You are Unique Visitor Number

THE RULES OF YOUR ASYLUM

This paper is in a first draft form; Comments and criticisms are welcome.

Introduction:

Once upon a time I read a science fiction short story. It seems that all major spaceships and all colonizing ships carried, as part of their crew, an individual whose job was to do nothing but to read whatever (S)he wished. The idea was that while computers could be filled with data, they could never

be made capable of drawing, sometimes lifesaving, correlations between the data. Humans could

I have always had a desire to know what makes the world tick. Not on a narrow bits, bytes, and atomic particle level, but on all levels and in all areas. I read widely, not necessarily in depth.

One observation I have made is that most ordinary persons - that is to say good competent persons from good families with children who are not pregnant or in jail, persons who do their jobs well and who may complain, but never whine, persons who accept responsibility for their lives - often observe that they appear to be in an institution that is run by the inmates ie the crazies.

This paper will demonstrate that this is indeed the case, and will further

show why it is the case. As a byproduct, it will make suggestions to

prevent the complete destruction of our society as we know it.

PART I

Persons use words in funny ways. The more self important they are the more

god like they make their pronouncements, and they less responsibility they

take for makeing their statements. For example they will say "Blah Blah is

'bad', or 'unacceptable', or 'imoral'". They say this as though they had

either the power of God to define values or a direct insight into Gods mind to

know what God thinks. What they mean is "I do not like Blah Blah." But

besides having a vastly inflated view of their relationship to God, they also

are so lacking in guts as to be unable to take responsibility for their

feelings and beliefs by using the word I when making value judgements.

I shall attempt to avoid playing god, making assumptions and garbling the

meaning of words. To that end, some definitions are in order.

Except in a parochial sense there is no such thing as evolution.

Evolution implies some sort of progress. But that assumes that the world has

progressed toward us, so we are in effect saying that change is progress if

the system changes in a direction that we like. In this paper, I will use the

word change in many places that others would use the word evolution.

The conclusions of this paper are based on the following assumptions:

Human beings, as they are today, are the result of the process of changin

happening acting under the laws of natural selection. In summary, natural

makes the rather obvious, almost tautological, statement that in any group of

similar organisms, those who "best fit" the environment are most likely to

have the largest number of descendants. Note that by that definition, one

class of very fit of humans in our current environment are drug addicted

welfare dependent whores and their boyfriends. Although AIDS may be changing

the environment to favor the responsible middle class.

Human behaviour can be explained and understood.

Human brains are complex neural networks, and obey the same basic rules as

simple mathematical or mechanical neural networks. This is not surprising

since such neural networks were designed to emulate the brain. They do this

this very well. (See May 1991 edition of Scientific American for an article on

an artificial 'eye' that has 'optical illusions')

There exist two types of neural networks.

One type is mechanical like the eye. It is what it is and its purpose is

to receive and process information in one direction. Its output is usually

fed into the second type of neural network which is dynamic or bi-directional.

For a mechanical model based on the eye see the May 1991 Issue of Scientific

American. This type of Neural network does not change and does not interact

with the environment.

The second type of neural network is dynamic or bi-directional. It takes

in information (usually from the environment) processes it and then responds.

The environment then responds back. This response by the environment shapes

the manner in which the network responds to further information received by

the environment. There are numerous software models of this type of brain

function on the market at this time. A schematic looks like this:

ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ a ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿

³ ³ ³ Neural ³ c ³environ- ³

³ input ÃÄÄÄ>ÄÄŽ NetworkÃÄ>ÄÄtÄÄÄ>ÄÄÄŽ ment ³

³ ³ ³ (Brain)³ i ³ ³

ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ o ÀÄÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÄÙ

^ n ³

³ ³

ÀÄÄÄfeedbackÄÄ<ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ

Given a specified neural network either software or wetware (A brain) the

initial training can never be entirely replaced by later training. In

software, initial numeric weights are created which can never be reset to zero

without starting all over again from the beginning. In wetware, neural

pathways are enhanced or suppressed initially. These enhancements or

suppressions can never be entirely eradicated. The childs' initial environment

physically shapes the brain. This initial physical shaping can never be

eliminated, it can only be modified.

The processes of change that led to us seem to have resulted in the

installation of some pre-wiring in all human brains. Infants can recognize the

sums and differences of small numbers. If you have ever been involved in

parenting an infant, you know that there is only one way in which an infant or

toddler learns. By mimicking.

Let us consider what evolution would imply about infant behaviour. A

sexually mature couple has a child. Clearly the couple has survived to become

old enough to have a child. While it is possible that a brain is a blank

slate, it is also obvious that all individuals have different brains and

different personalities and different abilities. Thus the assumption that a

brain is a completely blank slate is contraindicated by existing evidence. A

brain that is wired in such a manner to imitate its parents, to avoid

universally dangerous things (fire, loud noises -associated with high energy

processes usually dangerous- heights) and to keep its parents happy will have

a definite survival advantage over one that does not avoid heights, or behaves

in a manner that takes no account of the manner in which its parents respond

to its behaviour.

It is usually a good idea to assume that a living organism is behaving,

at any given time, in such a way as to bring it the most pleasure or the

least pain. An infant brain would have a definite survival advantage if it

was wired to assume that by imitating its parents it would bring them

pleasure. Thus imitating parents is very similar to keeping them happy.

Now let us consider other survival strategies. Clearly lying, theft,

homicide etc are good short term survival strategies. But we do not live in

the short term except perhaps geologically. We live with others, and unless

we, in some way, obtain their co-operation we will not live long. The fact

that with few exceptions, humans live in cultures is clear evidence that

cooperative behaviour has a survival advantage. In fact, recent studies

indicate individuals which behave in a manner called generous tit-for-tat have

the best chance for survival.

The four basic behaviours in a group are always co-operate, always

defect, tit-for-tat, and generous tit-for-tat. In a group someone who

'defects' to get an advantage over another will shortly discover that no-one

will do business with her. Whereas one who always co-operates will be played

for a sucker. One who does tit-for-tat co-operates only with those

co-operate. When an associate cheats, a tit-for-tater will cheat at the next

opportunity. This situation leads to the Hatfield McCoy cultures. The most

successful long term strategies are generous tit-for-tat. Here, a person

assumes that the person who cheated him did so accidentally or that there was

a mis-understanding. Thus she will not retaliate every time someone fails to

co-operate. These groups are the most successful in 'getting things done'.

For more information on this see May 1993 Issue of Discover of Karl Sigmund &

Martin Nowak's paper In Nature magazine last year.

All carbon-water based life systems have like-dislike built into them.

Another way of thinking of this is that like is life and dislike is death.

Single celled organisms in water move toward the area that has a PH compatible

with life, and move away from the area whose PH is hostile to life.

CRAZY: A definition to describe behaviour which is destructive to the self

and is repeated. Non repeated self destructive behaviour is simple

learning. A second definition is expecting different outputs from

similar or identical inputs - ie. expectin different results from the

same behaviour.

Part III

What, if anything, do all of these various bits of data mean? It is my

belief that this information implies the following:

Human children are basically good. If raised in an environment where

they are loved and respected they will grow up to be healthy intelligent

independent self sufficient adults capable of thinking for themselves.

Sometimes they will grow up to be this way even if they are not raised in a

loving home.

However, the further an environment departs from this ideal the more

likely a child is to grow up with a warped personality. Now I shall describe

departures from the norm and ways in which the personalities are warped.

Departures from the norm:

1 The child does not get enough PHYSICAL or emotional attention. This

can take various forms such as usually ignoring the child, putting him on

schedules to early, letting her know in word and or deed that she has no

worth or exists only for your convenience.

2 Causing the child physical pain beyond what is necessary to be an

aversive stimulation. I have observed that a child can withstand a

good deal of physical assault in the course of play and ignore it. So

a good rule of thumb is that PHYSICAL punishment should be less than

the level needed to cause a happy playing child to cry. When this level

of physical punishment is administered to discipline a child, you can

be sure that his crying is not the result of the physical pain but

because of the emotional circumstances surrounding the punishment.

Consider my child as an example. I have seen him totally unresponsive

to having blood drawn, or to receiving booster shots. But if he is

doing something wrong, and I thonk him with 1 finger he will cry. Of

course if he is playing and I thonk him with one finger, he is usually

totally oblivious to what has happened.

3 Never rewarding the child. This lets him know that no mater what he

does, he is not good enough.

4. Beating the child

5. Lying to the child

6. Being capricious and arbitrary when dealing with the child.

7. Preventing the child from having a 'safe haven'

9. Sexually using the child.

Remember that the parents are the primary model for the child. The child

will try to be like the parent. As explained above, being like the parent

is almost synonymous with pleasing the parent. As far as he is concerned

the parent is the embodiment of what is good, what is safe, what is right.

From an evolutionary standpoint, the parent has survived, so if the child

mimics the parent than the child will enhance its chances of survival.

What can one expect in the way of child behaviour when one departs from

loving caring upbringing of the child? Lets first discuss what healthy

behaviour is like.

If a person is healthy they will like and be comfortable with themselves.

While they will be interested in establishing competence in some field,

they will not be driven to establish dominance over others. They will be

comfortable with others who are healthy. They will be able to solve

problems, and think independently. Baring specific organic brain

dysfunction, they will not be crazy. A healthy person will have no desire

to control others, and will resist control by others. A healthy person

will accept responsibility for his or her actions

There is a standard chart for describing how children respond to their

environment. It says:

These descriptions may not sound like much But let us look at some more

serious stuff.

In the early 1960's a German Psychotherapist, Alice Miller, began to do

research on why Germany did what Germany did in WW II. Among her other

interesting discoveries were that every member of the upper levels of the 3rd

reich was a severely abused child. Almost without exception, every person in

German prisons for violent crimes was an abused child. the more violent the

crime, the more likely the perpetrator was to have been severely abused

himself. This strong correspondence between crimes of violence and child

abuse has recently become evident in this country as well. If you wish you

may read her book, "For Their Own Good".

She expanded the commonly excepted description of child abuse to include

some of the repertoire of behaviour described in the above chart. When I

read her book, I was able, for the first time, to understand my world. Why

persons in power, or who were famous or sought fame, or wealth, were so often

such ass-holes. The recent spate of tell all stories by celebrities simply

reinforced what what I learned from For Their Own Good. Most persons who

have power or money or fame were severely abused as children. They have spent

the rest of their lives trying to prove that they have worth, are loveable, or

trying to gain control of their environment and thus avoid pain.

Unfortunately, for the abused child, this is, without years of good therapy,

an impossible task. They can never gain enough of love, power, fame or money.

The problem that normal persons are usually content to be fair in their

dealings, and competent in their work. They do not crave power or control

beyond competency in their work. What happens to crazies who crave power &

control? They can become criminals, autocratic bosses, or for the ultimate in

power without responsibility, they can go into politics. (I know for a fact

that Roosevelt, Nixon, Kennedy, Regan, & Clinton all came from severely

dysfunctional homes with alcoholic or abusive or absent fathers. I suspect

that George Bush also came from a dysfunctional home) I suspect that a

little research would show that almost all members of all of our legislatures

come from homes where they were treated poorly if they were not outright

severely abused.

Specifically though, what happens when a parent treats a child badly?

Well the child learns that the right way to behave is for big people to use

and abuse little people. She learns that, just like some of the characters in

Alice in Wonderland, when adults use words, these words mean what the adults

want them to mean, and that truth is not in objective reality, but it is

whatever the adults say it is. She learns that she herself is nothing,

compared to the important things of more power, meetings, reports, status,

clothes and good food and money. Remember that the parents behaviour is, by

definition, the 'right' way to behave. So, the child abuse will be repeated.

Since the child never felt safe or secure or loved, the adult will spend

the rest of his life seeking safety, security & love. Unfortunately, without

a lot of therapy, it is almost impossible to make up for the impoverishments of

childhood. The adult never has enough love.

Because most humans are born with some innate wiring, the need to be loved

and cared for example. Because they try & mimic the adults, they will, in a

healthy environment, acquire, if it is not build in, a tendency to care for

others - a tendency to share if you will. For these reasons, it takes a

sustained consistent effort to turn a child into a psychopath or a career

politician, interested only in himself and indifferent to the adverse affects

of his behaviour. When this does happen, the transformation is usually total.

However the transformation is usually no so total as to obliterate the most

basic built in knowledge of the difference between right & wrong. Only

recently have we begun to hear of persons killing others, and saying - "So

what - people die all the time."

In general the knowledge of right & wrong is so deeply wired within us,

that we need excuses to justify wrong action. Almost always when one does harm

to another, either as a person, or as a politician, an excuse, reason or

rationalization is offered, if only to oneself. More often than not the

perpetrator prefers to hide what they are doing. While it is true that the

good must often hide from the wicked, it is interesting that those in power

will often hide their actions from the powerless. This is a testament to the

fact the even the dysfunctional know what is evil & wicked. Sadahm Hussein

did not call in CNN to witness his gassing of the curds. And most politicians

do not call in the press to witness anything they do, except for a few staged

events.

The main problem for society is the following. In their quest for

security, the adult strives for power. We all know that the one institution

that offers the most power and the least responsibility is politics. The

political arena, or government, is the strongest magnet of the damaged abused

personality. Here the abused child becomes the ultimate parent with the

citizens his children. He can lie with virtual impunity. She can and does

treat her citizens like pesky children to be ignored or disciplined, returning

on occasion with bribes of candy to reassure herself that her children still

love her and think she is a good parent.

The abusive parent is in every way like government, and government

officials. Government officials live in their own world, and because of

their pathological upbringing are cut free from any natural tendencies toward

healthy good behaviour. Lying, ignoring their children, assuming that their

children "don't know any better" and an endless struggle among THEMSELVES

is their typical behaviour. One of the more common images is that of a

citizen throwing a screaming fit in a government or at a government office and

being written off as crazy, or not understanding. Unfortunately they

understand only to well. Unfortunately they are like the child who has been

lied to and can only scream "you promised" to an adult who has forgotten the

meaning of keeping ones word, and honesty years ago. Both the citizen and the

child are called childish, and told that they do not understand. But here it

is clearly the inmates running the asylum, and it is the "adult" or

government that 'does not understand', that lies, that has warped and

dishonest values.

One of the characteristics of the abused and the abuser is a kind of

isolation, where their logical and moral connections to life, to humanity and

to common sense seem to be totally replaced with connections only to their own

group, family, clan or bureaucracy. Racists can only come from dysfunctional

families. This is why governments are always racist. Which is why we have

laws on the books which, in the last 25 years, have given this country the

hights incarceration rate of blacks and latinos in the world, and have made

them a permanent under class. You didn't think it was an accident did you?

I mean did you really believe that the 4th largest industry in this country

(Drugs) is supported by blacks stealing Boom boxes, cars and gold chains from

each other?

And in another 10 years, we will probably have laws which will result in

Asians suddenly becoming a criminal class. As a matter of fact I know just a

law. To help curb the increased incidence of crime we will make it a major

felony for the victim to fail to report a crime. And we will enforce seizure

laws. In a few short years all of those sneaky rich asians will be poor and

or in jail like they deserve. (Asians because they have a closer community

life then we and because they do not trust government - imagine that, often do

not report crimes.)

One should take note of similar authoritarian structures in hierarchical

churches. The minister refers to his parishioners as his children. Creatures

who can not think for THEMSELVES or and are not responsible. The parishioners

are also lambs of the flock. But what is the ultimate relation of the

shepherd to his flock. To fleece them and eat them.

The implications of this behaviour are indeed frightening. While Sigmund

& Novak demonstrated via mathematical models that generous tit-for-tat

behaviour always comes out on top among the four behaviour strategies, they

did not take into account child abuse. This is not surprising, as they were

dealing, after all, with a rather simplified computer model. Frankly, I see

nothing to keep child abuse and government from growing until it consumes the

entire society. Like an abused woman who goes from one abusive man to

another, most individuals seem to think the solution to government caused

problems and abuse, is more government. This, of course, is the typical

behaviour of the abused, who in order to remain sane and survive, attempt to

please, identify with, and eventually become the abuser. Such persons find

it almost impossible to confront the evil nature of their abuser. Like

concentration camp inhabitants, they seek not escape, but appeasement of their

jailers.

----------

Another implication of the above observations is the viewpoints held by

the crazies ie the abused, and the sane. The crazies see everybody as the

enemy or the victim. They interpret other persons actions in the negative.

While having an insatiable need for love, they drive love away. The best they

can hope for is respect, often based on terror. They see us as foolish,

children or naive. The rest of us usually have no clue as to what drives the

crazies. In many ways we are naive. We to not have to think about what the

correct course of action is. The King of Norway in WW II was an example.

There was a village in France which hid several hundred Jews, at great pearl

to themselves. They did not understand why people asked them why they did

such a thing and why they risked their lives. In fact they were, like

children receiving undeserved praise, slightly embarrassed.

One of the best examples of these different life viewpoints was related by

the Physicist Richard Feyneman. He typifies what I would consider a good

person. He pursues his own course in the best way he knows how. He seeks

the truth out of curiosity.

This story is about a Dr. Al Keel who had, at the time, been working in

Washington for 12 years, most recently with the Office of Management &

Budget. He was getting along quite well in Washington.

Let me Quote from his book "What Do You Care What Other People Think?"

Now, Dr. Keel started out by telling me that he had a degree in physics.

I always assume that everybody in physics has integrity-perhaps I'm naive

about that-so I must have asked him a question I of the think about:" How

can a man of integrity get along in Washington?"

At this point "...he tells me he's never been so insulted in his life, that

he didn't take this job to be so insulted, and that he doesn't want to talk

to me anymore!"

The problem? Well the good rational person would take the question at

face value, and proceed to explain how a person of integrity can get along in

Washington. On the other hand, the masters of the asylum would hear "Since

you are getting along in Washington, you can't be a man of INTEGRITY"

I might add that I believe that these crazies all think the same way. There

is a world view among politicians, most media & show persons, and most

individuals in upper levels of business that is totally alien to honest people.

I have no doubt that Charles Keating believes himself to be righteous and a

"family man", even if it was corporate policy for all of his female employees

to have big bouncing boobs, and even if silicone was required. Lee Iococa is a

similar man. Here is a man who sees nothing wrong about complaining that the

Japanese do not buy his cars, even though Chrysler refuses to make Right hand

drive vehicles. He then demands tariffs on JAPANESE cars, so he can

continue to take in his multi-million dollar salary.

In the future, watch how the media, and business and politicians all

function in the same manner. They almost always do and say not that which is

right or fair, but which will enhance their status & power even if it is, as

the situation with trying to sell left hand drive cars in Japan, totally

absurd. These people always want more power, money and status for THEMSELVES.

And to the extent that they promote citizens having more power or

responsibility, it is almost always simply as a vehicle for they THEMSELVES to

acquire more. No conspiracies are needed when everybody together has the same

mind set.

There are four basic characteristics that distinguish the dysfunctional

from the healthy.

1.) The Dysfunctional need rules. - The fewer the rules, the greater the

ambiguity, the less able they are able to function.

2.) The Dysfunctional desire to control other humans. If this is not

possible, their second choice is to be controlled.

3.) The dysfunctional use words as weapons, not as a means of acquiring

or sharing information,

4.) The dysfunctional, because they were always punished for being wrong

as children, have an absolute terror of being wrong, and will go to

unbelievable lengths to demonstrate that they are not wrong.

A.) Dysfunctional persons will almost always, always follow the

party line even if it directly conflicts with their own senses

or common sense. The recent judicial decision on Baby Jessica

is an example. This enables one to:

B.) Avoid being responsible since one is always 'just following

orders'. If one is just following orders, one can not be wrong.

Looking at the four items mentioned above, it becomes clear why people

naturally have such negative feelings towards lawyers (3 out of 4), and

politicians (3 out of 4 or 4 out of 4).

I am confident that until we tackle government, and childrens dependency

on it; on a therapeutic level, we are doing the equivalent of putting band-aids

on a malignant melanoma.

So - what do we do about this situation??. I don't know, I thought I

was being fairly clever to clearly define the problem. I do know that abused

children often love and are defensive of their parents. The abused wife loves

her husband, and can not imagine being able to survive without him. Today,

our citizens love their government (only 20% voted for Ross) and can not

imagine life without it.

Actually, I have what might be a good idea. Bear in mind that both the

deceleration of independence, and the constitution were signed off on by

basically simple folk. Not stupid, just intelligent honest people. They

were craftsmen, farmers, with just a few lawyers among them. They wished,

most of all to be left alone. My solution, besides term limits, is to remove

lawyers from all supreme court positions, state and federal, and to remove

lawyers from all appellate court positions.

All professional societies grant their outstanding members awards. I

propose a constitutional amendment that would limit all federal appellate and

supreme court bodies to 1 person chosen from judicial ranks. And to limit all

state supreme courts to 1 person chosen from the judicial ranks. The rest of

the members would be chosen as follows:

Since one can not bullshit mother nature, the names of all national or

international prize winners from any organization that deals with physical

sciences or mathematics - that is math, physics, chemistry, engineering,

medicine, biology, and whatever else seems appropriate, be placed in a hat.

When a vacancy occurs, X number of names will be drawn from the hat, and

submitted to an approval body, say the senate, and that person be chosen to

serve for a period of Y years. We might even limit the eligible members to

Nobel Prize winners, as this would virtually guarantee that the candidates be

untainted by our countries politics.

The book Obedience to Authority by Stanley milgram will be made mandatory

reading for all college students, and every member of the bar - until we

eliminate the current monoply on lawyer representation.

Juries will be removed from the cloud of iligitamate authority of the

judges who tel them that they may not judge the law, and in fact will not only

be told that they can judge the law, but can return a verdict against the

prosecution if they found that the prosecutors acted, to an acceptional

degree, like nincompoops

Constitutions are simple documents, and most of us would conclude that we

would not be in the poor position we are in today, if the supreme court did

not have an amazing ability to give 1000 + reasons and rationalizations for

declaring that black is white except on alternate thursdays. I believe that

exceptionally competent scientists are to dedicated to the truth to go along

with bullshit. Besides, think how much better our legal system would be if

laws had to be written in English. I mean if a rocket scientist can not

understand the law, then it is obviously unconstitutional.

For an idea as to how to make government smaller, how about another

AMENDMENT as follows. Henceforth, each year the government shall spend 5%

less then it did the year before. If a budget is not approved spelling out

appropriate spending cuts, then all existing programs shall be cut by 5%. This

law shall be in effect until an election is held in which 2/3 of the populace

vote and agree that government has been reduced to an acceptable size.

Further, all government pensions shall be reduced so that the recipient shall

have an income no greater than twice the national income for couple of their

age living together. To reduce the deficit, 10% of government property,

real and other, shall be auctioned off to the highest bidder each year until

the government has divested itself of all unimproved land, all of its

buildings that are more than 25% vacant, and all other goods not reserved for

military use.

In the future, no person shall be employed for more than 10 consecutive

years in service to government, nor for more than 15 years out of any 25 year

span. (Hey, in todays world, people move from job to job, and even change

industries - what is so sacred about government?) In no case shall a

new employee of government have any pension established for him but by his own

savings and investments.

This has been slapped together

It is not yet well written.

There are generalizations & undefined

terms in here. I am seeking input