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The Degeneration of the Nation

A Dream About Shin After Marriage

And I'm searching for her in the streets and discovering streets I haven't walked in for years, and I want to save S', and my daughter-in-law is angry at me for being late on Shabbat. And then I tell her that there's S', and the friend I told her about is S' and she's a former partner, not a friend

By: Lecha Dodi

Come, O bride (Source)

I dreamed that I was going to the synagogue on Friday night and S' was giving a class on erotic stories beneath the synagogue, and I discover that she's publishing all her troubles on the internet, including erotic stories, and I want to help her and lift her up in my arms, because she's writing about all her heartache with the guy and her entanglement with him, and I manage to lift her in my arms like in the movies despite never having succeeded in lifting even a child, let alone being capable of lifting a woman, and every so often it's heavy and she almost falls and I change position and we talk about what happened - while she's in my arms. And I take her from there at night through the streets of where I used to live and haven't walked in a long time. And everyone is already returning from the synagogue and it's not clear where I'm taking her and then she's nice to me, and I tell her that if I have money from the books in the future I'll locate her and give it to her. And I mean even if she'll be married to someone else. And I'm surprised at myself for saying this because she doesn't deserve it at all, and I tell myself that I'm crazy for saying this but I have no control over my mouth because I love her.

And she says that now that I'm carrying her like this she is attracted to me and that it was never like this before, and then I say that the truth is - because it seems to me that I need to tell the truth in our heart-to-heart and that we've grown closer - and the truth is that I'm angry at her. And then she gets upset with me - and turns on me - and doesn't want to talk to me and disappears and I'm searching for her in the streets and discovering streets I haven't walked in for years and I want to save S', and my daughter-in-law is angry at me for being late on Shabbat. And then I tell her that there's S', and the friend I told her about is S' and she's a former partner, not a friend. And that she should understand that it's difficult for me. And this distances her from me, and I think that she should make an effort, that she should understand, that it's not simple. And then after she makes an effort maybe she won't throw me away like S', whom I chased after - and she didn't make an effort.

But it seems that I can't explain this to her and she doesn't understand, and I'm upset that I missed the opportunity with S' when we suddenly grew closer and then without warning she ran away, and what did I do wrong. And now here I am again telling the truth to my new daughter-in-law, and it eases my mind that I'm no longer hiding, and I thought that this would finally bring us closer - but the truth doesn't help. And I no longer recognize the streets where I grew up and everything is already full of Haredim [ultra-Orthodox Jews], and the Haredi children say he's police, and one child says it can't be because he has a black kippah [skullcap] but he looks strange with a kippah. And I'm afraid of the children running there on the stairs where there was once a girl I loved, and there was a gate there where we used to enter her yard, but I continue to run as if there's no gate on the stairs because she hasn't lived there for a long time, she left the neighborhood before us, and none of the Haredi children know that I was there as a child long before them - and that this is my place before them.

Nightlife


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<!DOCTYPE html><meta charset="utf-8"><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0"><title>Virality: Corona as Network Stupidity (Part 1) - The Degeneration of the Nation</title><link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="../favicon-192x192.png" sizes="192x192"><link rel="apple-touch-icon" sizes="180x180" href="../apple-touch-icon-180x180.png"><link rel="canonical" href="https://degeneration-of-nation.org/en/alternative-commentary53" /><meta property="og:image" content="https://degeneration-of-nation.org/img/shlomo.jpg" /><link rel="license" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"><link rel="stylesheet" href="../styles.css"><link rel="stylesheet" href="../column.css"><link rel="stylesheet" href="../article.css">
The Degeneration of the Nation

Virality: Corona as Network Stupidity (Part 1)

What is the Acquired Israeli Failure Syndrome, and what is its significance for viral immunity?

By: A Non-Viral Writer

Prof. Havlin explains the success of his model in predicting a viral outbreak in Italy (!) in a Hebrew lecture from 2014 (Source)

Prof. Shlomo Havlin, last year's Israel Prize laureate, is the most cited Israeli scientist in the world, meaning the most viral in the scientific network—a fitting trait for someone whose contribution to network research opened a new global field of study, and who has dealt extensively with the spread of viruses in networks—that is, viral spread. In a normal society, this man would be more well-known than Bibi [Translator's note: Benjamin Netanyahu, often called Bibi] (he is certainly much more important and interesting than him)—but we live in Bibi's society (whose knowledge of exponential growth stopped at the 6th-grade level—with geometric progression). Havlin was the first to provide, in the early 2000s, the mathematical explanation for why it's necessary to vaccinate over 90% of the population to create immunity in a social network from viral spread, not about 60%, as shown by the classic result in this mathematical field (for the information of reader Johnson). In a nutshell, real-world networks are (generally) very small world networks, not just small world networks (known from the claim that there are fewer than 6 degrees of separation between any two people in the network). The gap between this article and Johnson is not 6 clicks of different people, but much less (and it behaves like a double (!) logarithmic ratio, not just logarithmic to the number of people in the network).

All this stems from the existence of hubs, that is, few people who have connections to a very large number of people, much more than the average in the network—those people who, when infected, put thousands of people in quarantine (politicians, for example). These are exactly the same hubs that formed the basis of Google's search algorithm as particularly linked sites, thanks to which the rest of the sites could be ranked, and a quality ranking could be obtained in the network of sites (and no, not by simply counting connections—popularity is not identical to quality!). These are also those few people with countless followers on Facebook, who would allow ranking people on Facebook, and building a quality hierarchy and efficient search in the social network, which would save the current brutalization (if Zuckerberg had been a mathematics doctoral student like Google's founders and not a dropout in the middle of his bachelor's degree...). Network science is an interdisciplinary field par excellence, by its very nature, and its insights cut across almost every aspect of our lives (Havlin has important papers in every scientific field: biology, physics, chemistry, climate, geology, mathematics, neuroscience, economics, computer science, etc.—an almost inconceivable matter in the age of narrow specialization). Networks with hubs (like the Internet network, for example, or the aviation network) are particularly resistant to connectivity disconnection. Therefore, to disconnect such networks and completely prevent spread within them, almost all connections need to be disconnected, over 99% of the connections within them, not (say) just a modest 90%. Total lockdown. Unless the hubs themselves are dealt with (another result of Havlin, whose translation into the real world will certainly not please politicians).

In any case, Havlin's results from the last decade, on networks of networks, are those that explain what is about to befall us following the collapse of the network of social connections. In the real world, we don't live in one network, but in a network of many networks. Unlike the high immunity of a single network, which disintegrates gradually and continuously, in the world of networks of networks, a new phenomenon of fragility appears, and this in a sharp phase transition—the fall of one network brings down many other networks, in a cascade. This phenomenon explains the phenomenon of death itself—in the collapse of body systems (humans are composed of networks of networks, each of which is highly immune in itself, but their combination is fragile). This phenomenon also explains the fragility of the economy—and the existence of the phenomenon of economic crisis.

But has anyone considered consulting Prof. Havlin (as an example), the world's most creative expert in the field, regarding the current network crisis? Even the insight that this is a network crisis doesn't exist in the (networked!) minds of decision-makers. All the more so, they haven't opened the data to a joint effort of hundreds of data researchers, mathematicians, and computer scientists who are experts in understanding networks and living in Israel (which is a world-leading center in the field), many of whom surpass our systemic technocrats in analytical ability and creativity (not to mention the ability to quickly raise applications and tools for computerized problem-solving). The main thing is that Bibi "manages" the crisis—with the conceptual tools of a child, whose smartest thing he could think of is simply to bring down the entire network (a network needs to be treated in a networked way—through decentralized risk management that goes into fine details with much more subtle tools, through comprehensive mapping of connections and immediate responses. Just lowering the switch is a decree that the public cannot withstand, and therefore will not withstand—the virality will not break, only the public will). Public discourse is infantile, of course, just like Bibi—every nation deserves its leaders. Let's see a leader try to explain policy to the public for mathematical reasons or according to insights arising from the data (everyone will claim: I know the "mathematics of life" better than any mathematics professor). Even the steps that were taken show zero understanding of behavioral economics and incentive building—appealing to a person to report on themselves is contrary to human nature. But we have someone who understands human nature very well—and knows that fear conquers reason, because when acting in panic, IQ drops dramatically (and vice versa).

From the moment our lives were irreparably networked, we are exposed to phenomena of network spread (Trump, #MeToo, and fake news also started as such a viral phenomenon), but all our social and perceptual mechanisms belong to a hierarchical world (that's why we're busy with Bibi), that is, to a tree architecture and not a network one. Corona is just a prelude to the meaning of viral spread in a network, and exposes the nakedness and ignorance of the general public and its leaders in basic concepts in the field (a computer virus can also cause unimaginable destruction, and a spreading spiritual virus—and our lives are full of these—has severe cultural implications). Perhaps the most important lesson from the virus is the need to teach graph theory—a historically misleading name for network geometry—as early as elementary school, instead of Euclidean geometry. This is a field that is very simple to understand intuitively, where every child can grasp beautiful proofs, whose insights are much more relevant to their lives than the Pythagorean theorem, and which is an excellent introduction to further studies of modern mathematics and algorithms—and to abstract thinking in general. When virtual space is much more significant to us than the physical one—it's time to replace plane geometry with network geometry. This way, even a leader whose mathematical abilities are at an elementary school level—will be able to get some idea of the challenges he faces, and the elementary public itself will be able to grasp at least its ignorance in the face of network phenomena, and support measures even before it sees the reasons in action (that is—always too late). About intellectuals who don't know mathematics (and therefore invest countless words in trivial insights)—Plato already spoke in his time when he hung a sign at the entrance: Not in our school. No entry to the academy for those who haven't studied graph theory.

Understanding the network and viral phenomenon will be critical to dealing with the problems of the coming century, and to responding to challenges faster than before, and unfortunately—perhaps even faster than Corona. Research shows that there is quite a bit that can be done in the architecture of networks to make them more or less fragile, as needed. But for this, an appropriate and updated conceptual world is needed. The paradigm of the world has changed and flattened—while the state paradigm is stuck in the old, good, and hierarchical past. Jewish Israel in the Bibi era treated the virus according to its usual xenophobic ethos, that is, as a threat coming from outside (without tests within the collective), and was the first nation in the world to isolate anyone who came into contact with the Gentiles, and reassured itself that all cases were infections "from outside" (despite opposite indications). The lack of sophistication of Israeli policy, inversely proportional to panic (and its twin—moral panic), has been its main characteristic for years—and we respect the tradition of Israel. Just like in security, again a comprehensive, sweeping, and inefficient policy was preferred, with severe environmental and collateral damage (and hollow pathos), over a granular, gray, and efficient policy—based on mapping and data (and see, in contrast: South Korea). Why? Because we have a "high value for human life" (for his mind and spirit—a little less). Money also has value, of course, as quickly framed in the discussion as a simplistic (and false) trade-off between "life itself" and a place that's "good to live in". Because only a society that has no class of sages, and that has absolute contempt for experience, expertise, and reputation, can consider getting rid of the elderly in order to "help the economy" (here, Prof. Havlin is quite old already... isn't it a shame about the pension funds?). After all, every child knows how to treat Corona—don't go to school. How lucky we are that a child is really handling the situation.

Continue to Part 2 - The Antivirus: On the Future of the Network

Alternative Current Affairs


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The Degeneration of the Nation

First Interviews

The beginning of the acquaintance of "The Degeneration of the Nation" editorial staff with the Netanya School, in meetings that left the editorial team slack-jawed, awakened them from their dogmatic slumber, and shifted the magazine's focus from current affairs criticism to intellectual innovation - and from dealing with the present to engaging with the future. On the fault line in the history of the spirit in Netanya

By: Bilhah Reuven, Rabbi Aluf, and Balak son of Zippor

The editorial board announces in astonishment  (Source)

The Meetings

Interview with the Most Important Philosopher in Netanya

A rare and exclusive interview with the philosopher, who agreed to speak with "The Degeneration of the Nation" envoy on the condition that only the answers would appear in the interview - without the questions. He was also asked about this, but you can only read the answer

What are the conditions for creating cultural golden ages and can they be recreated through technological means in our time?

Why are most intellectuals leftists? Was Plato more right-wing or more left-wing than Aristotle? Did technological development lead to the creation of the Bible? What is the connection between the myth of the Mount Sinai revelation and the invention of the alphabet in Sinai? A speculative interview with a speculative historian. The historian's name and the questions are kept confidential by the editorial board

Conversation with a Leading Radical Political Thinker from the Netanya School

On the occasion of the elections, we sat with the thinker in his living room as he watched the television news, ate bananas, and cursed in fluent philosophy. What are the goals of political technology? How does game theory explain the political stalemate in the West? Why is Trump the best thing that could have happened to culture? And which feminist myth could replace Christianity? Everything the Netanya School has to say about the news and weather

Interview with the Greatest Living Philosopher in Netanya: The Human as a Market

The cognitive victory of capitalism paints the inner workings of humans as a competitive economic system. Learning systems such as evolution and the brain are understood as a free market where men compete for women and neurons in one layer compete for neurons in the next layer. In this way, the competitiveness in the brain is what creates learning, just as competitiveness is the evolutionary engine. On thoughts competing for pleasure and motivation in the brain of one great Netanya thinker fueled by countless bananas

Philosophy of the Future


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The Degeneration of the Nation

Where Has Amir Oren Disappeared To?

Yossi Verter and Amir Oren, the two best writers at Haaretz, were a dynamic duo. Both shared a similar worldview and journalistic approach that focused on micro-tactics (amusingly and intricately convoluted!) at the expense of strategy. This perspective generates a gossip-like mindset among their readers, where the ridiculous bears obscure the forest, and the constant dance of folly overpowers tectonic movements.

By: The Bitch

A Secret Known Only to the Bitch and the Horse  (Source)

One fine day, Amir Oren, who was the best writer at Haaretz newspaper, a kind of Agnon [Translator's note: S.Y. Agnon, Nobel Prize-winning Israeli author] of Israeli security jargon, disappeared. He had turned his obsessive cleverness into a parable about Israel's security perception. In doing so, he disappointed the Bitch's long-standing hope that one day his column would appear in the culture and literature supplement. There, Dr. Cleverness would be revealed as the inventor of a new genre of supremely witty security poetry (something like Spanish poetry meets the Agranat Commission report [Translator's note: An inquiry into the 1973 Yom Kippur War]), or allusive prose for intelligence connoisseurs (Lurianic Kabbalah meets IDF structure). This military-poetic genre would revolutionize Israeli literature, finally giving it local uniqueness and existential relevance, distilling the language and culture of the security establishment to levels of high culture. Because, as with great artists throughout history, it was precisely the censorship and the constant struggle against it that refined Oren's writing to the level of art.

But canine fantasies are one thing and housewifely reality is another. In his departure or removal, which was never clarified or even communicated to readers (as always), Oren left the second-best writer, also (not coincidentally) the inventor of a new genre (the anecdotal political short story) - Yossi Verter - in first place. These two distilled the Israeli governmental reality in its two aspects (civil and military), creating a unity of content and form that essentially tells the story of the Jewish failure to create a Western state.

After all, what are these two friends really telling us, what is the formal message beneath the countless (really) small plots and tiny witticisms? That Israeli governance is an ancient Jewish genre of wit and wordplay, that our country's story is small-town gossip, that we have (fake and false) intimacy with what goes on behind closed doors, and did you hear what Yossel's son said about Rivkele's daughter? The week's events at the state-strategic level become a kind of juicy and deliberately personal gossip session (and endlessly fascinating), full of hints, inside jokes, winks, and slander in the back pews of the synagogue. And this weekly Sabbath hustle and bustle easily drowns out the voice of the Torah reader trying to get through the weekly portion or the prophetic Haftarah (which are, beyond any doubt, of first-rate strategic - and therefore literary - importance).

When the piquant or clever triumphs over the important, the dominant tone in the writing is irony (Verter) and cynicism (Oren), and reality seems static: a constant dance of small plot twists that obscure the grand narrative. In such writing, ultimately the genre defeats the content, and the hidden message is that what was will be (despite everything having fundamentally changed in reality). It turns out that Israeli logic is a genre unto itself, which ultimately, as in all truly excellent writing, seeps into the writing genre itself. If there is no security policy but only countless tactically sophisticated operations, disguised with imaginative code names and strategically failing - this will seep into the writing about it and its language. If the parliament is nothing but one big eternal kindergarten (Verter's central and surprisingly conservative meta-narrative) - this will seep into the plot structures, and the lowering will be the main - and very effective - comic effect.

The subject of writing inevitably affects the writer as well. Oren's forceful writing, which tries to bend the world beneath language and subjugate reality to its logic (and consistently fails), reflects the failed attempt of the security establishment to tame the Middle Eastern jungle. Like the system he covers, Oren repeatedly provides confident, solid, rational, arrogant predictions - and the Bitch can't remember a single prediction of his that came true, which doesn't stop him from continuing with the same confidence. Because the very confidence in security discourse is security itself. Again and again, Oren will hint at secrets, giving us the feeling that we know something others don't, despite it being published in the newspaper. Again and again, Verter supposedly exposes us to what happens behind the curtain, in conversations where if he's not a fly on the wall, he's fed by one of the two flies in the room (his writing will always hide this at the overt level - this is important for creating the feeling of being in on the secret), and again and again we learn nothing about what really drives our political sphere beneath the surface. The secret hides the depth. The buzz of hints obscures the undercurrents (I think an Amir Oren just slipped out here!).

Israeli intelligence is the craftiest in the world at the tactical level (such as in special operations) - and consistently fails substantially (for example, in strategic warning). This is the Jewish diaspora heritage that specializes in sophisticated Talmudic pilpul [Translator's note: intricate rabbinical method of textual analysis], but fails in common sense. The State of Israel has failed not only in policy (i.e., in the results of the discussion) but in the discourse itself. And this discourse is revealed to us every week - in the gap between the far-sighted biblical discourse of Deuteronomistic and prophetic literature (to which the founding fathers connected) and the diasporic-anecdotal fiction of righteous deeds, musical chairs, and appointment rounds, which is the literary heritage of these two wonders.

And where did Amir Oren really disappear to? At first, the Bitch thought he had gone on vacation, but as the Saturdays accumulated, she discovered to her great surprise that walla! - he moved to Walla! [Translator's note: A popular Israeli news website] Never has there been a greater gap between a writer's level and that of his readers. After a bark of surprise (a kind of "woof" followed by a question mark), the Bitch immediately took the following link and put it in her bookmarks, right above the bookmark to the Haaretz site, and she continues to read him every Saturday, immediately after Verter's column, the second-best writer, because the best writer at Haaretz left Haaretz:

Amir Oren: Latest Articles - Walla!

And you don't even need to bypass the paywall. Recommended for you too.

Haaretz Critique


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The Degeneration of the Nation

The 21st Century Crisis of Son Worship

Judaism is probably the best candidate to be the culture that will cultivate superhuman intelligence from within. Why should we prefer genetic enhancement of our sons over artificial intelligence? On the tragedy humanity is marching towards in its choice of massive investments in artificial intelligence versus the complete blockade of research in enhancing human intelligence

By: The Jewish Mother

If I had a son  (Source)

A passing Jerusalem Hyundai raised in my consciousness the question: what inner need is satisfied by a person who sticks a bumper sticker on their car calling to "Bring back Hadar and Oron"? The mobilization of a significant part of Israeli society for the sake of returning soldiers' body parts "home" brings the Israeli discourse of "bringing back the sons" to ad absurdum, and raises suspicion that it fulfills a hidden need, as if there is someone who needs another "Gilad" in their consciousness, and will settle for any substitute for it. In fact, even the original public mobilization on the issue of "bringing Gilad home" was distinctly disproportionate, as was the one dealing with bringing Ehud and Eldad back from Hezbollah captivity, or bringing Ron home, or bringing Yossele home, and like any mass psychosis, it caused severe damage to the issue itself - and no less "incidental" strategic damages. This is often attributed to the value of redeeming captives in "Judaism". However, this commandment has not existed as a practical reality in Jewish consciousness for hundreds of years, and it seems that the centrality of the idea of "bringing back the sons" in Israeli consciousness should be attributed to another source.

The multitude of kidnappings itself is certainly not an explanation for the phenomenon, because paradoxically, it is precisely the discourse of "bringing back the sons" itself that is the direct cause of the use of kidnapping as a weapon. Israel's adversaries often stand amazed at its psychological effectiveness, and are even surprised by the disproportionate reactions it creates - as happened to Hezbollah in the Second Lebanon War or to Hamas in "Operation Protective Edge" with the kidnapping of the three boys. If we look at other examples that stir Israeli consciousness disproportionately, from right and left, such as the case of "everyone's son" Elor Azaria, the "lost sons" in Berlin who need to be "brought home", and in the past before the withdrawal "bringing the sons back from Lebanon" - or conversely, how Operation Entebbe was copied in consciousness to Operation "Yoni" - we will be tempted to find a more basic explanation for the phenomenon of "son worship" in Israeli consciousness.

From its inception, Hebrew culture was built around "son worship" much more than around "father worship". From Isaac Kumer and the figure of the detached son in modern Hebrew literature, through the literature of the State Generation that obsessively dealt with the sacrifice of sons as the "silver platter", to the flawed son figures that came after them - Israeli consciousness is agitated around the figure of the "collective son" and harm to him. The matter certainly has deep cultural roots, such as the story of the Binding of Isaac, the story of Joseph, the casting of sons into the Nile, and so on - and of course the archetype of the Jewish mother obsessive about her dear son and possible harm to him. In contrast to the father worship in Freud's "Totem and Taboo", son worship touches on the deepest collective guilt feelings of the Jewish collective.

But all this also plays on a more basic need that the "collective son" fulfills in Israeli consciousness - and that is the need of the Jewish collective to perceive itself as a family, and to affirm its existence as such. Few modern nations are built on an active myth of a common father, where the entire nation is considered his sons, like the Jewish people. Jewish existence in exile, more than being characterized as an existence as a people, religion, tribe or even community, was an existence as a family. "My brother" - this is the Israeli term for a stranger. The intense emotions in public discourse in Israel do not resemble legitimate political disagreements but family quarrels. The animosity towards the left does not stem from its desire to "return territories" but from its negation of the family fabric itself - this is the depth of the accusation of treason. Zionism may have tried with partial success to create Western government institutions for the Jewish state, but it failed completely, and perhaps did not want to, in changing the mental infrastructure of the Jewish people. Kissinger was outraged that "the State of Israel has no foreign policy - only domestic policy", but a family really has no foreign policy - only domestic policy.

But how will Jewish consciousness - and at least, the Jewish family - cope with the expected decline in the value of the son throughout the 21st century? In other human societies, a drop in fertility rates is already noticeable, while Israeli society still sees biological continuity, perhaps as a reaction to the Holocaust, as a paramount value. But a very long series of trends - the intensification of fear of global warming and other potential technological catastrophes, the continuation of the sexual liberation revolution towards the pornographic era, the disintegration of the family institution into fragments and its replacement with a network of human connections, the change in moral ethos towards post-humanism and perhaps even anti-humanism, the digital continuity of man and consciousness in the age of artificial intelligence - are expected to challenge the idea of human biological continuity in an unprecedented way. The Jerusalem Hyundai may not yet suspect it, but Hamas is far from being the greatest threat to Jewish son worship. Will Judaism succeed in preserving the ethos of the son in the face of a world that is moving away from it? Are the sons lost - and will no longer return?

What is the meaning of bringing children and raising them in a world where artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence and newborn humans no longer have value for progress? Will our real sons be the spiritual sons - computers as students of man and his continuators - and biological continuity will be abandoned as a primitive idea that has become obsolete? It is precisely the centrality of the son in Jewish culture that can lead it to take measures that other cultures would prefer to avoid. As the threat of artificial intelligence grows and approaches human capabilities, the son worship of the Jewish mother and the investment in his enhancement could be the factor that breaks through the cognitive barrier against intellectual-genetic enhancement of sons. Today, humanity is preparing for the age of artificial intelligence using the well-known ostrich method: burying the brain deep in the sand. If this trend continues, the fear of humans superior to us will result in computers superior to us.

Seemingly, from a purely technological perspective, humanity may easily be able to defeat artificial intelligence through investment in self-intellectual enhancement - because in this race, as of now, biology has a great advantage over technology and its starting point is much higher. It is easier to genetically enhance our children's brains - in fact, we sometimes do this through marriage - than to build an artificial brain from scratch. But as long as all research in the direction of human genetic enhancement is completely blocked - ideologically and practically - and in contrast, research in artificial intelligence is funded with all the power that the largest companies in the world can offer with the help of the best minds and scientists - it is possible that artificial intelligence will precede humans in the race already during the coming century.

Between the two possible directions for superhuman intelligence: non-human artificial intelligence and genetic engineering of the human brain, the human direction is easier and faster and also much safer. In the development of artificial intelligence, there may be an unexpected technological leap of phase transition (for example, self-organization or emergence of consciousness), while in human intelligence, a gradual process of raising IQ can be built. Also, artificial intelligence is necessarily foreign to us, and therefore potentially more dangerous, than raising children in our homes with IQs of two hundred, three hundred or a thousand. A third possibility, of combining artificial intelligence with the human brain, raises its own dangers of breaking into the brain and taking control of it, or its addiction and loss of control over technology.

But all this does not help to reduce the intensity of human resistance to genetic enhancement of our children, for cultural rather than technological reasons. But the taboo on enhancing children can be cracked precisely in a culture that sanctifies biological continuity more than anything, and will not want to settle for technological or conscious continuity. What Jewish mother doesn't want a genius, successful son at home, that no computer can compete with? Therefore, while other human societies at the forefront of technology are losing their biological aspiration to build a home and raise children and are sinking into technology - it is precisely Judaism and its son worship that have the potential to bring human sons back home.

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The Degeneration of the Nation

Cat Kaddish

I always miss her juiciness, and all the wildness I once loved, when I thought she was both religious and feline, and she loved me too (who still remembers). And who knows what howls she makes behind my back, that everyone hears at night - and everyone talks. And they shame me in public. And a black circle is a common currency, among all the soft tongues, and everyone wants to bite it to check if it's real

By: Roadkill Cat

Why did I stop being a cat and give up on nine lives? (Source)

I dreamed that my wife ran away from home and they tell me she's now on the street. And I go to check in my daughter's room - and discover that she's not home either, and now it's the middle of the night and she could get run over. I hear a car outside (what's a car doing outside at this hour?) - and I imagine the sudden sharp scream that pierces the night, between a screech and a howl, and my heart sinks to my underwear. And I go outside not dressed, not black, not white, nothing. And I search and search in the street, in the trash can, under the trash can, but all I see all the time is the black sky. Because somehow, no matter how much I try to look down, my head is tilted up and I can't look down so as not to fall, my neck really hurts. As if my head is stuck to the pillow - and the pillow won't let go. And it's possible that I might accidentally step on my own child myself.

And I think what a shameless woman she is, always yelling at me in front of people, and if she remembered to take clothes, or if she left with nothing. And who does she think she is. Who would even want her, such an out-of-control person, even if she runs far far away, who she really is - will catch up with her. And I know who she really is. Even if I don't know anything else about her anymore. And really, it doesn't seem like my wife to do this. She's so lazy in bed. Maybe she didn't escape, but had to go out urgently. And that's why she also forgot to close the door so the child wouldn't run away. And then I didn't wake up in time to save the child either. Because I don't have the sense of my wife's body next to me in bed - even if she disappears to the bathroom in the middle of the night. And this is the undeniable proof, because it happens during sleep and the subconscious (and my wife knows too) - it shows that I don't really love her.

And if the child is crawling alone in the street, or has even progressed to walking on all fours, a car might not see her. And I'm trying very gently with my feet to feel if she's there, to grope down there, and the sky above is black black, and the only thing you can see is the moon. And I understand that the moment I've known for years would come has arrived. Because here in the sky shines the opposite side to the dark side of the black circle. And now everyone sees me and knows, they know what's happening on the other side, and everyone will immediately switch to my wife's side. Because my other side is the illuminated side, like a screen in the dark. And it occurs to me that maybe my wife read me on the computer, when I write next to her, when she's sleeping in bed. Only this explains her behavior. She was just pretending with her eyes closed.

And now she went to read dreams on the internet while I sleep, and she thought it was all about her, because it really sounds like her, from the outside. And she was offended to the depths of her soul and ran outside - and complains to everyone and howls all night towards the moon, on some trash can that I can't understand where it's coming from. Because my head is stuck in the clouds, and I always miss her juiciness, and all the wildness I once loved, when I thought she was both religious and feline, and she loved me too (who still remembers). And who knows what howls she makes behind my back, that everyone hears at night - and everyone talks. And they shame me in public. And a black circle is a common currency, among all the soft tongues, and everyone wants to bite it to check if it's real.

And they tell me in the synagogue, because suddenly the synagogue is open at night and there are many people, and I was late for prayer without even knowing there was a prayer. And it's actually lucky that I left the house, and maybe there are Selichot [penitential prayers], although it doesn't really make sense that they moved up the High Holy Days. And it turns out that with my head like that up high I entered the synagogue without noticing, and my eyes are stuck up in the women's section. And I'm embarrassed that they'll see me looking at the women's section, even though I was always terribly curious about what happens there, and that's where I always prayed, and that's where I directed my intentions, until I got married, and realized I had been praying to other gods. And they tell me in the back benches, where all the latecomers who talk are. You don't know what happened to your daughter. A street cat. Aren't you ashamed to show your face in the synagogue? When everyone knows? When everyone everyone knows? And only you pretend not to know. And that you don't understand what they know. And I don't understand - what does everyone know?

And everyone talks during prayer and doesn't pray, to the extent that it's not clear what makes this a prayer and not just talk. And in their generosity to the obtuse circle, because I don't understand anything, as blocked as his hat, they also hint to him that everyone is talking about her, and that I shouldn't be naive. She's wild and she's alive, like her mother, and even more attractive than her, just because you're her father doesn't mean you don't have eyes (look what breasts your daughter has grown that no buttoned shirt can hide!), and she also doesn't know how to look at the crosswalk. And now it could be that you'll easily find her run over on the way back home. And I go out to the street again, and look again behind the trash can. Maybe she came back, even though the night isn't over, and who knows what secular people do at night. And what cats do at nights.

And not that I really care, and certainly I don't want to know, but who knows, who knows if she'll still come back after prayer home a virgin from the women's section. Especially if she came back as a cat, and fulfilled what was always inside her mother (and I always knew), which she herself didn't fulfill (because of me. And she knows it). But I know that after that she will never tell me and there will always be a partition wall between us, and that the beginning of her relationships is actually the end of our relationship, and I remained the only man in the house. And even I'm not really at home, because I hide who I am - even from the walls. And that's why I write in the dark at night, when the white walls are black, and it seems my wife saw. And ran away from me to be a juicy secular woman, like one I can only dream about (now that she knows what I dream about).

Because what good does it do her to be a sexy ultra-Orthodox woman under her clothes, married to a closed person who doesn't know how to enjoy her, who never really managed to love her (but only to be attracted to her), who hides even from himself who he is, and is addicted to obsessive uncontrolled concealment. The nightmare that haunts him all his life is that they will discover him, and he's constantly dreaming and not seeing the road, and could roll down the stairs. No. No. It can't be that all these years she doesn't suspect. My wife surely knows. And just doesn't say. And what happened now is simply that the daughter found out. Because she grew up, and she developed the female sixth sense. And she finally understood who her father is. And that's why I won't see her again. Yes, only now do I understand what happened. She's the one who ran away - and my wife went to look for her, and didn't find her, and got lost. My wife could no longer ignore my daughter's feline nature. The terrible discovery that she's a cat, and no long sock will help. And only me they left here in the black world, like a dry tree. They're already in the world of cats - and I will always remain in the world of dreams.

And here, just as I return from prayer home already desperate, behind the trash can, finally there's a woman. A beautiful figure in profile, with a nice breast, and I peek, but but - I see my late mother. And she looks like she was young, younger than I am today. And I'm ashamed that she'll know what became of me, and what became of my daughter. But she yells at me that my daughter is angry with me. Very very angry and that I shouldn't come close or she'll scratch. Because she won't forgive me for abandoning her, and for lying to her. Not because I told her a lie, but because I was one big lie myself, and therefore precisely because I told the truth - I lied big time. But I don't pay attention at all and don't listen this time and don't get angry and won't let my mother ruin this too, because I haven't seen her in years. Actually since she died.

And I start to cry mom, and decide. Because here's a last chance, who knows if I'll see her again, and I must tell her once. I take it upon myself to come out of the closet, to do what I wasn't capable of in her lifetime. Once in my life to tell someone before I die, what I hide and carry all my life, like a tail inside my throat. And who better than my mother - who's already dead, and will take my secret to the grave, with her, deep deep into the earth.

Mom, know that you didn't know who I am. That I hid who I am all my life. From everyone everyone, from a young age, even before I understood anything - I understood that I need to hide. And you're my mother and you don't know me, do you understand mom? Do you understand what it means for a mother not to know her son? I'm not who you thought. You didn't give birth to who you thought. I want to come out of the closet, I must - I, mom - I'm a cat. I always knew I was a cat, and therefore I knew you couldn't be proud, and therefore I did what I did. So as not to disappoint. Because you were a very proud woman, and rightly so mom, but there's no justice. There's a cat.

And suddenly I have a strong feeling of mistake. Of an irreversible error. Of unnecessary sorrow I caused mom in stupidity and selfishness. Because I already know what my mother will say, after I failed in my relationships with all the women in my life, three generations of disappointments: I didn't raise a cat in this house! And there will be shouts: Because of you your mother will die of sorrow again for the second time, and will return to the cemetery, and you'll see her only at memorial services. You're a cat? Then be a cat who says Kaddish [mourner's prayer].

But my mother just bends down to the sidewalk to pet me from above, like a long hand sent from the women's section into the men's section, and says: I always knew you were a cat. I was just waiting for you to discover it. It was clear to me since you were little. And you stayed little. And you never grew up. You weren't like the other kids running around, but a lazy fat round one, that I barely woke you up from bed for prayer, and you always pattered on velvet feet in the house and surprised me from behind and gave me a heart attack. And everywhere you went around in camouflage colors and all spotted, so they wouldn't see you, but you stood out both against a black background and against a white background, and you had no hiding place anywhere, except under the blanket I bought you. In bed. And I'm a mother, so I accept you as you are from heaven, even though the rest of the earthly world will never accept you in life, nor after death. You're my son, and I'll always be your mother who cares for you, cat, dog or even mouse. But please, please, start taking yourself seriously - and stop making a fool of yourself.

Nightlife