Is ChatGPT mommy? ft. Special Guest
I was gone, and now I'm back. Things are really good with me. I'm working on a video game that's a version of Rollercoaster Tycoon but for Wolt/Lieferando/Doordash delivery drivers. I just got my period for the first time in two months. I've been spending a lot of time asking ChatGPT about my personal life. I'm running around town sweating and crying (I'm not crying; I'm just sweating from my eyes). The weather in Iraq has highs of 114°F/46°C this week, which makes me worry I won't get out there this month, so the project of reconnecting with my homeland is stalled for now. But that's okay because next week, I'm spending four days in the woods in Brandenburg camping out with some anarchist crackpots. If I don't return, send Liam Nissan cuz those freaks have taken me. Somehow, I've been doing some extremely focused reading, because I'm just that good, and absolutely nothing can interrupt my reading schedule. In lieu of the real blog, here's some stuff I've been reading about:
Farming
On a bus in Greece, I dutifully wrote down what I thought was a fantastic idea in my notes, only to check it later and see I'd only written "farming – what's the deal there?". Then, I spent a few months scratching around for an angle on the world's oldest profession that could be interesting to write about. Some books I picked up and leafed through include: William Vollman's Imperial, a 1,344 page study of the agricultural county of Imperial, California and its border with Mexico, Cadillac Desert, about the history of water rights in California, Factories in the Field about the exploitation of Central Valley migrant farmworkers during the great depression, Steinbeck's East of Eden, naturally, if only for his fantastic descriptions of the landscapes where I grew up – "When my grandfather came into the valley the mustard was so tall that a man on horseback showed only his head above the yellow flowers" (When I was a kid the yard was only flowers that I disappeared into), Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose, who like Steinbeck believed in the unchanging human – "I am much of what my parents and especially my grandparents were–inherited stature, coloring, brains, bones (that part unfortunate), plus transmitted prejudices, culture, scruples, likings, moralities, and moral errors that I defend as if they were personal and not familiar".
Whatever deep metaphor there is, I have a tan from sitting on my balcony researching all spring, and a scattered sampling of farm-related anecdotes that isn't quite enough to form something solid. From my research, I learned things like:
Actor Tom Selleck was sued for stealing truckloads of water from a public fire hydrant to water his personal avocado farm (probably eaten by TW Meghan Markle).
Or that Armenian gangs in Los Angeles are stealing millions of dollars of California-grown nuts by the truckload. Nuts are untraceable and easily repackageable, and a single semi loaded with almonds or walnuts can fetch up to $500,000, making it a highly profitable venture. Nut truck driver security has increased to prevent these threats, with nut companies installing private security guards, ID scanners, and other measures throughout the supply chain.
My friend alerted me to an eco-terrorist group called "The Breeders", which in 1989 introduced a species of Mediterranean fruit fly to California in retaliation for aerial pesticide spraying. These flies have a "voracious appetite", and can feast endlessly on all the fruits grown in the valley. After the threats were made, the state officially halted the decade-long spraying program in favor of alternative pest management methods.
Harris Cattle Ranch, affectionately nicknamed "Cowschwitz", is that feedlot off of Interstate 5 where you hold your breath while driving past – "a good, honest, American smell". I learned that Harris Ranch, which reportedly may or may not mistreat its cows, supplies the meat for In-N-Out Burger, which has triggered my gag reflex whenever anyone mentions a hamburger.
California's Central Valley is one of the world's most profitable agricultural centers. They grow most of the produce consumed in America, as well as 80% of the world's almonds and 90% of the world's dates. Because water is scarce in California, a complex system of water credits exists, and currently one family, the Resnicks, owns the majority share of the state's largest reservoir. Their company, The Wonderful Co., developed the concept of "branded" produce, like POM Pomegranate Juice and Cutie Tangerines. After the Carter administration placed economic sanctions on Iran, the Resnicks invested in pistachio farming. Pistachio trees aren't great for California's environment because they are much more water-intensive than other crops. Because pistachios grow on trees, they cannot go dry between seasons, as trees take many years to reach maturity, and the loss of a tree would result in a multi-year loss of investment. With sanctions on Iran, the majority of the world's pistachios are now exported from California. In Berlin, if you buy a pistachio from the supermarket, that pistachio was grown in California. Because this is such a profitable venture, the pistachio industry contributes billions of dollars to organizations that support continued sanctions on Iran, with the Resnick's as major donors to organizations like the IDF.
Poems
Don't worry, I don't like them either. But poems are curious, because if civilization is an impulse towards order, then poetry is partially to blame. I bought an anthology of American poetry that I've been leafing through, with a desire, probably, to find some sort of order underneath the chaos in my life, which eventually led me to William Carlos Williams Paterson, an epic poem originally published in five volumes, about a mid-sized mill town in New Jersey. Williams writes, "A man in himself is a city, beginning, seeking, achieving and concluding his life in ways which the various aspects of a city may embody." This city, according to Robert Lowell, has "grown pathetic and tragic, brutalized by inequality, disorganized by industrial chaos, and faced with annihilation."
According to romantic theorists, poetic meter operates by inducing the reader into a state resembling hypnosis. I. A. Richards says that the effect of poetic rhythm is distinctly physiological and perhaps sexual. "With every beat of the meter a tide of anticipation in us turns and swings...the pattern itself is a vast cyclic agitation spreading all over the body, a tide of excitement pouring through the channels of the mind."
For William Butler Yeats, a poem is a way of accessing hidden layers of reality. A "literal realist of imagination, as others are of nature", he believed that "the figures seen by the mind's eye, when exalted by inspiration, were 'external existences', symbols of divine essences," that within our imagination a deeper order is revealed. If imagination can be disciplined through form, a poet is not a maker of verses but a kind of visionary of the future. This isn't a metaphorical belief. Critic Harold Bloom believed, for example, that Shakespeare's way of depicting self-change through self-overhearing not only invented psychoanalysis but also the psyche, thus inventing the human. He believes, since Hamlet, "We all of us go around now talking to ourselves endlessly, overhearing what we say, then pondering and acting upon what we have learned."
Mind Control
I've been reading a book called Programmed to Kill, which claims that the CIA is torturing children into developing dissociative identity disorder in order to train a class of serial killers. The author, McGowan, claims that within all of us are "alters" that can act on our behalf, and can be convinced to commit violent crimes. If you've ever gotten distracted while driving a car, you've essentially hypnotized yourself into a fugue state. The person driving the car while you pondered your personal life was one of your "alters".
McGowan thinks that we are all susceptible to hypnosis. Think of it as something less terrifying than being controlled by another person, and more like a state of deep relaxation, imagination, and focused attention. Through early childhood intervention, these alters can be made more distinct and more effective. I only read a few pages of Programmed to Kill. It was a little too distasteful, even more me, and I accidentally left it on my balcony, and then it started to rain. But, in every crackpot, there is a kernel.
Artist Trevor Paglen (I know where you live) thinks mind control isn't about directly forcing thoughts, but about shaping environments so our behavior is subtly guided. The ELIZA was an early 1960s prototype of an "AI" chatbot that parroted back user input in the style of a Rogerian psychotherapist. Even though it had no real understanding, people quickly started attributing real empathy, intention, and intelligence to it, asking it increasingly deep personal questions. Our modern AI systems are less transparent and operate within a black box of prediction, monitoring, and feedback loops. The drawback of technology like this, mathematician Ted Kaczynski postulates, is that human beings adjust to meet the needs of social systems rather than vice versa.
Special Guest Report from someone who would like to remain anonymous but who goes by D--- Z----
Someone jokingly asked me the other day if it’s so wrong that ChatGPT will tell you exactly what you want to hear. I mean, yes. The appeal, though, is clear: we all need someone who will take our side and defend us blindly. We concluded that this is mothers’ work. But who has one of those these days? Let alone one who is kind and emotionally available enough to hold our fears, mistakes, and emotions of all sorts. Someone who will see the good in you when you don’t feel like you deserve it?
Maybe we aren’t meant to have such supportive parental figures. I genuinely cannot cope with people being nice to me. It makes me crawl out of my skin. I feel undeserving, unlike every other person I’ve met in my life who merits grace and understanding.
I’m revisiting Freud to outsmart my therapist (who I also feel is a bit too kind and willing to see my side). Can I control my therapy too? What are the limits to what I can prepare for and control the outcomes of? Lately, life has stripped me down to a single raw exposed nerve. Even a strong breeze causes me to wince. I’m powerless to my childhood and the neuroses that stem therefrom. THEY are driving this car, baby. But it’s totally awesome. I get to watch and acknowledge as they drive the car. I get to be gentle and gracious to the 8-year-old driving the car instead of screaming “LET GO OF THE FUCKING WHEEL.” Cool, amazing, makes total sense. I love it.
Anyway, reading Beyond the Pleasure Principle, I see things reflected back to me in a way that is so cliché and obvious I cringe as I read. The gist is that in Freud’s earlier works, he asserted that the human unconscious was driven primarily by a desire to seek pleasure and avoid pain at all costs. Here, pleasure is defined as a lack of excitation or tension. The state in which pent-up energy is released is pleasure. Freud reassesses this in Beyond the Pleasure Principle. He points out that there are many instances in which we act in ways that lead to unpleasure. Freud gives several examples of repetitive behaviors where we inflict discomfort upon ourselves. These include PTSD - soldiers repeating and reliving trauma through nightmares, the compulsion of children to repeat uncomfortable events (a mother leaving, a traumatic doctor’s visit) in play in order to take control and assume an active role, or the simple fact that we often find ourselves (whether actively or passively) in similar situations, roles, and relationships throughout our lives that bring us displeasure. It’s pretty simple, I think. If something overwhelmed me because I was passive, perhaps I can become active by repeating it. Perhaps I can master it. I can create it. I can control and protect myself from the trauma after the fact because I couldn’t be prepared before. HA. Nice try …and try, and try, and try again.
Life is unavoidably traumatic. Freud moves into the realm of biology to hammer this point home (I’ll summarize off the dome because I’m tired of re-reading). Imagine a very simple organism bopping about in the world. Its surface turned outward toward external stimuli and abrasive energy of the outside world. It can’t go on like this; it’s too stimulating. So the outer layer develops into a crust or protective shield, while the inside is a suspended fragment of living substance. The external layer filters out the extreme excitation of the outside world, so that the underlying layer receives only a fraction of the original intensity. Wouldn’t it just be easier to not go through this hassle at all? The whole living thing is so complicated and so uncomfortable. Freud proposes here that the aim of all life is death. Not that we want to die, just that it would be so much easier to be a stone or something non-organic that isn’t in a constant battle for equilibrium? Life is a weird interruption of the calm that inorganic matter already enjoys. There is, of course, the opposing life drive that calls us away from going stone-mode. In this biology section, one line captured me. I will make a crude metaphor out of it. “By its death, the outer layer has saved all the deeper ones from a similar fate.” I think of myself as a child, quite exposed, bombarded with stimuli and unfiltered energy - not yet crusted over. Childhood ends through huge losses - there’s no getting out of it. And we keeeeeep returning to these wounds. Our parents start to discipline us, expect more of us, turn their affection towards a new sibling, we learn that love is no longer unconditional; we realize it never was! We are capable of disappointing the people we love most, and they are certainly capable of disappointing us. Of course there is no grand solution detailed in this work, so I guess I will keep revisiting it. As I’m writing, I remember my recurring dream as a child where I have to drive a car - it’s moving, and my parents are nowhere to be seen. Sometimes I was driving from the backseat; sometimes I couldn’t reach the brakes because my legs were too short. I think I will eventually be brave enough to take the wheel and strap the kid in a car seat, I guess. It’s the least I can do.
Whatever parts of me became crust and had to die, I say thank you for protecting me from a similar fate. Hopefully someday I stop repeating shit I won’t ever be able to control.
Note: I tried to listen to a podcast about Freud where the hosts kept referring to the text exclusively as “BPP” along with the most egregious pronunciation of Deleuze and Guattari that you could imagine. You’ll also be pleased to know that there is a podcast titled “The Pleasure Principle” hosted by a married couple to discuss their “extensive experiences within a nonmonogamous, open-minded, active sexual lifestyle.” No relation to Freud. Guys
– DZ