What did Douglas Adams know...

167  2016-08-23 by krfr

“On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.”

“Odd,” said Arthur, “I thought you said it was a democracy.”

“I did,” said Ford. “It is.”

“So,” said Arthur, hoping he wasn’t sounding ridiculously obtuse, “why don’t the people get rid of the lizards?”

“It honestly doesn’t occur to them,” said Ford. “They’ve all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.”

“You mean they actually vote for the lizards?”

“Oh yes,” said Ford with a shrug, “of course.”

“But,” said Arthur, going for the big one again, “why?”

“Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard,” said Ford, “the wrong lizard might get in.”

38 comments

I think "shapeshifting reptillians" is a great metaphor for ideologies, personalities, genetics, and organizational systems/ structures that reflect sociopathy.

Sociopathy attempts to appeal to humanity/ emotions, while being instinctual and self serving. The reptillian brain/ r-complex is appetitive and "esponsible for species-typical instinctual behaviors involved in aggression, dominance, territoriality, and ritual displays."

There are clearly things that can drive this sociopathy, and it potentially exists in all of us but to different degrees. Sociopathic thinking and behavior can be exacerbated or leveraged by genetics, substances and psychological techniques. Cocaine addicts are an obvious example of that plasticity, as are people who are brainwashed to be fearful and reactive to threat stimulus.

There is also clearly an evolutionary benefit to being selfish while feigning altruism through effective communication. If everyone were this way, society would fall apart. But individuals can get away with it, and even make good leaders and strong "authorities" who are "prepared to make the difficult decisions". Entire communities (corporations, social groups, etc) can even embrace cultural sociopathy if they can manage to find outside groups to trade with. At that point, developing a level of trust is extremely important (because these groups are inherently untrustworthy), therefor they must find external allies and rely on an exceptional use of language to convey trustworthyness.

I see this as very apparent when a corporation tries to "wash" their image by standing behind victims groups. It's a sociopathic technique that you'll see applied everywhere once you notice it.

The other benefit of sociopathy in a social hierarchy (if it can manage to convince others) is that nobody will stop them except other sociopaths. A good explanation for this is the interpersonal circumplex.

The competitive/ combative dominance (authoritarian) will often win in our current system, because it will draw the support of the submissive and antisocial rebellious (think trump being a draw for all walks of angry conservatives simply because the message is contrarian). The Dominant cooperative will hesitate to sling dirt at the combative dominant, and the cooperative submissive will be easily dominated by the combative. Hence, sociopathic virtues remain powerful in a democratic system with a lack of transparency. Thus, we find sociopaths making up a large portion of leadership roles. They have the drive and lack the self questioning/ second guessing. They don't have to question all perspectives before proceeding- only "is this good for ME". Not claiming that every person or group which displays sociopathic behavior are defined by this trait, but sociopathic actions- if properly masked to show group benefit or "trustworthiness" are often rewarded.

The thing to watch out for here, is that the distrust of sociopathy lends itself to a breakdown in communication/ cooperation, especially when an individual is questioning the motives of others instead of uniting and working together for the greater good.

We are creating sociopaths on the internet these days. That whole gorilla debacle in Cleveland is a great example. Empathy is drying up very quickly in the west.

Those who oppose western values will use these people as their battle cry and will feel no real remorse if it comes to killing civilians in western countries.

Just as the west is doubling down on polarizing their people against Russian and Chinese individuals the same is happening in those countries. The inevitable clash of civilizations is coming and it's being fueled by hatred and lies.

Great comment. Personally I think people are increasingly recognizing that authoritarian design has an identifiable "smell" that is inferior to cooperative design. This is not a genie to put back in the bottle. It's entropic.

yeah, maybe. But if you can make people think they are part of the authoritarian class, or that they are specifically being protected from the other/ danger, they are all about authoritarianism. That's why divide and conquer is so effective. There is a perceived threat from X group, and if we put all of our collective power in Y authority, they will keep us safe from the X.

I think while we are wary of existing authorities, a lot of us just seek out a new (and often more extreme) authority. That's why the "anti-"politician cult of personality is so popular.

Great response.

From my perspective, authoritarian design is a "Hero Narrative". The nodes in the hierarchy, the heroes, can be wrong, have limited domain expertise, be coerced, be bought. These are all normal, common modes of failure of Hero Systems aka Hierarchical Systems aka Authoritarian Systems. There's no fixing this bug. It's Bad Design.

Alternatives to hierarchical systems such as peer-reviewed, replicated, published science - work far better.

Some people might ask themselves what a system would look like wherein those modes of failure are fixed or mitigated. The moral failure modes are identifiable. The imperfect domain knowledge failure modes can be mitigated, and slowly improved with accumulated, decorated knowledge. This is how humanity improves itself.

Some people might think that a hierarchical system of authority (authorship, aka narrative-ness being the defining fitness test...) can be better than the alternative of randomness (cathedral vs bazaar paradigm), if only the Heroes/Nodes/Authorities are well suited to their role. But this is still a shit assumption for many reasons which would take a while to go into.

As an aside, the real interesting element of some hierarchical structures, is that they are resonant (and thus divisive). So they are self-reinforcing along divisive lines, perpetuating themselves. Like a kind of life. And as much as it's possible to get a brilliant resonance, it's also possible to get a dull circle-jerk if the nodes all decide to abide by a fiction.

Alternatives to hierarchical systems such as peer-reviewed, replicated, published science - work far better.

absolutely. it's not infallible, though. And skepticism should always be condoned- particularly in science.

many editors of scientific journals have stated that they think there's over 50% fraud or bad science in the papers they publish. we know that big corp, gov, etc. constrain and politicize science. and we know that the current mainstream media is pushing bad science as if it was good science (eg. vaccines). so yes, I agree. We should be skeptical of what comes out of "science".

Great comment, and happy cake day!

He knew how politics works.

Lizard = Zionist

This is what Icke was saying the whole time. From his easy acceptance of the laughs and insult he took when he first delivered the statement until today.

Personally I think it is obfuscation of the truth and making a mockery of those who wish true equality upon this world.

To give these pricks a non-human pseudonym is giving them an out.

"Of course they are inhumane, they are inhuman."

Bring a towel!

when can we confirm these lizards existence? and the real shape of the universe too.

We would need proof of other dimensions. Very tough.

I stated in another post that terra means the third density/dimension. and not the third stone from the sun.

I came to this conclusion when I read about venusian voodoo. when we were taught in school that venus was too hot to sustain any life form.

our universe most likely only consist of this earth alone. and we live in it. a concave or cellular earth.

this is why its called mother earth, since it is shaped like a womb. albeit I dont know how to explain why we experience night and day.

and the pleiadians never say they came from another galaxy. instead they always say coming from another universe.

the multiverse most likely is shaped like the rooms in the canadian horror movie CUBE.

the reason why it was delivered as a horror is to dismay and induce fear in us when we realize the true nature of this realm.

this proves that the true ruler in our world is trully satan and his followers, which we shouldnt trust.

.......huh?

By the way "terra" is latin, it means "earth".

Also everything else you posted is wrong.

Thanks

Que Terra Terra

No, everything I wrote was true.

Thank you to you too.

[removed]

Not another cliche robot.

You can see the allegory in MIB film too. When K and J opened the locker, it was an entire realm of a certain sentient life form.

They were worshiped as gods by the creatures.

And also the giant alien playing marble with our universe and other universes as well.

Why dont you just tell Will Smith to seek psychiatric help too? And the producers and director and screen writers and the actors involved in that movie. And other quack movies.

Our brains cant really comprehend it, if you haven't already then give Flatland a read it's probably the best I've read to help understand multiple dimensions

He knew the answer was 42

What is six times nine though?

54?

42 in base-13

42 degrees is the angle sunlight has to pass though water droplets to form a rainbow

27 away from a 69.

It is such a pretty number.

It's always fucking lizards.

Don't Panic.

Don'tPanic (in large friendly letters)

👍

There have been many truths hidden as fiction in much of our pop culture today. Its fantastic and wonderful and quite possibly in some part the result of a reality shift based in part on our co-consciousness. Think smart!

Lizards, Draco, Reptilians oh my!

E.E. 'doc' Smith had reptilian vampiric lizards being overlords on one of his planets.

this was 1930s sci-fi. its a very old meme.

In "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency", near the beginning, he briefly talks about the boss of the main character having invented a machine that, given a desired result, can compute the steps one would need to take to make it happen. And that of course the CIA/NSA got control of it.

Here is the battle of reptiles vs the people in a call music video

http://youtu.be/uUErq94zW0g

"The Lizard of Two Evils"

oh my god

He also knew what the point of life, the Universe and everything was.