refer to it as "the Islamic State." In the interest of clarity, by Islamic State I mean specifically the small group of terrorists who refer to themselves as these things. The clarity is important, because there seems to be a great deal of confusion on the matter.

If you Google "Islam has n" it will auto-fill in "nothing to do with terrorism." (This is the point at which I realized I was going to write another essay.) The first page of search results will contain three news stories, featuring Muslims and others espousing that this is true because the Islamic State follows an antiquated, bastardized version of the faith. Below those stories, the entire rest of the page is devoted to pages arguing that it's time to "STOP saying Islam has nothing to do with terrorism." Some of them might claim to argue the opposite, but if you read them you will discover this is a rouse. 

As I searched and read, it became apparent that everyone needed to have an opinion on this matter and that this opinion would probably come from other opinions. Some opinions favour information closer to the truth, some don't. By truth, it is meant, accurate information, related to facts that are real in the world, not some astronomical generalization associating an entire religion and a few pissed off militants. In fact, if you're so inclined, you're really making things worse, because doing so is going to piss off Muslims around the world that wouldn't be otherwise interested in jihad. It's already the case that many young Muslims join the Islamic State for political reasons more than religious, but it is also true that there is a growing movement that believe it's the apocalypse. The Islamic State, it seems, has a place for you, regardless of where you source your thirst for western blood. 

There are common denominators and it is here where we find all our facts and figures. The stuff we can actually work with. The Islamic State is real, it has money, offices with staff, weaponry, technology, manpower, philosophy. It takes action, it destroys. It has a goal (the conversion of the entire world to its ancient interpretation of Islam) and it has no problem beheading you if you're not interested in converting. However, it isn't doing those things because of its religion, it's doing it specifically because your country has been or currently is fucking around in its backyard. 

Most victims of the Islamic State are Muslim, in Muslim countries. Most of the Damage they do is to Muslim property, (trying to rid us of the more "modern" or inappropriate religious items or places.) These things are criminal matters. If you have a bunch of idiots running around in costumes killing people, something should be done about them. The only thing that makes them "Terrorist" is the fact that they are attached to being Muslim/Middle Eastern and that we are attached to the Christian West. Their association, not mine. I make no distinctions, that's the point... Imagine if some Christian militant group (of which there are plenty) reverted to some ancient ultra-conservative form their faith and then started a similar campaign. Would we immediately decry all Christians as enemy? 

There is an ideology at play here, but it is more rooted in politic and society than in religion. In my investigations I discovered that the Islamic State twists the philosophy of Sayyid Qutb, much the same as Al Qaeda and others. Qutb was the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in the 50s and 60s, after his return from going to University in America where he was appalled by American society. (Imagine the sockhops!) If you would like to really understand everything about this whole "America vs the Middle East" thing, all you need to do is watch "The Power of Nightmares" Seriously, go google "the Power of Nightmares" it's a BBC documentary by Adam Curtis. You can watch it on youtube. 

The point is, Islam doesn't make terrorists, being pissed off at America does. Therein lies the problem in this story, in this matter and in this essay. Once you start delving into "Why are these criminals so mad at America?" You only come up against very valid reasons to be pissed. (And we're not allowed to talk about them. The truth has no place in the American psyche.) This is an extremely complicated and delicate matter that is going to have to be handled one criminal at a time and quietly. Blaming it on any particular belief only fuels the fire, plus it lumps our friends in with our enemies. 

Think of it this way: If all they have are suicide bombers, they'll eventually run out. Unless we keep pissing them off and they keep breeding suicide bombers. Change the mindset, change the outcome. How do we change the mindset? Well, what is it we've been doing that upset everyone in the first place? Oh yeah, we have our own set of leaders who put philosophies into motion, some of them for their own religious motives. Mostly though, we just want your resources or we don't want other to have them. We also need to keep the war machine going. It's big business. How are we going to have enemies to spend billions on if we don't keep creating enemies?

Sunday, November 8, 2015

Why I do what I do


Why I do what I do.

I write. Fiction and non. Criticism, commentary, philosophy and for film. Novels, screenplays. I write a lot, nearly every day. I write because I like it and I have something to say. I've been at it seriously since 2004. My work has been read by at least 250 000 individuals, not including my twice weekly column in the local newspaper. I feel like I'm at the beginning of something.

When I started I was just "complaining about the King." Which has been done through the ages. It was political but also a self-examination of society, through a different philosophy. A friend of mine wisely pointed out that sometimes it's easier and more entertaining to express these idea through fiction. In 2010 I again started making films. 

The reason I do what I do is simple and complicated at the same time: I believe there is a great disparity in the quality of human life which is entirely caused by greed, prejudice and fear. Most of my work is a commentary upon this fact, or a critique of it, or an attack on it. 

Battle at Beaver Creek is a movie about mind control and vague perceptions of friend and foe, it's about greed, prejudice and fear. Last Human Being is a story about love, prejudice and fear. Garf Garf is about competition vs cooperation, greed, hamburgers and fear. 
 
In all of my non-fiction writing and blogging, my tune remains the same. A desire to not be programmed to believe anything, a dynamic openness to life and the right to live it freely, universal cooperation. These are the things I find lacking in our world. 

I believe that stories can spark the ideas that change the minds that shape our world.
I believe I have exciting, commercially viable film projects with good intentions.
I believe that an entertaining, artful film can be made with very little money.
I believe that I know enough talented people in the Okanagan to make any movie.
All we need now is the money to move forward (and maybe an experienced line-producer).
And you, I need you on board. Watch a film. Volunteer. Donate. Get involved.
 

Monday, April 6, 2015

Last Human Being

I've published my first novella, a sci-fi mystery called Last Human Being.
I've written it in a style akin to watching a movie unfold. I hope to turn it into a feature soon.
In the meantime, everyone is welcome to check out the book here
There is also a website www.lasthumanbeing.com

"Cole is a powerful young psychic, unknowingly involved in a conspiracy to end a mental war with a mysterious consciousness, taking place within a drug-induced dream."

"Between fear and love there is hope."

The themes of Last Human Being, like all of my work, are examinations of programming, virtue and purpose. Really, it is a story of how war is not possible in a world where you can't lie. Our hero Cole figures out how to fight fire with fire and save mankind by ending the simplest, most useless war ever, based on a fear of the unknown.

It's also a love story, about family and survival that takes place in an interesting future where evolving humans have mental powers. LHB brings into question our appreciation of reality, our ability to bring our ideas into the real world and the confusion sometimes brought on by emotions.

It's also about individual sacrifice for the betterment of others, yet from within a prejudicial framework. We work to save all, except those whom we work against. This dichotomy is further exemplified in the identity crises created by having the war take place in a dream, not truly knowing the enemy, not even knowing if he, she or it is real.

Perhaps the most interesting thematic philosophical aspect to Last Human Being, at least in my eyes, is the unconscious intentionality expressed by the idea of "the nonplan." Cole lives in a very close community with many psychics and non-psychics. It is nearly impossible to keep anything secret, yet he is daily exposed to the greatest lie ever sold. He is privy to information that he must spend great energy to "unsee" so that his mind isn't inadvertently read and the rouse foiled.

The nonplan isn't just something an individual can execute, such that Cole needs to unsee the secrets he knows, but it can also be a group effort. Several times in the story, characters remind Cole that "they could be working together without knowing." Cole comes to understand that he is playing some part in an effort to achieve an unknown goal. He doesn't know what it is or why it's required, but he hopes he's taking the right steps to complete the nonplan.

On a lighter note, Last Human Being is also super cool, with lots of hidden references to 80s music, teenage lust, scary human mutations and an overall, creepy darkness that permeates the story and hopefully the reader.

I hope you enjoy it.


Here now, please read what others have said about Last Human Being:

 English Professor and Author of Forge Kevin Macpherson Eckhoff:
 "Fast and shadowy, Last Human Being pits instinct against philosophy. This book, part somnambulist allegory, part speculative psychosomatic thriller, renders shifting dream-scapes in which impassioned characters confront not only one another's fears, but also the haunting vacuity of their own interiors. Fans of MTV’s original Aeon Flux series or George Lucas’s THX 1138 will easily be consumed by the ink—whether electric or chemical—within Brian Taylor’s first novella."

Award winning Filmmaker Kora Vanderlip:
"I really enjoyed it! I love the mystery, I had lots of questions while reading it, in a good way. The story kept me intrigued the whole way through."

 Script Supervisor and Developer Colin Scott:
"It is in the vein of Moon or Under the Skin, it hangs with you long after you read it. Taylor's strongest writing yet."

More information about Last Human Being
Buy Last Human Being

Thursday, November 20, 2014

On the internet and information technology in general.

Man, I haven't written anything in a long time.
I'm really sorry about that.
I took some time off, watched a lot of Mariner's games.
I'm releasing my movie, Battle at Beaver Creek I wrote another.
Of course I'm still doing Reel Reviews with Taylor & Howe twice a week.
 But you wouldn't know any of that if it wasn't for the internet.

I've always had a computer.
Meaning: if there was a computer to be had, I had one.

Computers came onto the market in the 80s, sitting on the shelves at the Bay, Commodore 64, what not.
I couldn't afford that but by the time I was 10 or 11, I had gotten my hands on a Texas Instruments computer, (sorry, can't remember what model.) You hooked the thing up to a tape deck, spent hours programming it to do the simplest things, (like play ping pong,) then recorded the squeaks and squawks of your efforts onto a cassette tape, for later reloading.

When Apple came around I couldn't afford one of those either, but the school had a bunch and I would come to school early and stay late to fart around on them.

When I graduated my Mom bought me a Macintosh (with a 20mb external harddrive!) which I used to rock bodies and melt faces in the various awesome bands of which I have been lucky to have taken a part.

But we still had no internet.

The computer, for me, was an electronic tool. It was a one way relationship. YOU DO THIS NOW.

In the 90's, the internet arrived in my house. It swallowed my wife and kids, they wound up thousands of miles away. (I don't blame the internet for this, I was just unlucky to discover my wife thought a stranger in a chat room sounded better than I.) I only bring this up to point out that my thoughts on the matter, expressed in an unusually haphazard manner, are sourced of experiences that run deeper than the average. I will expect, as per usual, that the article, (let's call it a blog? what?) will nevertheless prove interesting, despite not actually having anything of value to say.

The internet is awesome. It's probably the greatest thing to come along since everything that came before it.

It's hard to believe that its been around 25 years.
Remember taking forever to download a single photograph of some girl's boobs, line by line?
No, oh, never mind then...

Now you can watch people kill each other live in Hi Def and surround sound.

I'm sure a person could do other things with their time: study philosophy, psychology, sociology. Create art and share it with the entire world, free.
Invent the future and make the world a better place.

No, we can't do that?
Oh, never mind then...

We currently reside in a world where we can walk up to a machine to freely give and take information of any variety. I've yet to find a question I can't answer, other than perhaps, why the hell aren't our lives any better by having all the answers?