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funkymbtifiction · 3 years

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Please, help me understand Fi more.

Hello! I hope you are enjoying your day!

I was hoping that could help me understand xSFP types and Fi types in general better, because as an ENFJ most of them seem reckless, annoying and egotistical to me. It’s easy to resonate with some of their fears and desires, however, I don’t really get them.

E.g.: in ‘Shadow and Bone’ Alina Starkov’s whole personality is a huge red flag. It is quite difficult to understand how one can think only about herself (and Mal sometimes) when there are much stronger forces at work and you can feel that historical events are literally at your doorstep. It’s quite surprising to see Alina not making any effort(she doesn’t really want to know other Grisha or train or even think about what is going to happen). She gets a chance to feel normal, to fit in, to have a kind of family with other mages, and yet…

As you have probably guessed, I have no problem understanding Kirigan’s intentions, but I would like to understand Fi a bit better, as there a lot of main characters with Fi.

Thanks in advance.

I am enjoying my day, thanks. I got done with work early, and realized I’m exhausted, though, so I doubt I’ll get much more ‘productivity’ done today.

SFP / SP types “live in the moment” and focus on what is immediately in front of them; they don’t see or look for the big picture, and whatever Ni flashes of insight they have are rational “sequence of order” premonitions. For that reason, you cannot judge them from an NF big-picture perspective, because their focus is here and now. Sometimes, they are reckless; other times, they are “on point” and skilled at seeing what is coming and doing something about it (either being part of it, or getting the hell out of Dodge).

I had a conversation with a friend one time about Marie Antoinette, as we debated whether she was ESFP or ISFP, and she pointed out that Marie could not have been ESFP, or she would have had a quicker sense of the reality of her situation. One of her ladies in waiting, an ESFP, saw what was happening and the way the trend was moving toward beheading aristocrats and left France. Marie was swept up in it all, and a casualty of it, because her feelings (subjectivity) outweighed her Se objectivity.

That is, in a nutshell, what is happening with Alina. Her personal feelings are directing every decision she makes. You have to “get” her not only from an ISFP perspective, but a 6 perspective, and factor in that she’s a social-blind Enneagram type. Her feelings are all that matter to her. Her feelings dictate her actions. Who she cares about influences her choices. She is a Fi-dom. Fi-doms have barometers that are in flux between “I love this,” “I hate this,” and “I don’t care.” For love, they love a lot. For hate, they loathe. And for the “I don’t care,” there’s no middle ground, and no need to think about it further, because they really do not care. Fi weighs everything according to itself – what its ethical judgment is about this thing, person, situation, belief, etc. How *I* judge it.

Alina is an orphan who has only ever had her best friend, and she is ripped away from him without any choice in the matter, and forced to attend a magical school where the only other person who seems to care about her, and offer her protection and guidance (the same thing Mal did) is the general. She’s an sx-user – if she doesn’t have fire with someone, she doesn’t “bond” with them. She’s an sp-user, she wants to feel safe and keep herself “okay.” She has no social instinct, which means friends aren’t to be made for “casual reasons.” (To be honest, that baffles me to; I have strong soc and not to make friends, take an interest in the other girls at the school, and think about what my role is would never occur to me.) She is a Se user, so she’s thinking about what is immediate and what she wants rather than seeing the bigger picture. It takes her time to start doing that, to start breaking down things and trusting her Ni, and by the end, she has a sense of her place of “belonging” in the world, but it’s still… about the person she cares about the most. It will always be that way.

She’s a Fi-dom, she has sx, and she’s a 6 – she NEEDS Mal. The story is all about a 6 learning to trust herself and do things for herself, rather than relying on other people all the time; like the Darkling’s mother said, you can’t always be using “amplifiers” (other people), you need to do it yourself. Every 6 must learn this. She’s about her connection to Mal (and later, the Darkling) and protecting that person; that is the central focus and drive of her life: I need you and me to be safe, and to be together. Other ISFPs aren’t like this. Harry Potter is one, and he takes on plenty of things that are “not his problem” because his Fi says, “Wait a damn minute here… this is WRONG. I MUST ACT.” SFPs act on what they feel is right – you see it in Harry Potter, in Buffy Summers, in Legolas Greenleaf, in Thomas from the Maze Runner. Feelings lead to action.

Fe/Fi conflicts a lot, and it’s not hard to see why, because it’s going in opposite directions. FJs want to be situationally-appropriate, FPs want to live their truth. FJs feel like they are obligated to society, to put themselves aside and work for a greater good; FPs feel like society is made up of individuals who should make their own choices, and not be “forced” to do anything. For an FP, it’s a choice of “*I* am going to do this, because it’s the RIGHT thing to do.” Consider Frodo in LotR. He didn’t have to take the ring, and throw his entire life into the toilet in the process, but he decided, with his Fi, it is the Right and Moral thing to do, and that the task should be his. The Ring came to him. It’s his responsibility.

Alina was not given a choice; she was revealed to have magic, and forced away from the man she cared about, her entire life uprooted – and it was not her choice. IFPs just want to live their life free of outside interference and for others to be able to do the same. Some of them are selfish, some are generous. Some of them would make friends, others would not. Some of them would say, “I have a responsibility to society to do X,” others would say “X is not my problem.” It’s all dependent on the individual. That’s what you need to remember about Fi: it’s all subjective. Everything for a Fi is subjective. You won’t find two Fi’s who are exactly alike in terms of what they think is right, if they feel responsible for what happens, or what should happen. They live in a world of a continuous testing of the outer world, to see where their barometer arrow swings. Do I care? If so, what am I going to do about it? If not, then what?

Ironically, an INFP introduced me to this show. As it turns out, her Fi only cares about the trio of Crows, so she watched it focused on them and sometimes felt angry about the changes to the book / their characters; she didn’t care about anything else, so she didn’t absorb it (or even necessarily watch other scenes). I watched it, absorbed everything, but only cared about the Darkling’s arc, as I found him the most interesting. As a result, we have nothing to talk about after seeing the show, since she only cares about the Crows and I don’t care about the Crows. For both of us, the viewing process was a process of looking for something to care about, something that means something to us as individuals, and devaluing everything else. That’s how Fi works: if I care, I care a lot. And this matters more to me than that does. It comes with a subtle tone of dismissal at times -- I don’t care about that -- but it’s really a process of what draws Fi.

That is just the tip of the iceberg about Fi; you can read a lot more about them and all the types in my upcoming MBTI book. ;)

#question #mbti #isfp #alina #shadow and bone #submission

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transhumanitynet · 9 years

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The Moral Philosophy of Transhumanism

Transhumanism is an increasingly popular philosophical movement, and that increasing popularity can sometimes lead to a degree of confusion among newer adherents about what its necessary features are. In my opinion the only common basis to Transhumanism, coined by Anders Sandberg as the “Central Meme of Transhumanism” (CMT) is as follows: That the human condition can and should be improved by technology. Of course Transhumanism is a broad church, as they say (somewhat ironically in this case), and it contains a very large number of ideas and ideological convictions which are somewhat tangential to the CMT. Those ideas characterise variants or flavours of Transhumanism, but none of them are essential to Transhumanism itself. As long as a person endorses the CMT they may consider themselves a Transhumanist with validity, no matter what differences of opinion there are between them and any number of other Transhumanists.

Having established that, I would like to propose an idea that in my opinion comes very close to being essential to Transhumanism, and which may actually be implied by the CMT and therefore necessary to Transhumanism. I can imagine a Transhumanist who does not agree with this idea since it is not an explicit part of the CMT, but the differences of opinion between that Transhumanist and others would be interesting. Furthermore, if this idea has already been made explicit within Transhumanism then I am not aware of it having been explored fully or widely discussed in that context, so I believe it is worth examining. That idea is as follows:

That the philosophical basis of Transhumanism is Negative Liberty, and that this basis entails two further principles which we may expect Transhumanists to implicitly support. I call these the Exit Principle and the Entry Principle.

Below I have broken that statement down into three brief sections, stating my assertions, and from there I will begin a conversation about these principles with a few simple observations and thoughts.

1. Transhumanist philosophy rejects all involuntary limitation.

This rejection is only valid insofar as we are not harming or limiting others, but is otherwise total. This deep expression of Negative Liberty further implies two complementary imperatives, which we may refer to as an Exit Principle and Entry Principle.

2. The Exit Principle demands the freedom to live by our own laws.

These voluntarily chosen laws stand in contrast to those imposed on us by others, and once again this demand is only valid as long as we do not cause unnecessary harm or suffering in exercising our freedom. Full expression of this freedom may require exit from an authoritarian society, and the implied demand for free exit gives this principle its name. Societies must be allowed to determine their own nature as long as they support the right to free exit.

3. The corollary Entry Principle is that we have a duty to ensure that the freedom we enjoy is also available to others.

This may require entry into a restrictive environment in order to alter conditions on behalf of those whose freedoms have been limited, most importantly the freedom of free exit. Such a stance will inevitably conflict with repressive authorities, who would characterise any liberating intervention as an improper imposition. That argument is invalid: The only impropriety is the original authoritarian suppression of the Exit Principle, without which no intervention would be necessary or justified.

Historical Precedent for Transhumanist Negative Liberty

The idea that Transhumanism is only necessarily defined by the CMT holds appeal because there has always been a flux of ideas enjoying different levels of popularity, with no clear definition of what can or cannot be Transhumanism being universally adopted. Given that situation, no matter how many well-intentioned Transhumanist Declarations were written (and perhaps to some degree because of them), any common factor to all Transhumanism inevitably had to be extremely simple. Any “moving parts” or conditional statements would simply create points of disagreement and division. That said, there were still strong currents of popular thought within the movement which shaped its character in the early days and in some cases continue to do so today.

Perhaps the most controversial example is the notion of personal liberty, which was frequently expressed as support for political and economic Libertarianism of the U.S. variety, and which came to be associated by some with the dominant brand of Transhumanist ideology in the 1980s and 1990s known as Extropy. This was the form of Transhumanism championed by founders such as Max More, Natasha Vita-More, and Tom Bell (AKA T.O. Morrow). The question of Extropy’s relationship with Libertarianism isn’t something I intend to delve into here, but I think it is safe to say that during this important phase of Transhumanism’s growth, the idea of personal freedom from all limitation was utterly central to the dominant strain of the philosophy. Although a Transhumanist might technically disavow that idea and still be in accord with the CMT (more on that in a moment), I would argue that the concept of personal freedom from limitation still goes to the very heart of what Transhumanism is and seeks to become.

Leaving Extropy aside, we should also very briefly look at Abolitionism, a school of thought defined and championed by philosopher David Pearce. Pearce explicitly defines his drive to abolish involuntary suffering through technological means as a form of Negative Utilitarianism. Negative Utilitarianism, a term coined and advocated by Karl Popper, is about measuring the value of actions in terms of their ability to reduce suffering. The “negative” aspect of this philosophy refers to a freedom from suffering (as opposed to a positive freedom to enjoy happiness), and it therefore fits exactly the same logical mould as the more general idea of Negative Liberty. Therefore, I would argue that the defining logical imperatives underpinning both Extropy and Abolitionism are in fact one and the same: Freedom from imposition of limitation or suffering. Given the strong support for that logic within early Transhumanism, I believe it would be peculiar (to say the least) to accept Transhumanism and yet reject Negative Liberty, even if Negative Liberty is not explicitly mentioned in the CMT.

A Necessary Implicit Principle

So, having established the validity of Negative Liberty as core Transhumanist logic, we can now turn our attention to the Exit Principle. I would argue that this principle is not only necessary once we have accepted the idea of Negative Liberty, but that it is also in fact implicit in the CMT itself, and therefore a core element of Transhumanism.

To begin with the matter of necessity, let us ask how it could be that someone could accept Negative Liberty – that they should be free from imposition by others and generally free of constraint – and yet deny their own right to freely exit any community, group, or situation as they see fit. Such a stance would seem paradoxical. I can imagine arguments that free exit would be invalid if it caused harm or was in some way in breach of contract, but I have defined free exit as applying only when unnecessary harm is not caused, and presumably only contracts voluntarily entered into are valid (meaning that free exit has in effect been forfeited voluntarily where a mutually agreed contract forbids it).

Another argument against free exit might be that it can damage or degrade the community if people are free to leave as they please, and it is fair to note that communities should not be left without the right to determine their own nature and future. As with all rights, the limit of their validity is the point at which one actor uses a right to deny another actor that same right. In other words, communities should be free to determine their own fate, but only insofar as they grant the same right to their members, which at minimum means granting the right to free exit.

Finally, it is my belief that the Exit Principle is not outside the CMT (and therefore an “optional extra” relative to Transhumanism), but is in fact implied by the CMT and therefore a necessary element of Transhumanism. The logic is simple: If we can and should improve the human condition through technology, then we must insist on the freedom to make our own choices regarding what counts as “improvement”, and what technologies will best lead us toward it. If we do not grant this implicit insistence on Negative Liberty, then the CMT is perverted from a simple statement of desire to fulfill our potential, into a severely problematic submission to whatever authorities are appointed (or appoint themselves) to decide what counts as improvement, and what is best for us.

In short, without Negative Liberty the CMT itself ceases to be the CMT as we currently understand it, and therefore Negative Liberty and the Exit Principle must be considered fundamental to the very essence of Transhumanism in all its forms.

Moral Equivalence of Others, and an Inconvenient Corollary

If you accept the arguments I have put forward so far, then you agree that Transhumanism is at its heart characterised by a drive to improve without limitation, and that this requires rejection of any situation where we are trapped or limited against our will. Having established that, we must then wonder about our obligations to others who may find themselves similarly trapped or limited against their will. Depending on the circumstances of any given situation, people would inevitably entertain the full range of opinions; from believing that intervention on our part is unethical, to believing ourselves morally obliged to intervene, with various shades between. The real question for us today is whether any particular stance is mandated by the CMT or its implied Negative Liberty, and to what extent any such requirement is itself essential to the definition of Transhumanism (and therefore not optional for those who would call themselves Transhumanists).

Of course David Pearce’s Abolitionism directly addresses the question of our responsibilities to other sentient and sapient beings, but we could easily note that Abolitionism itself is an optional variant or philosophical neighbour of Transhumanism, rather than a necessary feature. The same can be said of any number of sets of ideas common in Transhumanist circles which have some relevance to the question of our obligations to others. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that it’s a nigh-impossible logical leap from our own Negative Liberty to a positive obligation toward others. Even if such a thing were argued for (and many would), there would be too many ways in which we might object for it to be considered necessary or central to Transhumanism. So, the idea that “we have a duty to ensure that the freedom we enjoy is also available to others” (as stated in the Entry Principle, above) does not mean an iron-clad obligation to intervene in others’ affairs on a third party’s behalf.

It does, however, mean something of importance. The key point of Negative Liberty being inherent in the CMT and of the Exit Principle therefore being necessary speaks to our own rights, and how it is inexcusable for others to violate them. A problem with accepting the Entry Principle only occurs when we start to think in terms of “others” being the target of oppression rather than ourselves. In other words, confusion as to our rights and responsibilities only arises when we focus on those who are or aren’t being oppressed, rather than those doing the oppressing. Think of it this way:

Many Transhumanists already express strong beliefs about the need to intervene on the behalf of others. Such beliefs come in many variants, not least Abolitionism, and we do not need to concern ourselves with their details here. Suffice to say that there are schools of “interventionist” thought which are compatible with, although not necessary to, Transhumanism. So we can easily envisage a situation in which group A is intervening to liberate group B, from suffering and/or limitation imposed upon them by group C. Group A (the liberators) are not doing anything contrary to the CMT, even if their actions are not required by it. Group B (the liberated) are doing nothing more than demanding Negative Liberty, which I have argued is necessary to the CMT and thus Transhumanism. Group C is directly suppressing the Negative Liberty required by the CMT, and so cannot be considered Transhumanist.

Now, imagine that you are an observer, part of group D. Are you obliged by the CMT and your self-identification as a Transhumanist to take any kind of action? Not quite, no, but you do have an obligation under these circumstances. As I have noted, it is a step too far to say that you would be obliged to help groups A or B. But just as you demand your own Negative Liberty as a Transhumanist, according to the Entry Principle you must not facilitate those who would remove that right from others. In other words, the Entry Principle means that you cannot involve yourself in the situation in any way which would effectively deny others the Exit Principle and their Negative Liberty. You may not help group C to oppress group B, by blocking intervention/entry of the liberating group A or in any other fashion, if you wish to be considered a Transhumanist with validity.

A Final Note on Passive and Active Principles

When I starting writing this article, I had it in mind that the Exit Principle was “passive” in the sense that by exercising it you don’t do anything to others except remove yourself from their influence, whereas the Entry Principle seemed more “active” in the sense of requiring intervention. My sense of the complementarity of these two principles has only grown in writing this piece, but the issue of whether one principle is active and the other passive grew confused in the process. After all, it seems that the Entry Principle is actually quite passive, not requiring you to intervene but simply mandating that you do not block anyone else’s intervention. At the same time, the Exit Principle could be argued to be “active” in the sense that it involves you actively taking command of your own destiny, even if it means leaving a restrictive milieu.

In any case, my intention with this article has simply been to begin a conversation about implicit principles apparently “buried” in the CMT, and therefore central to the very nature of Transhumanism. I hope that others will be intrigued by these questions, speaking as they do to issues of self-identification and personal responsibility, and feel inspired to take the conversation further.

originally posted here: https://wavism.wordpress.com/2015/02/28/the-moral-philosophy-of-transhumanism/

The Moral Philosophy of Transhumanism was originally published on transhumanity.net

#amon #drTwyman #transhuman #transhumanism #transhumanist #transhumanity #ZeroState #zs #crosspost #transhumanitynet #thetranshumanity

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alittlebookdust · 6 years

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Weekly/Monthly/When I Feel Ambitious Enough for It Review: Custom of the Country

Custom of Our Country By Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton’s Old New York was revolutionary. The cultural apogee fixated itself with being the battleground upon which the old customs met the new in climactic bursts of revelation inspired by the growing audacity of America’s up and coming elite, who had begun cultivating riches not from their ancestry but from novel institutions like Wall Street and the railways.

The Custom of the Country, like Wharton’s other works, centers itself in the midst of this turn-of-the-century flux. I picked up the novel after reading Age of Innocence and This Side of Paradise, continuing my fascination with 1910s and 20s during which America radiated within this gilded frame of promised wealth.

Despite being a century apart, I couldn’t help but mark similarities between the dawning American society of the 20th century to that of my Millennial generation. Three particular observations of Edith Wharton’s Old New York still echo, with resonating distinction, the characteristics of our modern-day cultural capital. We aren’t so different from our ancestors. We still tie society’s influence to our own personal desires. We are still hardly ever satisfied with what we have, provoked by the infinite opportunity that elicits our fear of missing something better—aka “FOMO.” And we still have a tendency to neglect our humanity—our need to be in personal relationship with one another—for the sake of the things we want.

Custom of the Country deconstructs these observations through the misadventures of Apex city socialite, Undine Spragg, whose preliminary dreams are but to establish herself in the brownstones on Fifth Avenue. Her grand move to New York is reminiscent to many of our exciting beginnings, where we move to the city and feel the buoyancy of our expectations to “make it big.” Undine is no different. She is also tenacious, exacting, demanding. Her ability to impersonally view a situation in order to assess the lessons from a failure and implement them into her decisions following the next stage of her “career,” constituted the embodiment of her character, the source of her unnerving success, and the ultimate cause of her inability to consider anyone or anything other than a business proceeding. Undine is selfish, cruel—unafraid to use people to get what she wants. And what she wants, defines Wharton’s first observation in relation to the past and present human condition:

1.) We are still easily influenced by the culture:

“As a child…Undine's chief delight was to "dress up" in her mother's Sunday skirt and "play lady" before the wardrobe mirror. The taste had outlasted childhood, and she still practised the same secret pantomime, gliding in, settling her skirts, swaying her fan, moving her lips in soundless talk and laughter…”

How many of us desire to be a celebrity? To be famous for what we do? To become so successful we are followed and admired for our work?

"The grand families” were the celebrities of Undine’s time. The dreaming girl lived and died by the society column, and throughout the novel Undine relished to read what was written about her.

The “lady” was the apex by which Undine judged her standard of success. A woman’s career referred to her progress up the ladder of social hierarchy. Where a woman fell on this standard was the essence of her success and culled forth the respect she desired from her peers.

“It was admiration, not love, that she wanted...”

“[S]he wanted passionately and persistently, two things which she believed should subsist together in any well-ordered life: amusement and respectability.”

A woman’s power was her reputation. Today it is her achievements. We might sneer at the idea of the old frivolous pursuits, and grumble about the inadequacy of women to challenge the social system, but can we really deny that everything we do is not in some way motivated by the same reasons fortifying the ambitions of women of Wharton’s time? To mock them would be the same as mocking a woman finding empowerment in being a CEO or a UN leader. If we are honest with ourselves, we want and often crave the influence of admiration in order to justify our own success. Society defines our values every bit as much as it did in the early 20th century by shaping the human need for recognition.

The literal translation of Undine’s desires change across the stages of her social career.

“To know that others were indifferent to what she had thought important was to cheapen all present pleasure and turn the whole force of her desires in a new direction.”

Ultimately, Undine justified her success the way we all do: by taking stock of what we have under our control.

“To have things had always seemed to [Undine] the first essential of existence; they were the justification for she demanded to demonstrate her success.”

We are still a consuming nation, obsessing what society has labeled “valuable.” Our success not only depends on the admiration we garner from our audience, but too by the things we have in possession. But do we ever get enough of either?

2.) We are still insatiable:

“There was something still better beyond, then--more luxurious, more exciting, more worthy of her! She once said to herself, afterward, that it was always her fate to find out just too late about the ‘something beyond.’ ”

Undine’s unquenchable ambitions were fueled by the notion that there was always something better for her “beyond.” What she had never mattered. It was what she didn’t have that led to nervous breakdowns, tantrums, and the single-minded veracity with which she pursued her will.

When Ralph Marvell—Undine’s first husband and an exception to the stereotypical apathy Edith Wharton attributed to the unappreciative, American husband—did not have the financial security to meet Undine’s standard for success, Undine, who was the “monstrously perfect result of the [American] system: the completest proof of its triumph,” left him. He had given her entry in to the familial inner circles of New York’s high society, but Ralph never had the means to live on Fifth Avenue with all the “greats.” Undine realizes the situation and leaves Ralph and their son; a marriage “dissolved like a business partnership.”

She wanted more. Being loved did not elevate her position in society, nor did it fit with the cultural definition of success. And so it meant nothing to Undine.

She moves on, meets a French count, and decides to marry him. Again, Undine displays inhumane cruelty when she threatens Ralph to take full custody of their son, unless Ralph is willing to pay an alimony of 100,000 dollars to fund the annulment of their marriage so that her new marriage can be recognized by French society.

In the end, Ralph kills himself and she gets both: her son and a new legal husband.

But Undine, now a countess, again grows dissatisfied. Her freedom is compromised again by the financial expenditures in which she indulges to comfort herself with things, and their connection to success. Raymond, Undine’s French count, realizes her egocentrism and looses interest.

Undine divorces again. With tenacity and cunning, she manages to at last marry a childhood friend turned millionaire. All along Elmer Moffet was most suited to Undine; the new American man—cruel and shrewd in the world of Wall Street—a symbolic reflection to impersonal transactions of which Undine executed in society. Together they have everything they could ever dream. Millions and millions; dresses and motors; dazzling trips to Paris.

Was it enough?

“[Undine] had everything she wanted, but she still felt, at times, that there were other things she might want if she knew about them.”

3.) We still neglect relationships

How often do our pursuits get in the way of our families, our relationships, our ability to relate or take interest in other people? How many marriages end up in divorce because both parties are unsatisfied from what they’ve received from the other?

When we only love people for what they can give us, we never learn to really love at all. If our ambitions are easily prioritized above our relationships with other human beings, we lose our humanity and become animalistic in our cause.

By the end of the book, Wharton makes it known that Undine has at last become fully desensitized to the people around her. The process began with her parents, whom she used to bring her to New York; to Ralph, whose family ring she altered without a care about its ancestry value; to appraising Raymond’s family heirlooms as means to sell in order to obtain more things.

“[Undine] had learned what things cost, but not how to do without them...”

In conclusion, you realize Undine Spragg had always thought of people in parallel to how she saw her things:

“[S]he saw what they might be converted into, and what they might rescue her from.”

Undine was willing to pay the ultimate cost for her ambitions: her humanity. Empathy is an easy thing to compromise if we put first the ambitions society promises will make us happy. It is difficult to disbelieve that what the world says we need, is true.

#review #book review #custom of the country #edith wharton #20th century literature #ole sport #turn of the century #books #reviews #My Book Reviews #reading #read

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venystuff · 5 years

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How To Understand

Who here has never had difficulty understanding? It could be schoolwork, politics, economics, how to fix something, trouble with oneself, relationships with others or reading this post. The world out there is difficult and frustrating. Just as the number system and the alphabet with their symbols are very simple, they can get very complicated very fast. What I’m hoping for is to come up with some tools, defined at some elementary level that can deal with understanding, just as the number system deals with measuring and viewing patterns or letters of the alphabet lie at the foundation of literature.

Since understanding is a human endeavor the basics aren’t going to be as simple as numbers and letters. The tools I present may not be as primitive as numbers and letters. They are generalized tools which I think make sense across all the interests we have in understanding. I will try to explain them and what they mean. The challenge though is to see if they work. What things, practical or theoretical, do we come across where understanding falls short of obvious? Can these tools be used to address them or do they fail? Are these tools adequate? Are they complete? Are they all there? Do they avoid overlap? That is, does each stand on its own independent of the others?

I consider this thread a work in progress. Either you or I can use these tools. I’d like to know if they work or fail. I consider these tools, if everyone were aware of them, to be potentially revolutionary. That is, if they were widely known and used the world could be a different place. I have no illusions. I don’t think this thread will ever be widely known let alone used. People have an interest in pursing their own matters.

In any case there are basic tools for understanding. That would mean to understand and if it’s not understandable, why not? For tools to be a good ones, their meanings must be clear. There should be no other tools required. Other tools when needed can be obtained from these. Incidently understanding is not so easy that it can occur just like that. Intuition is a clue one understands, but it often fails as it makes mistakes.

1. PERSPECTIVE - viewpoint

2. TRANSLATION - interpretation of a perspective

3. DISTANCE - separation

4. MOTION - direction & speed/ motivation

5. FUZZINESS - clarity’s opposite

6. HIERARCHY - construction and location

My claim is all these tools are required for understanding and if anything is missing from understanding, then using these tools will get you there. I’ll define, or at least talk a little to each.

What do I mean by “understanding”? Understanding is that state of mind we have within ourselves that says we know with confidence how things come about and are dealt with. Understanding is graded on a scale. Who would say that we can understand something in every way, to every degree, and in all situations? No one can unless we conceive that “God” can. So understanding exists to variable degrees, from the inexperienced toddler to the knowledge of the master. Can you find something you find difficult to understand? These tools should explain why or why not.

1. PERSPECTIVE

The intention to understand implies the existence of one who understands. A perspective is how something is viewed. A perspective implies the view is one of many. It implies that other views are different. It is hoped our view captures or approaches what we are after, but if taken in isolation there is no way of telling. Another way of saying this is, perspective observes something exists in a certain state, but it doesn’t capture whole the essence of what the something is. If it is wished, for convenience, it can be said an omniscient being is the only one who sees the essence of the something. That is an option. Since perspective implies an observer, an observed and a relationship between them, there is no reason to think perspective can’t be applied to all of these.

Usually it is thought a human being does the viewing. It is not necessary to make this restriction. Why not an animal, plant or rock? Those may be considered wayward sub-categories. In this case the word relationship would better serve than “view.”

Can things only be seen through perspective? There are those who say there are absolute truths. They say it doesn’t matter who is looking.

2. TRANSLATION

Translation may seem an odd term to choose for understanding. As it is set up, translation is a special kind of perspective. It is separated, from general perspective because of its importance in general understanding. It is to be recognized that two different observers most likely have two different perspectives. Translation is the perspective one has on another’s perspective. It is the personal interpretation of that perspective. Because of dealing with a different observer, the separation implies the two perspectives are not the same. Each deals with an approximation. Two perspectives are different but the implication is one perspective can be translated into another. This should give the second observer a little humility if the first observer is given credit for a valid viewpoint.

Is translation really necessary? Can’t something be displayed or taught so it is clear the first time around? If not the first time, why not after repeated study? After all, if a truth is certain there should be no ambiguity.

3. DISTANCE

Distance is a term from physics. It means there is a separation, specifically between observer and observed. This matters a great deal if it is to be understood how well we understand. A great separation implies difficulty in viewing. How can anything be seen to get a perspective if the distance is too great? A small separation also encounters a difficulty. If too close, we see only a part of the whole picture. The failure to recognize we are too close, mistakes the part for the whole. Standing far back enough to see the object whole, too grants an imperfect understanding. That is because of a failure to apply a microscope to the parts of which the whole is made.

Distance explains how well we can see. If we don’t see at all, there is no understanding.

4. MOTION

Like distance, motion is a term borrowed from physics. As with distance, if we have a feel for the physical world, or even better for physics itself, it helps to understand the broader aspects of its use here. Psychologically speaking motion is the motivation for which understanding is pursued. Whether we move toward, away or obliquely to the object and with what effort makes a great deal of difference. Motion can be imperceptible in which case our view is akin to a snapshot (relatively fixed) as opposed to a motion picture (continual change). An object for understanding can be static or stable as with a snapshot. The same object can be in contant flux, continually changing its form. When motion is referred to here, it can either refer to the object of interest or the changing and directive attitude toward it. Attitude makes a difference.

When motion is acknowledged, we may take note of changes. This brings into play the terms scaling, grading, measurement or degrees.

Unlike fixed distance, motion involves considerably more data. That is because of change. Often we mistake how we treat what we view because we assume it is fixed or we assume we are fixed. This need not be the case.

5. FUZZINESS

Fuzziness is the opposite of clarity. Nothing is precise. Not the object of understanding, our relationship to it or even who we are. We “see through a glass darkly.” Our senses deceive us. Our reach exceeds our grasp. We may believe we see clearly, but we never do. Our ability to measure is limited.

Our view of something ranges from disbelief to doubt to certainty. Though there is information, nothing is certain. This gives rise to probability and statistics.

6. HIERARCHY

Hierarchy is by far the most complex part of understanding as it presents the structure (dynamics if there is change) of what is going on. Objects can be divided into parts and they in turn are parts of larger wholes. So hierarchy always consists of two directions: downward which is called analysis and upward which is called environmental placement. Hierarchy is the most mysterious of the tools. Phenomena seem to appear and disappear, emerge and vanish, contradict themselves and perhaps shed light on the meaning of existence itself.

Whatever it is we wish to understand can be analyzed, meaning broken into parts. The task is to decide how to make the breakdown. Is it formal, haphazard, natural, or merely narrative? Should components be evaluated equally? What technique is to be used to decide the analysis?

The other direction is often taken for granted. When we begin we think the first step is to analyze. This is not a given for things exist in any number of contexts or environments. An environment affects how we proceed with analysis though that is rarely consciously clear.

Anywhere we begin there is a hierarchy of construction for what is observed. The term “construction” is used advisedly as an object need not be constructed. It may just “be.” Objects are formed and reside somewhere within a great variability of dwelling places. If we think of object, observer and their relationship, there is a hierarchy for the observer and for the relationship as well. The latter won’t be addressed here. A hierarchy need not be fixed. As it changes we have a dynamic state. Acknowledgment of fluidity is a requirement for understanding.

When dealing with our object of understanding, hierarchy comes into play from the beginning. Our environment affects affects our approach. An altered detail can affect the whole we are approaching.

Hierarchies exist in the physical world, as in star constellations, the construction of matter, and the topography of the Earth. They exist in organisms as in man and other living things. They exist in man’s creations, as with science, art, nations and social groups. If the other tools represent form, hierarchy implies content.

(Although a singular concept, hierarchy has many facets. We may begin understanding anywhere. Where we begin is arbitrary. No rules as to beginning. What we observe may be broken into parts or related to other things. This gives rise to a hierarchy.

There are naming conventions in a hierarchy. Wherever we start observing something, we call that the “Starting Level.” If we break it into parts (analysis) we name the first breakdown, “Starting Level minus one.” If we combine the first observation with something else (synthesis) we name the first combination, “Starting Level plus one.”

Note that the process of analysis and synthesis are not necessarily symmetrical relationships. That is, the end product constructed by synthesis need not be reversed in the same way as it was constructed. I hope to give an example of this.)

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megers67 · 7 years

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What is Wrong with Who Watches the Watchers?

I love Star Trek, I really do, but I think this episode really shows that the interpretation of the whole Prime Directive is off. Whether it’s by the characters or the writers, it just goes past the good intentions into offensive imperialistic ideas. The Next Generation’s season 3 episode Who Watches the Watchers is the best example of this.

So let me break it down for you. Why is this episode so frustrating to me? Mostly it revolves around this right here.

This is the duck blind that the “anthropologists” use to study the Mintakans. Thing is, apparently, this is a common anthropological method in the Federation. This is implied from what Geordi says in like, the fourth line in the entire episode.

“A hologram generator. Oh, a duck blind. Right. They’re anthropologists.”

And that’s troubling. Why? Because most modern cultural anthropologists prefer other methods of data collection, particularly participant observation. Participant observation is when the anthropologist goes and lives with the group of people, noting their experiences with them. This is such an effective method because it allows for hands-on work with the people. You can talk to them, ask them questions, but also work, eat, and sleep like they do. The point is to understand their perspective of the world in order to get a sense of why they do the things they do. If you’re just watching from afar, you get none of that intimate experience. These anthropologists seem to want to avoid contact at all costs. It baffles me! There is so much information that you’re missing out on! Why are they hiding themselves away from the Mintakans?

I would almost forgive them if their reason was to avoid the natural interviewee bias (not sure of the exact term at the moment if there even is one). Basically when you interview someone, you can’t actually be 100% confident that what they tell you is the exact truth. They could either be intentionally deceiving you and telling you what they think you want to hear, or be doing so subconsciously by giving you an idealized version of the truth. But as an anthropologist, you are supposed to take this into account. By spending time with the people, you minimize the first as you gain their trust. As for the second, it’s actually an interesting area of study in itself to compare what they say and what you see. It gives a good look into what their values as a society are.

But I know that’s not what these anthropologists are avoiding. They want to avoid violating the Prime Directive. What exactly is the Prime Directive?

You know? That’s a damn good question.

As Archer put it, there needed to be a directive to spell out how you can and can’t interact with alien species (clearly meaning the Prime Directive), but until that was made “I’m going to have to remind myself every day that we didn’t come out here to play God.“

For a directive that is so often used and referred to and held to so high a reverence, I haven’t actually seen much of actual text of it in canon. However, I was able to dig up something said in TAS episode The Magicks of Megas-Tu as far as official phrasing goes: “No starship may interfere with the normal development of any alien life or society.” Sounds simple, but apparently it’s actually pretty complicated as well because as of Voyager, it has at least 47 sub-orders. As far as I’m aware, these aren’t then listed, but they would assuredly follow the same philosophy, one that is derived from an anthropological perspective.

The anthropological perspective means that every culture, now matter how different it is from your own, is just as valid as your own. This means that other cultures may have different values and customs that are neither better nor worse than yours, just different. This is also the basis for the Prime Directive. As the Federation is its own collection of cultures, it has no right to just impose its set of values on new ones they encounter. It is for this reason it is often referred to as the Non-Interference Directive.

But it is often misused. Not by the characters exactly, but by the writers. Moral dilemmas are often an intriguing and engrossing way of creating conflict in a story. However, it can be really hard to pull off because the writers know the solution already. It may not be the right or wrong choice, but for the character(s) to make it, it must be right for them to make it. Usually this also means we as the audience are supposed to believe they made the right choice because they writers want us to root for the character unless this is something the character(s) involved are going to learn a lesson on. That exception however, can’t happen every single time. It just isn’t sustainable in a long series or franchise like Star Trek is. But when you have a lot of potential moral dilemmas, how can you be sure to pick the “correct” choice as a writer that your audience will be on board with?

You instead create a false moral dilemma. This is when a situation is presented and treated as a moral dilemma, but really isn’t. That way you get all of the tension of the debate and discussion, but little risk of doing the wrong thing because there really wasn’t a big issue. This is how the Prime Directive is used most of the time. The formula is that something bad happens on a planet. Perhaps some crisis involving a natural disaster or something. Then Starfleet gets wind of it then goes through this whole debate of whether or not they should keep these people from dying because by interfering, they are violating the Prime Directive. Then they usually decide to help anyway.

As an anthropologist, you’re not supposed to interfere. But what it means in that context is that you’re not supposed to just go running around telling people of different cultures that they’re ass-backwards and are doing things wrong and while your way is best way. It doesn’t mean that you just sit there and watch people die because doing so will ruin some abstract sense of purity of culture.

That’s playing God.

There’s a few reasons why:

1. It’s highly colonialist thinking. If you see a group of people and decide that you know what’s best for them because you are from a “more advanced” society, that’s colonialist. You are treating this other culture like children who can’t be trusted to make decisions for themselves and that it is up to you to be the adult in the situation and solve it for them without their input or consent. Why are you more qualified to make that choice for them? What gives you the right? That you’re from the Federation? That’s like the USA trying to “civilize” the Native Americans. It’s an extreme example and not like the situations we see in Star Trek, but it is the SAME LINE OF THINKING.

2. It assumes that culture progresses linearly, a very outdated anthropological idea. You may have heard according to sociocultural evolution that cultures progress from band, tribe, chiefdom, state. These are now only the names of organization sizes/relationships, not stages that go one to another. Sociocultural evolution now refers to a broader sense of how cultures change over time, not necessarily in any particular direction. There are many different theories now on how or why cultures change, but they can all agree that they are always in a state of flux. They might also stay more or less the same for long periods of time, changing in ways we can’t quite recognize. Some might see these people as being “behind the times” or in need of help in some way because they are not “civilized” in the way that we are. No. Again, just because we are different, doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with how or what or why they do things the way they do. To assume that they will follow the same path that Western civilizations took also assumes that we are a goal worth pursuing, that we are at the top right now. Can you see why that can be a major problem despite good intentions? Like, yeah. That alien species might never reach the point of space travel. They might be perfectly fine with that. Is there anything wrong with that? They might have been the way they are for thousands of years and advanced in other ways. Why is that arbitrary criteria something that makes them ineligible for being considered equal to you?

3. It assumes that any interaction will ruin the cultural purity or natural progression of their culture. Goes with the last one. It assumes that your culture is soooo awesome that they will abandon your own just to emulate yours. Thing is it assumes that these people would be willing to just abandon their own cultural norms because you (purposefully or accidentally) shown them the light and error of their ways. Which is really just silly and unrealistic. Yes, they might indeed change parts of their culture. That does happen when two cultures collide. It happens a lot. But is that a bad thing? Can you imagine how much technology and knowledge and other ideas the West has borrowed from other cultures? We literally wouldn’t be where we are today without that cultural diffusion. Yet each of the countries that make up The West are all culturally unique and complex not only between each other, but also the rest of the world. If everyone copied whole-cloth from a single culture that had any good ideas, then the entire Earth would be one damn culture. But it’s not. The reason is that we borrow what we want, and don’t borrow what we don’t like. It’s that goddamn easy. Other cultures made up of sentient beings can do just the same. The only reason they might borrow things they don’t want is if they are forced to. This also goes for things they want to borrow that you, for some reason, don’t want them to. That’s wrong for the reasons I have gone over already. Taking away people’s choice in their own lives for arbitrary reasons is wrong.

4. What do the people want? That’s the main issue. You can hee and haw back and forth all you want about whether it is ethical to intervene, but taking action (or specific inaction) without input at all from the people whose lives you’re affecting, is making a choice on their behalf. You are taking away their autonomy. Their ability to make choices about their own lives. When you do that, you are in fact playing God. If they ask for your help (even if it’s just spit out into the cosmos, distress signal style), that’s all the permission you need. They are explicitly asking for intervention. Plain and simple. If they don’t know if there’s a problem, the moment you notice, it’s your responsibility to figure out if they want your help. If there isn’t time to figure that out, you should assume that they want you to try. It’s a general assumption that might end up being problematic, but most things want to live. However, there is also a flip-side. If they don’t want your help, then you must honor that. Failing to honor that is then breaking the Prime Directive because you are overriding their wishes because you think you know better than they do. That’s hard, but you have to let it go.

So where does that put us in terms of how the Prime Directive is used in Star Trek? Well most of these moral dilemmas come when the main characters are forced to choose whether or not to save the aliens or follow the Prime Directive. In other words, the choice is to save the lives of a sentient race of creatures, or to preserve the purity of their culture, however short lived it now may be. Do you see what the easy choice is now? The writers present this as an extremely difficult debate. They save the aliens if they want their main characters to be shown as heroes, or let them die if they want to give their characters easy drama and sadness or mope about how hard the job is sometimes.

Bringing it back to the main point, here’s how all of this applies to Who Watches the Watchers. The anthropologists are observing the Mintakans from a duck blind (wrong). The duck blind’s camouflage then fails, allowing for a pair of natives to see the high tech (nothing wrong with that). One of these Mintakans is then injured and has to be saved by the Enterprise which is a big problem (not it isn’t). He is healed, given a memory wipe, and returned to the village (okay but Crusher had to defend her decision to save him). The memory wipe isn’t 100% apparently because he remembers Picard and tells everyone about his experience (nice going). The village interprets Picard as a god (okay this is a problem because you never should want this power dynamic). Also one of the anthropologists is still down there (not a big deal like everyone is making it out to be). After great debate (where the actual phrase “cultural contamination” is used for fuck’s sake), he sends Riker and Troi in disguise to pretend to be from over the mountain to rescue the anthropologist. The villagers debate among themselves about what “The Picard” wants them to do with the anthropologist and now these newcomers (really Riker and Troi did not do a great job). Stuff happens and eventually, after refusing to send a sign to make his wishes known to the Mintakans, Picard beams one of them aboard to show her he isn’t a magical god figure (the one time the Prime Directive is used reasonably albeit in probably not the best way). After he shows her that he cannot prevent people from dying sometimes, she understands that he and his people are just that, people (because she is capable of basic understanding like an actual sentient being who is an adult and not just a large child). Meanwhile, the other Mintakans are about to sacrifice Troi (because sure why not) when he returns the one he beamed aboard AND IS THERE IN PERSON HIMSELF (?????). He convinces them to stop (only after proving he’s mortal by being hit with an arrow because ugh), collects Troi, and fucks off. With the anthropologists. Because apparently now that the Mintakans have been “culturally contaminated” there’s no reason to stay and research them any more despite it being the perfect opportunity to do good ethnographic research.

Sorry that last paragraph turned into an unorganized rant. I might post that discussion of the Prime Directive in its own post though.

#prime directive #star trek #tng #anthropology #who watches the watchers

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thebassmusicblog-blog · 13 years

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Bass Music Mix 30 – Kelly Twins

A very quick intro now to the next Bass Music mix, by Bristol fixtures The Kelly Twins. I genuinely rate these guys as two of the best DJ’s in Bristol – they have such deep record collections and good selection that you can watch them play in any situation, after any DJ, at any time and they’ll still smack it. As you’ll see from the mix, which takes you from super deep house to dubstep in one smooth movement. No mixcloud as they still have a 100MB limit and this is a luxurious 1 hour 50 minutes. But you can stream and download from the player below. Tracklist at the bottom.

(Mix artwork by Andy Musgrave)

Tell us a brief bit about who yous are n that, how you got into DJing.

We are the Kelly twins, (our surname is Kelly and we are actual twins), We have been DJing together for the best part of twelve years and pride ourselves on playing across the board, drawing influence from the past as well as the present and only ever playing things that we genuinely like. Since moving to Bristol from Plymouth seven years ago, we have played at a wide variety of nights and held down several residencies. At present we run our own club night which is called UFO, we are part of team Crazylegs, residents for the Bristol wing of RnB mecca So Bones and members of the Idle Hands family.

During the day, i (Sean) can be found behind the counter in the Idle Hands shop and work as a freelance writer for various publications including Trap magazine. My brother (Dan) is Bristol’s most cosmic purveyor of artisan foods and also finds the time to be an amazing dad to his little boy.

Music is more than just a hobby to us, it is something that we have been around since a very young age, our parents weren’t famous musicians and they couldn’t play any musical instruments, but they were both music lovers. Our dad was involved in the rave scene back in the day, so the music, the people and the culture was something that we were very accustomed to and intrigued by, We got our first set of decks at fourteen and gained our first residency when we were just 16, its something that we have been almost obsessively into ever since. What is the idea behind the mix – and what are your thoughts in general about putting mixes together, do you have an ethos etc.? Anything you hate in mixes?

The mix was recorded to promote the Idle Hands room at the forthcoming Hessle Audio party for Bristol Inmotion. Prior to recording it, we considered the possibility of doing a laptop/ableton mix then realised that we didn’t actually know how to do that. So instead we did what we do best, turn up with a bag of records and wing it. The mix was recorded live and in one take, its starts at 107 bpm and ends on 140 bpm, it is an hour and fifty minutes long and features unreleased material from artists that we respect, including Outboxx, Behling, Hackman, October & Borai, Atki2. It is a true representation of what we do as DJs and reflects exactly where we are at musically.

Society in general is becoming increasingly dehumanised, automated telephone lines, self service checkouts have become the norm. When it comes to mixes, we like to know that an actual person has recorded it, not a machine.

A quick nudge of the record, a mix that wavers slightly, a crackly, dusty old record might be mistakes to some people, but for us, these things add a certain amount charm and some much needed honesty to a mix. As things become more and more digitised and superficial, we feel that this human touch is more important than ever.

You and your bro are known for being tight DJs on the Bristol circuit. Of the many ‘big names’ you’ve played with, who has stood out to you?

We try not to get too sucked into the whole hype thing and tend to take every DJ at face value, regardless of their status. For us its not so much about how ‘big’ the DJ is, it’s more about what they play and how they play it. Some DJs, however are truly worthy of their hype.

Jackmaster always smashes it, as does Ben UFO. Both are technically amazing and know how to work a crowd but more importantly for us they always bring a real varied selection and aren’t afraid to take risks.

A few other artists that have seriously impressed us over the last few years are Funkineven, Actress and Kyle Hall, all three have developed very unique styles of their own, their tunes are instantly recognisable and even as their reputations build they remain uncompromising with what they do. We really respect that.

Some of our favourite DJs to play alongside and some of the DJs that have made us dance the most are local Bristol guys, most of them our friends. Idle Hands bossman Chris Farrell always plays a killer selection as do Kowton, October and EFA. We love hearing music we haven’t heard before, so DJs like Andy Payback, vast & Bulbous and the Falling Up crew always stand out for us because watching them play is an education.

We would much rather be sat in a pub watching those guys play to us and the bar staff, than in a packed club watching that months hype DJ playing tunes we have heard a million times before. We can appreciate why people do like that, it’s just not our thing.

How do you feel about the Bristol scene at the moment – healthy? In a state of flux as dubstep waxes and wanes?

Coming from Plymouth which doesn’t really have a music scene, we are still very much excited by Bristol. It’s positivity and diversity is something that we continue to be very appreciative of. So for us the Bristol scene has always been healthy.

It has changed a lot since we have been here, in our opinion for the better. Clubbers are more open to a wider variety of sounds now. There are dubstep DJs playing house, disco and boogie and house DJs playing garage ect. The boundaries between genres are becoming increasingly blurred, for eclectic DJs such as ourselves these are interesting and exciting times.

Wrongspeed. Talk to me.

Wrongspeed originally came about through a combination of mistakes and getting massively blazed. The idea is to literally play the record at the wrong speed. When things are pitched down and stretched out, there is more space in the tune so every sound is exposed. For a record to sound good on 33 when it should be 45 and visa versa, the tune itself must be exceptionally produced.

The way in which certain tracks when pitched up or down, can take on a completely different vibe and atmosphere is fascinating to us and it’s something we have been working into our sets more and more. The next time anyone buys a record, we urge them to give it a go. The results might surprise you.

How long would it take you to eat a yard of Jaffa cakes?

My housemate bought me a yard of Jaffa cakes the other day (Thanks Shanti), it has taken me about 5 days to finish them. Although if there was money on the table, i reckon i could polish them off in an hour. What is your favourite example of Farrellian Rage? Is the Farrellian Rage an occupational hazard of working in Idle Hands, and how do you deal with it – the tortoise-like neck-retraction? Or a cunning bit of filing… Chris is my boss but also a friend who i have known for many years. I have had some pretty shady jobs and as bosses go, he is definitely one of the best. But like all of us, he can have his stressed out moments. I find the best thing to do when Chris is in a rage is to put some reggae on and buy him a can of rubicon, half an hour later and everything will be sweet.

My favourite example of Farrellian rage did not involve any shouting or swearing, in fact Chris didn’t say a word.

It’s monday morning, we are both feeling slightly fragile after the weekends activities when a tie dye wearing trustafarian takes up residence on the wall opposite the shop and starts self indulgently banging away on his bongo with absolutely no sense of rhythm. Chris emerges from the office and stands in the entrance of the shop, he stares directly into the bongo players eyes and shoots him a look of utter contempt. Within about two minutes, the playing stopped and the guy left, never to be seen again. Chris’s eyes at that moment said more than a thousand words ever could.

What is biscuit face? Also when are you going to ride that bike you bought off a crackhead?

Biscuit Face is an old friend and an integral part of the UFO crew. He doesn’t come out that often because his face is literally a giant biscuit, his eyes are exclamation marks and he eats CDs for breakfast. Sometimes he can get a bit crumbly around groups of people and overcompensates by being obnoxious and leaving small pieces of himself on their bedsheets. He is a liability, but we love him..

I try not to feel too bad about buying the bike from a crackhead, i managed to get a proper bargain but didn’t quite give him enough to buy any drugs with. Im waiting until i have some stabilisers and a basket for the front until i start riding it. Probably best to give it a new paint job too. Shout outs, disses, ways for shorty’s to contact you?

Massive thanks to all the producers that were kind enough to contribute tracks for the mix, to Idle Hands for keeping vinyl alive in Bristol and for taking things back to the raw, to the DJs that inspire us and to our friends and family for their continued and unconditional support. Too many names to mention, but you all know who you are.

For bookings: http://www.idlehandsagency.com/ Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/thekellytwins RA: http://www.residentadvisor.net/dj/thekellytwins FB: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Kelly-Twins/128435010579167?sk=info

Tracklist:

OUTBOXX – APORIA // Forthcoming Idle Hands ERYKAH BADU – HONEY (Souled Remix) // Unreleased NAIVE MACHINE – AFRIKA (Om Unit remix) // Hit and Hope Records HACKMAN – SHE’S SMOKING MEIOW // Unreleased BEHLING – LAST CHANCE // Unreleased DOMU – DUSK // Swedish Brandy DISCO NIHILIST – NEW CAREER IN A NEW TOWN // Running Back FALTY DL – THE PACIFIST // Planet Mu REAGENZ – KEEP BUILDING ft FRED P // Workshop GENIUS OF TIME – HOUSTON WE HAVE A PROBLEM // Royal Oak MOVE D – UNTITLED // Workshop RICK ‘POPPA’ HOWARD – WITHOUT YOUR LOVE // Beautiful Granville Records DISCO NIHILIST – COFFEE & A WORN PAPERBACK // Running Back

OMAR S – SET IT OFF // FXHE Recordings

JOHN BELTRAN – BRILLIANT FLOOD (Kassem Mosse & Mix Mup remix) // Delsin Records OCTOBER & BORAI – TENSION DRIVE // Unreleased ATKI 2 – FOOTPRINTS // Unreleased D. KNOX – STRINGS OF MY MIND // SixOneSix STEVEN TANG – BASS SYNERGY // Emphasis Recordings HEAD HIGH – HEAD HIGH // Power House APPOINTMENT – UNKNOWN // White SURGEON – WIRE // Downwards MARCELL DETTMANN – MDR – 01 // White AND – HYDROTHERMAL // Forthcoming Idle hands FLOORPLAN – BASIC PRINCIPLE // M Plant

MALA – LEFT LEG OUT // DMZ

S-X – WOO RIDDIM // Butterz KAHN – TEHRAN // Forthcoming Punch Drunk JILL SCOTT – GETTING IN THE WAY

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