Cat Show 3/5/2021

VG: We do know that the world is getting more and more complex. And so do the computers and their programs and algorithms. The reverse seems to be happening with people, however. Everything is getting more and more simplistic. The result is a total confusion.

HOBBS: It should be the other way around, of course. But that’s how humanity develops. Didn’t you read us from some Russian play, where the character blames a rich landowner who turned his serfs into actors: “he is fat, but his actors are skinny.” Wrong people are always getting skinny, and wrong people –fat.

ALICE: Well, that’s how things progress. Through certain oscillations of the pendulum. As opposed to the times of old, today’s actors would kill to remain skinny. I, on the other hand, don’t want to be skinny, but sure enough, Vladimir is getting fatter on the smoked salmon, while we are getting skinnier without it.

VG: Never mind the salmon. The concept of pendulum is important here, and it clearly moves toward conservatism. The world has drastically changed during the last thirty years. The west is in retreat. But to remain in power, it clings to the status quo with all its might, inventing resets, wokism, war with all sorts of inner demons and so on. Reminds me of Don Quixote and his quest for the golden past.

HOBBS: Don Quixote might be naïve and even foolish, but he had a good heart. Not sure you can say the same about today’s west. Good heart doesn’t embrace wars, colonialism, and abuse.

ALICE: You are as naïve as Don Quixote, dear Hobbs. That’s what he was doing all along – releasing criminals from their chains, interfering in affairs that he does not understand, and doing all sorts of liberal interventions. And he had a good heart. The same good heart as Samantha Power, or Madeleine Albright, or Obama, or Biden. I am ready to acknowledge that sometimes these noble actions backfire, but the impulse and the motives are important. There are noble saviors who want to free the world from plagues of racism and hatred and all sorts of physical and moral diseases. And they are doing a great job, despite occasional setbacks.

HOBBS: “Occasional setbacks”? Please tell me where anything they did ended up well. Ukraine? Middle East? Yes, the combined efforts of all the progressives had freed the United States and the world from Trump. And now it started the holy war against trumpism, putinism and all other imaginary enemies. I understand it is very important for few people who make money from it. But the rest of the world hasn’t even noticed it. What’s with this anti-Russia or anti-China campaigns? Had Russia stayed under Yeltsin, the only vaccine it would have offered the world, would be vodka. Or, for that matter, had India remained under Brits, or China under Hong Kong demagogues. All they would have offered the world would be the tasty food and grammatical English. As if we don’t have enough of it already?

VG: Interesting take, Hobbs. Yes, the so called BRIC countries are developing fast. Barbarians are at the gate. The west might try to reshape this development in its own image, but not sure it is a successful strategy. Yet, it sure tries. Besides hardware, the west has something which these budding countries thorough lack: and that’s not just dollars or finances. It is also language and ideology. Word circulation keeps the world under tighter control than money. And the west has been at it for much longer period. Democracies are the best schools of verbal BS. You have to know how to fool people into doing what you want. Since you can’t resort to Gulag, you have to resort to Google.

HOBBS: Yes, Google is getting fatter, as do FB and Twitter and Amazon, while poor consumers are getting thinner and dumber. The circulation of information has become so easy. Yet, just look at Alice. She knows all the news, and she knows all the right and wrong words. Yet, she believes in evil Trump, and occasional set-backs of the noble-hearted western enterprise.

ALICE: Oh, Hobbs. It is always easy to be cynical and skeptical about human endeavors. I acknowledge that humanity is at the crossroads. People do not always know what to do. They remind me of Aztecs, who – on the verge of extinction from evil Spaniards, could not come up with anything better than increase in human sacrifice. Another attack by Cortes. Another local tribe captured and its heart sacrificed to Aztec gods. In retrospect, it all looks futile, but it made sense at the time. Exactly like Soviet collapse was accompanied by the endless sacrifices to the Demon Alcohol. More failures, more despair, and more vodka for the masses. But eventually humanity found its way, and we no longer resort to human sacrifice or substance abuse to solve our problems.

HOBBS: Do you think that changing words, banning books, or suspending social media accounts are not the same exercise in futility as tearing a heart from an innocent victim or drinking yourself into stupor? Maybe less bloody, but equally useless. Actual colonialism by the west had been defeated. But the neo-colonialism goes on unabated. Enslavement by words and concepts is as powerful as the enslavement by money, chains, or vodka. Any kind of enslavement digs its own grave; it can’t be otherwise.

VG: Changing pronouns or using Wikipedia instead of Big Soviet Encyclopedia to rewrite history is hardly a progress. I have to agree with Hobbs that it is self-defeating. One thing I am not certain about is when did Aztecs Empire collapse. When they finally surrender to Cortez, or when they ran out of the hearts to tear out? In other words, will we collapse before or after Wikipedia finishes its project of rewriting history and remaking the culture? And will we ever know that we’ve collapsed?