Raymond Gaynor's Blog, page 59

APPROACHING THE EDGE OF MADNESS

Some readers might wonder how a world like that posited in THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor (search “In Search of Madness Gaynor”) could result from our contemporary world. Recall, if you will, that THE EDGE OF MADNESS is a SCI-FU work (science-based futuring) rather than a fantasy sci-fi work. So how could the USA get to the edge of madness? Assuming you don’t think it already has.

The Edge of Madness

A number of years ago I wrote a political thriller I called TOTAL MELTDOWN, which addresses this question. So, how could we get to the edge of madness (aka where we are today as a nation if you prefer)? The manuscript turned out to be a hard sell, with many of my trusted publishers saying it was just too outrageous that a president could place the USA into a trillion dollar debt. Go figure. I appealed to an author colleague, William Maltese, who felt that by making it an LGBTQ man-love sociopolitical thriller it could appeal to Borgo/Wildside, a publisher known for introducing cutting edge sci-fi and fantasy authors and works to the public. The strategy worked, and resulted in TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2009), and became the prequel to THE EDGE OF MADNESS.

Total Meltdown: A Tripler and Clarke Adventure

The scenario in TOTALL MELTDOWN is not dissimilar to our current socio-political situation as we approach a November election with threats by politicians that they won’t step down and allow a peaceful democratic transition of power. Check it out. Take a peek into a future that’s not dystopian, but totally plausible. Knowing the logical, science-based effects of events can help us anticipate and prepare for the future. Why not take the peek?

WELL, AT LEAST THE CRIMINALS HAVE IT RIGHT!

I’ve posted numerous times about my opinion that COVID-19 is not so much the disaster as the match that lit the fuse, the “real” problem being our outdated infrastructure, whether it be business, politics, ethics, transportation, education, health care — you name it. Critically re-examining and updating our local and national infrastructure is sorely overdue, and, I believe what we’re experiencing as “COVID-19 blues” is actually the result of outdated infrastructure. Take, for example one base infrastructure concept of business: the need to concentrate people at specific “working” and “selling” locations. Criminals at least have begun to understand the need for a different approach (“The pandemic has changed how criminals hide their cash“). And understand and implement they have and are.

The need for a different approach to criminality isn’t new. It’s been slowly evolving for eons. What’s new is crime’s awareness of the need for a new criminal infrastructure and the willingness to change and satisfy that need. While many today continue to “hunker down,” awaiting a vaccine that will return the world back to what it was before COVID, other’s realize that that world’s infrastructure was already crying out for change. Will the world return to its former state? Can one lose one’s innocence and then return back? I don’t think so. And neither do the characters in my newly released SCI-FU (science-based futuring) novel THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor. Intrigued? Want to know more about what it means to update our infrastructure and loathe to ask Bernie Sanders? Take a walk to the edge of madness and peer just beyond…

The Edge of Madness

INFORMATION OR INFLUENCE?

“Mass media:” a fourth estate or fifth column?

The former would refer to the independence of the media from government, and the media’s role in a democratic society as a provider of carefully investigated (“checked”) information, independent of any opinions of the mass media provider.

The latter refers to the role of mass media, not necessarily independent of government, class, power or other influencer groups, to present the widest possible range (or select “fringe” or otherwise unrepresented) opinions, ostensibly to influence readers. This sometimes includes the inclusion of extreme viewpoints, “fake news”and even “spun” editorial opinions from the mass media provider’s point-of-view.

In practice, “mass media” typically refers to “means of communication that reach large numbers of people in a short time, such as television, newspapers, magazines, and radio,” and includes varying degrees of both these functions. To this definition, these days, I feel compelled to add “social media.”

So which mass media are primarily fourth estate and which are fifth column? My experience reminds me that today’s mass media providers are first and foremost businesses, whose existence depend on not just “cash flow” or profit, but increasing profit. The need to “capture” readers and sustain reader interest to support the “business” of mass media, rather than provide an objective, humanitarian information service seems of increasingly importance, especially in these COVID-19 days. This when advertising, one of the primary sources of income for mass media is rapidly shifting, and our particular form of government in the USA — a “modified” democracy — ultimately depends on the votes of well-informed citizens.

So, is our current media a fourth estate or a fifth column? It seems to me an admixture, with increasing, often obscurely, opinion entwined with fact, a form of reporting at times in the past called propaganda. And yet, the “free press” of the Western world, as wild and opinionated as it sometimes appears, still retains a its core purpose: to inform voting citizens from a non-partisan point-of-view in support of our democracy.

Raymond Gaynor

Author of THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020)

Co-author with A. G. Hayes of QUANTUM DEATH (Savant 2016) and with William Maltese of TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2009)

Author website at https://garymartine.yolasite.com/raym...

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PEERING THROUGH A LOOKING GLASS

Not unlike Alice in Lewis Carroll’s THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE, we Curious Alice’s have the opportunity to peer through a mirror of today and tomorrow’s society, and get a glimpse of the results of our current, tumultuous times. And, like our increasingly polarized society, it’s a vision some will embrace, while other’s likely revile.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je6CC...

I wrote THE EDGE OF MADNESS inspired by many interlocking though often seemingly incongruent and quixotic events happening in our contemporary world, wondering how, based on the premises of science-driven futuring (SCI-FU), the more distant future might look, and what the unique challenges that particular coming-of-age generation would likely face. Interested? Doff your clothes (SCI-FU predicts that people will prefer meeting unclothed for security reasons if no other), and if you’re rich enough, don some mono-molecular flack and a shimmer suit, put on your CandyShades and breathe a breath of ContraSpray before descending from your 900th floor condo to a world teeming with new social technologies, where the “culturally natural” landscape constantly inspires “culturally natural” religions, many extensions of Wicca. A world where hot azuki replaces coffee, where doors and elevators talk to their “clients” in voices designed to be most psychologically effective. Where storefronts whisper about products and sales opportunities uniquely suited to the passerby.

Available in printed softcover or Amazon Kindle eBook format The Edge of Madness

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE BI?

Bisexuality? What does that mean, really? Can a person really be sexually attracted to both genders?

For me, the first question was always do bi’s really exist? I was pleased to read a recent article on BBC News about former swimmer Harry Needs coming out bisexual – https://www.bbc.com/news/video_and_au....

Okay, so if bisexuality really exists (and one news article doesn’t necessarily make it so) wouldn’t it likely be just a phase of flaming puberty or young adulthood? I was doubly pleased to read another recent article on BBC News about Lili Reinhart claiming her bisexuality definitely isn’t a phase – https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainmen....

Double okay, so if it exists and isn’t “just a phase” (again, two news articles don’t necessarily prove anything), then would there be such a thing as a bi lifestyle? For this, I had to dig a bit to find a BBC documentary about what seems a bi lifestyle – https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p059....

The Edge of Madness

Triple okay, though it sounds like only the British are bisexual (FYI, I don’t believe this for a moment), what would a world be like where youth actually deal with LGBTQ relationships? That’s were my newest book, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor comes in. A SCI-FU (science-based futuring) novel, it looks into a future mirror and allows readers to explore this cogent question by following the lives of three young firebrands as they explore what friendship, romance, love and sexuality mean in a challenging and seemingly dangerous world. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08B1663ZZ

MY HOUSEPLANT’S PREFER MASTERCARD

I’ve long been interested in plant perception, having had the privilege of knowing NASA scientist Cleve Backster, who pioneered the idea of plant “primary perception.” While always considered a fringe area (My love of fringes as is evident by the title and content of my newest book, THE EDGE OF MADNESS).

The Edge of Madness

Actually the movement stared in the Western world long before Cleve, with — ta-da! – Charles Darwin’s famous book THE POWER OF MOVEMENT IN PLANTS. His obtuse theory of plant behavior is being pioneered these days by scientists like Monica Gagliano at the University of Western Australia’s Centre for Evolutionary Biology. Botanists there have been doing experiments that suggest that plants actually have cognitive abilities such as perception, learning, and consciousness though they react (“behave”) slower than we do. Researchers there have demonstrated that plants are able to learn from past experiences and can be classically conditioned. Cleve Backster’s work went well beyond this, however. He suggested that primary perception in plants is linked closely to their symbiotic root bacteria and any animals that come into their “zone of perception.” He thought that it’s the bacteria that link plant consciousness with something greater than we humans largely unconsciously share amongst ourselves and with all other living things. Like the Buddhists are wont to say, all life appears interconnected whether we are aware of it or not.

But enough of that. My orchid is shivering either with joy or concern that I’m sharing this intimate information with other humans. Which brings up some other interesting issues about plants: Check out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy9eM....

Cleve Backster believed plants not only can feel and even anticipate pain, but could synchronize feelings with humans. His infamous shuttle experiment showed that, if it is true, then a “love bond” with a human could exist over vast distances and the bonded plant could feel what its caretaker was feeling instantaneously over vast distances. This suggested to him that there is a second underlying “fabric” to the universe based on a network of primary perception woven of humans, animals, plants and bacterial feelings.

Can one hear a plant scream? Check this out: “‘The more a plant is subjected to stress, the louder the signal,’ said Dr Frank Kühnemann. Plants do not actually scream in pain. But different sounds are heard when the gas they emit, ethylene, is bombarded with lasers….” and “Although not audible to the human ear, the secret voices of plants have revealed that cucumbers scream when they are sick, and flowers whine when their leaves are cut [source: Deutsche Welle]. There’s also evidence that plants can hear themselves being eaten” for starters.

All this is making me hungry for food and some entertainment. Maybe a nice choir salad…

IF PIGS COULD FLY AND PLANTS HAD VISA CARDS

Extraordinary changes are sweeping through human society triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. While human society is rapidly changing, what about the rest of the biological world of we are supposed to be stewards?

In many ways, animals have it the worst. With a species choice of domestication (primarily to act as human food), or extinction, there is little hope for animals in the new world. In THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020 – internet search keywords “The Edge of Madness Gaynor”) you might notice there are no specific animals mentioned at all! No dogs, cats, goldfish, rats, tigers or elephants. In fact, while no animals are mentioned, the only surviving “wild” animals are birds. And their survival is only due to necessity – keeping bugs in balance. If pigs could fly…

Plants, in the SCI-FU (science-based futuring) world at the edge of madness, fare somewhat better:

“Encouraged by their government, NewAmericans slowly began to re-define what recreation meant. It soon became ‘in’ to take one hour or even one or more days off work to tour formerly ravaged byways, officially renaming in the vernacular the animals and plants they noted while walking or Bwheeling.

Naming the animals and plants after themselves…?

‘The idea was to inspire feelings of environmental stewardship through government established and funded official Naming Ceremonies—N-Cares—whereby human caretakers and the animal or plant names of their now ‘cultivated natural’ darlings would be publicly announced, ceremoniously celebrated, then recorded digitally in ever-expanding governmental N-Cares information vaults called I-Cares.’

The honor caught on and the practical result was immediate: I-Cares, in essence governmental genetic diversity repositories, sprang up everywhere, and awardees gladly paid for public recognition, contractually committing themselves to husbanding the animals or plants which they had name-recognized for the duration of the human’s life. As a further honorific, caretakers were permitted to wear a light blue colored armband. At the same time, the government inserted a tiny, inert, bioluminescent DNA tag into the now protected entity, identifying it as under the care and protection of the government by way of that particular human caretaker.”

What’s next? Might as well give the best attended plants a VISA card…

The Edge of Madness

BUSINESS AND STATE

Everyone knows that one basic tenant of the United States of America is separation of Church and State. Business and State, however, remain intricately entwined, typically to the advantage of large corporate business. That is to say, many large corporations have, by nature of capitalism, one goal above all others: increasing profit. Let me say that again. Not profit, but constantly increasing profit. This places a heavy burden on executives whose jobs depend on, and soon become defined by, increasing profit. As primarily financial institutions, corporations that become large financially typically begin seeking and implementing financial solutions to their problems. Consider, for example, a large corporation’s dilemma whereby an environmental “problem” blocks increasing profit. From a purely “business” perspective, the problem is one needing a financial solution. That is, the problem is one of fiscal resolution. This theoretically separates and absolves the executives from responsibility as to the “final” solution and exactly how it is administered. For publicity reasons, the solution needs to be accomplished by someone outside the corporation (e.g. professional “hit person” aka “disinformation specialist,” “influencer” or “lobbyist”) to insure “plausible deniability,” should the effort in any way go public and/or amiss. This chain of reasoning ends when it ultimately becomes cheaper and easier to murder the person(s) behind the “problem.”

While this is admittedly a fictitious scenario, it suggests a tenable outcome of large corporate business that seems to me to be affecting executive branch of the US government as well. Not that anyone’s actually being murdered. Well, that is, if you discredit things like indirect excessive deaths from COVID (e.g. https://sports.yahoo.com/dnc-speaker-...) or as a result of loosening or eliminating federal human, financial and environmental protections.

It isn’t inconceivable to me that this “new” form of anethical business has infiltrated the corporate businesses to the point that their influence on government has created a form of supra-corporate-and-governmental, white-collar, “organized crime.” If so, it’s likely to take more than a change of government and/or large corporate leadership to correct.

Separation of Business and State is a predicate in THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor, where the challenge for youth feeling disenfranchised is to become a blue-collar “Fast Eddie.” A Fast Eddie is an individual, independent contractor who makes him- or herself available to “do the dirty work” for compensation (“comp” in my science-based future world existing on the edge of madness).

And, what, you ask, of separation of Church and State? At the edge of madness, spirituality is something individual, while religions (the “Church”) have become social clubs operating as…yes, businesses. It would make a good book, if I hadn’t already written it.

The Edge of Madness

PLEASURE AND THE COVID PANDEMIC

There’s obviously no place for pleasure during as serious an event as the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s my opinion that’s wrong! It’s all about infrastructure. I believe that COVID-19 “uncovered” our decayed and outdated infrastructure, be it political, ethical, internet, business, transportation (especially airlines, cruise ships, trains, buses, highways and amenities), education, health care (including public health), insurance, social services…you name it. In that sense COVID-19 has been a helpful “shot-across-the-bow” alerting us to carefully re-examine, repair and update our various American infrastructures. The “problem” is that few have heard the shot, being diluted in the rush to deal with the acute effects of COVID.

That’s not to belittle COVID, but instead to emphasize (1) it’s a call to arms over infrastructure, in the case of COVID, public health and health care infrastructure; and (2) in the process, our opportunity to prepare not only for the inevitable next epidemic/pandemic, which could be even more infective and/or deadly, but launch our nation into a much needed future. So, is there really no place for pleasure? It’s all about infrastructure – https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/he.... I think we need fun, pleasure, laughter and comedy even more during these sad and difficult times, with the pandemic (and necessary infrastructure examination) basically “out-of-control,” resulting in deaths, bankruptcies, families in a negative spiral.

Interestingly, this approach to life is mirrored in the science-based futuring (SCI-FU) novel, THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor. Taking up where TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2009) by Raymond Gaynor and William Maltese left off, NewAmerica, a shadow of its former United States of America, provides a challenging and dangerous future place for three young firebrands to live. It’s a hedonistic world, offering unlimited pleasure to those who can figure it out.

The Edge of Madness

WALKING THE EDGE OF MADNESS

The Edge of MadnessI went for my early morning (mourning) walk today and it occurred to me how all of us are walking on the edge of madness just now. The issues of today seem to be piling one on top of another, creating a sense that on one side we have the “old” world to which so many hope to return but never will, and on the other side we have darkness and the unknown. It’s like two universes touching edges. Upon which side will we end up? A past world, now more fantasy than reality, or the new world, fraught with unknown changes?

RMB (read my book): THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) by Raymond Gaynor and cast some light on a scientifically-based future that might well happen. Not a dystopian world. Not a Trumpian-style “money-is-the-beast” world. Not a reactionary world. A world where technology continues to progress, and humans face the opportunity to mature beyond childhood into adolescence. A time to decide individual futures, relationships and lifelines reflected back to us in the current world on a SCI-FU “mirror.”

Taking up where TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2009) by Raymond Gaynor and William Maltese left off, NewAmerica, a shadow of its former United States of America, provides a challenging and dangerous future place for three young firebrands to live.