Coding In - Respect

Almost all newspapers on any day since the COVID-19 pandemic began, atleast one section is devoted to Mental Health and the tips and tricks that can be used to maintain mental health. Prior to the Pandemic, such information still came through but at a lesser frequency. After the pandemic it is almost every day. On weekends the sections are albeit bigger.

A wholesome and careful read would reveal that, the dominant message of this information is that, it is upto the individual to take care of his or her mental health. It is a bonus point if the dominant powers such as employers, institutions make provisions for mental health well-being of the individuals who work under them. However, it is not made a part of the culture that we live WITH ( Industries,Institutions, Employers). It is something that each individual is required to strive despite every obstacle thrown in the way.

As a personal experiment, I made my brain to do the following:

1. Take all the major religions of the world, take (atleast) one holy text from each religion. Skip the interpretation by the Godmen. Every text would contain a detailed description of Nature, that included Humans, Animals and Plants.

2. Take all the major philosophies of the world. Take all the writings of the major philosophers of the world. Marcus Aurelius to Immanuel Kant. You can also take Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche. All Philosophy is towards the exclusive study of Humanity.

3. Take all the Political Systems that evolved due to Religion and Philosophy. The application of the Religious principles and Philosophical principles towards a particular goal will be apparent. That goal would be growth, survival of a particular civilisation.

4. Take all the Psychological Sciences and Psychiatric Sciences. Take all the scientific papers and books and the major icons of Psychology right from William James to Daniel Goleman and others currently alive in our time. All these brilliant people devote their time exclusively to the study of the Human Brain.

5. Take all technology that We humans interact with every day - Operating Systems, Social Media, Surveillance Applications and Health Trackers. All these applications are designed to point our brain towards a particular goal and ensure that our brains work in tandem with the business models.

My Brain saw a pattern here:

a. We started off with the study of all Life Form, narrowed to one life form. Society, economy and culture how this single life form lives and behaves.

b. Then we narrowed the study to a single organ within that one life form. Now our society, economy and culture depends upon how this single organ ‘works’.

This is essentially the principle on which civilisations are founded.

When Religion, Philosophy and Culture was the basis for civilisation, The Human Life Form was the most important entity. The Human Life form was the axle over which the wheels of civilisation rolled over. When Psychology and Digital Technology becomes the basis for civilisation, The Human Brain becomes the most important entity and the axle over which the wheels of civilisation runs.

Therefore, armed with the knowledge of the human brain and the technology, it is logical to expect that, when the Human Brain works contrary to what is expected by society, economy and culture, the logical step of civilisation would be direct the maximum resources to ensure that, we understand why it is working so and rectify it. Atleast that is maybe logical. But that has never happened.

This is probably because each society is built on top of the previous one, and it is difficult to let go of the controlling systems of the previous society, however faulty they may have been.Therefore, we build expectations that do not have anything to do with the welfare of the central axle - the life form or the organ. We develop the distraction-attention loop.

All the miracles of modern life - the entertainment industry, commercial economy and democracy, requires the human brain to be distracted. The sole idea of all consumer economy is to create the better or best symbiotic relationship between distraction and attention in our brains. Political Campaigns that invest heavily in social media reinforce this distraction-attention loop.

Therefore, for our digital civilisation to grow, a continuous state of distraction is required and welcomed. This distraction is provided by an external force - the consumer economy and the entertainment industry.

Surveillance applications that employ the carrot and stick approach of 20th century industries forces workers to be “productive” and ensures the the job is not under-utilised by the worker. Surveillance applications that identify traffic violator such as jumping traffic signals, speeding requires citizens to be attentive to the traffic rules and not get carried away by the advertisement they saw for their cars or motorcycles. Here distractions are not welcomed.

Therefore, in order for a human brain to be productive to the civilisation, a continuous state of attention is required. This attention must be pointed by an external force - an institution, employer, law enforcement.

Therefore, the true axle of our digital civilisation is the capacity of a single human organ to switch between distraction and attention.

Therefore it is quite logical for our elected officials, political campaigns and welfare institutions, judiciary are rapidly switching “distract first and draw attention” model to drive their messages and they need the help of the Companies that produce the force of distraction - attention, desperately even if that means sacrificing a good chunk of the Mental Health of the citizens.

And they are all using Technology for the distraction-attention loop.

Even when the Cambridge Analytica scandal exposed the dark effects of behaviour manipulation, it is sufficient to make the manipulation more humane but not stop. When motor vehicles are getting faster and faster but the road infrastructure and public works institutions remains the same as it was three decades back, it is sufficient to build and sell better cars every year, privatise the insurance economy and to have elected officials, celebrities launch responsible driving campaigns on social media or in the streets once a year.

Going by the same logic, When Productivity is defined by a surveillance app, the worker may not die in the factory but is sure to get burnt out or worse inflict self-harm such as suicide, undergo depression and other mental disorders such as sleep deprivation, obesity, compulsive behaviours. is sufficient if we read daily in the newspapers the benefits of mental health and meditation or standing upside down on the head. Even declaring one day as International Yoga day and publicising it on Social Media would be sufficient. It is sufficient if we have an app that reminds us to take a break from our screens. It is sufficient if we struggle to incorporate the tips that we read in the papers.

It is sufficient if life forms are made to align themselves with the goals of the civilisation, even struggle in vain and not the other way round. So one may wonder, where is the respect for the life form that is the central axle of the civilisation.

When all life forms became central to the civilisation, our understanding of the life forms improved, but there was no respect for any single life form. Brutal Wars and diseases saw thousands of animals, trees and humans die over years. At some point the distraction-attention loop failed.

When one life form became central to the civilisation, our understanding of the human life form improved, we invented currency, democracy, healthcare and agriculture. But, there was no respect for that life form, it took Two World Wars, Brutal Colonialism, Gulags, Holocaust, Human Medical Experiments, Police States to show us the real nature of the disrespect in order to “shock” us into rectifying it. Again at some point the distraction-attention loop failed.

The failure was natural because, the technology to drive the distraction-attention loop was only the humans. It is our Humanity that forces us to give attention to the destructive nature of the civilisation.

When one organ (the brain) in the human life form becomes central to the civilisation, our understanding of the brain improves. We have understood that our Humanity/Human Nature or Human Mental State emerges from our Brains.

However, there is a repetition of the disrespect to the human brain much like the disrespect we showed prior. With Technology, the distraction-attention loop is much more resilient to failure. Technology is not alive therefore, there is no humanity in it to give a human-like attention to the destructive nature of the civilisation.

In the course of building technology and technology based business models and workplace models, we choose to factor in only the distraction - attention function of the human brain but we totally fail to factor in the psychology that stresses on human nature.

Our technology today, has coded in all the methods of distraction-attention loops of our societies prior to the digital civilisation. But, our technology is very hesitant to code in Human Nature. It more or less is ready to code out our Humanity and the limitations to Human Life such as Mental and physical fatigue, Pleasure and Reward System and the ability to set Goals in Human Life.