The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century

The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century

Book Review from Hello and Lullaby

Throughout the 21^st century the United States will continue to be the leading global power. This is the basis of an analysis of the 21^st century given by George Friedman in his book “The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century” (which is primarily concerned with issues that affect the foreign policies of countries around the world over the next 100 years). In an increasingly globalized world, the U.S. Navy is more powerful than every other navy in the world combined. The U.S. military is also leaps and bounds ahead of every other military with over 800 bases around the world. Less attention is paid in the book to the economy and culture of the United States which are both further integrated with the world’s through multinational corporations like Apple and Microsoft, as well as institutions such as Hollywood.

While both the hard power and soft power of the United States make it seem as though it cannot be challenged by another nation state, I wouldn’t be so quick to assume the correlation of hard power with soft power. In looking at hard power there are 3 storms on the horizon, according to Friedman, which will change the dynamics of life in the United States in the 21^st century. The demography challenge, the energy challenge, and the innovation challenge. These challenges are similar to what many countries around the world will be facing. An aging population, the need for energy, and the need for business and technology to continue to develop. Challenges in soft power are not addressed.

I am a fan of the segmentation of ideas into their constituent elements such as Friedman has done with the challenges of our near future. Friedman also looks at major geopolitical trends and forces to provide an interesting and thought-provoking picture of the 21^st century from above, using the metaphor of tectonic plates with 5 areas of fault lines of tension that may turn into war. This type of macro analysis forecasting is extremely difficult, and though many of Friedman’s ideas of what may happen may not actually come true, the book is a good exercise in thinking about the future in general and the segmentation of ideas in particular. It provides a strong example of what forecasting is that may be of value to other authors, and hopefully more of this type of work starts to be published from diverse sources. That said, I’m not sure I would take the same Machiavellian perspective as Friedman with regards to U.S. foreign policy, and thus find fault in the fundamental idea of his picture of the 21^st century.

 I think there is a tendency by those such as Friedman to focus more on the more tangible hard power of military and economic strengths and less on the soft power of culture. The revolution brought on by companies such as Apple and Microsoft is a soft power revolution that I believe has the potential to transform foreign relations in addition to the lives of individuals. The 20^th century might see continued U.S. dominance in the arena of hard power, but it appears shifts in soft power are very likely as less developed countries modernize and produce more of their own media content. It is very difficult from within my cultural bubble to get a true sense of how this is already happening, but I can still tell this is where things are heading.

Inside the United States there is a process, first of diffusing of the power of what used to be the only 3 television stations to a large number of stations and more individuals with media access, then of Hollywood to independent film makers and of the media to citizen journalists and essayists on YouTube and other platforms. This real historical process is like a metaphor for what will happen to the United States in the 21^st century. The original institutions are still very influential, but they are declining in relative power and more constrained in their actions by a coalition of outside forces which do not need to control the infrastructure to benefit from it. The democratization of the world doesn’t necessarily just mean democracies in every country, but a world where smaller countries also have a say in where we are headed as a human species (to be determined by quality of content).

The Society In Which We Live…

The Society In Which We Live…

…is straining to keep up with recent technological and cultural changes. Much like the printing press revolutionized the world half a millennia ago, so now the internet and mobile technologies are transforming the landscape of modern life. I read somewhere that the American Revolution would not have been possible without newspapers and printed material. The United States and its institutions are an outgrowth of the change made possible by the printing press. Separation of Church and State made possible by a Reformation directly coinciding with the developments of the printing press. Now the internet makes possible a new revolutionary change in how we organize ourselves as a society. We are collectively envisioning a world with new rules and institutions in a progression which is just a part of the dawn of this age of information. However, we have yet to coalesce around any real vision of what changes need to be made to our old institutions for this new world to exist.

Our current institutions are wonderful and still needed, but they have matured in an age of industrialization and reflect the values of this age. More than this, they reflect the possibilities of this age. Today we live in a new age with evolving values and new possibilities. When the United States was founded, most people were farmers, not artists. Possibilities were severely limited by the fact that a majority of people were needed to simply maintain our food supply. Today 1% of the population can grow the food that feeds the other 99% thanks to developments in farming technology. This is such a drastic fundamental difference in society, and yet the institution of a competitive market to keep prices low is still how we regulate this industry. Why can’t food just be free? Today we value artists a whole lot more, but we haven’t made the changes necessary to support a larger class of artisans as is possible with the technology we currently have. Art is free, and yet many artists cannot support themselves through their work.

Most people used to farm. Then, the industrial revolution happened. Today, with more automation of labor, what are most people to do? We cannot all be sales people selling each other goods and changing money between people this way. Such a system will just not work as it is currently not working. Why can’t we create a new institution to exist alongside the competitive market. An institution where people create, write, produce music, paint, and so forth. This is kind of what the internet allows us to see. The value of such an institution. That we are already creating this institution. But it is not yet an established part of the economy as most people cannot make their living in these endeavors. In fact, our current economy is not sustainable because society is not reorganizing fast enough with regards to its new possibilities. Much of the content of the internet is made by people who are working for free because it is what they love to do. Wouldn’t it be nice if the people producing this content at least had free shelter? Free food?

Maybe we can achieve this societal support of a larger class of artisans through a shift in how we structure our society. Planned collective bargaining communities can purchase staple foods in bulk and organize in rural areas with free public transit into the city. Essentially building new cities just for artists. This initiative can be sponsored by the government, but the cities themselves can be designed by the people who will be living there. This could be an economic driver similar to the space program to launch us from the industrial age to the information age.

Thank you for reading this short essay by Hello and Lullaby.

If you agree with this essay please send a link to your friends and help spread the word.

Chinese Calligraphy app

now in the google play store. Learn Chinese Calligraphy with Chinese Calligraphy 3 app designed by me, hello and lullaby. This app can be used as a reference for 30 common Chinese characters. It is a simple scrolled gallery with different characters for 30 common words and their English translation. Just visit the link below the picture or search Chinese Calligraphy 3 in the google play store.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.helloandlullaby.chinesecalligraphy3&hl=en

Subliminal Messages Part 2: Letter Frequency Composition

This essay shows the subliminal harmonies and dissonances between letter frequency distribution across Shakespeare’s Sonnets and compares them with those of the verses on Eminem’s Recovery album. The concept of harmony and dissonance as it relates to letter frequency will be made clearer through use of graphs in which the average use of each letter per verse is presented. The verses from each author’s respective works are compared to the other verses in the order in which they were published, which is important as the harmonies and dissonances phenomenon can span multiple verses in a row and were most likely not intentionally organized this way consciously. In the future, people may want to have a professional linguist analyze everything from political speeches to movies, music albums, and books, to maximize the overall aesthetic effect of language in the subliminal dimension of letter frequency as it is presented in this essay.

If you look at figure 1, you will see a chart of the vowels as they are used in each of Shakespeare’s Sonnets as a percent of total letters used in each sonnet. Of note is the stratification between the first level, letter E, the second level, letters A, I, and O, and the third level, letters U and Y with letter Y being considered always a vowel in computer analysis of the letters. This stratification is sometimes harmonic in that you can see it distinctly for as much as 10-15 sonnets in a row, and is sometimes dissonant in that the second and third levels jumble together also for as much as 10-15 sonnets in a row. This can also be referred to in the mathematical sense as a phase space, because we are not yet sure as to whether they are actually harmonic and dissonant sounding to the ears. All we know so far is that there is a clear distinction for multiple sonnets in a row.

This study of Shakespeare’s Sonnets shows us what we are looking for in figure 2, the same data for Eminem’s Recovery album. This time the stratification is different, with the harmonies less easily seen until closer to the end of the album, though they are also noticeable earlier on if you know what you are looking for (a 3 level stratification as described in the last paragraph). Interestingly, the dissonances are jumbled differently in Eminem’s verses with the 2nd level merging up with the 1rst level instead of down with the 3rd level as in the sonnets. We are looking here at two completely different styles of composition that remain mostly consistent in how they differ throughout the body of work, but the harmonies in the two respective bodies of work are of the same stratification.

In composition, it’s not that a dissonance is undesirable, in fact the areas of dissonance can make the areas of harmony more powerful and vice versa. We see in Eminem’s album composition slight harmonies towards the beginning in verses (8-13) and (16-18) that build to more powerful harmonies towards the end (21-22, 25-26, 28, 31-32, 38-39, 42, and 44). Most of his singles are in the latter half of the album. In fact, of his four singles, the two that became number 1 hits on the billboard hot 100 chart follow the same pattern of dissonance in two verses followed by a harmonic verse. These are Not Afraid (19-21) and Love the Way You Lie (40-42) on figure 2. His other singles are Space Bound (27-29) which has a dissonance harmony dissonance structure and No Love (25-26) which arguably has a harmony harmony structure. The album ends on a harmonic tone.

This is just an initial investigation looking at results that could possibly be noticed subconsciously as they appear subconsciously organized in entire bodies of work. For this reason the general trends of stratification are what we are primarily interested in, though it may be worth further study to see how much and to what level of detail these trends can be picked up on a subconscious level. This investigation of how vowels are stratified by frequency shows us that the organization of letter frequency by harmony and dissonance is a real phenomenon with practical application and deserves further attention.

Fig 1 (click to enlarge) 

Fig 2 (click to enlarge)

Subliminal Messages Part 1: Letter Frequency Preference

“It is impossible to read the compositions of the most celebrated writers of the present day without being startled with the electric life which burns within their words. They measure the circumference and sound the depths of human nature with a comprehensive and all-penetrating spirit, and they are themselves perhaps the most sincerely astonished at its manifestations; for it is less their spirit than the spirit of the age.”
 - Percy Bysshe Shelley

Shelley was right when he said writers (as a generalization) are tuned in to the spirit of their generation, but what sounds pleasing to one person may not give the same pleasure to his or her neighbor, and thus there is a variety of poetry and literature even from within a single generation that often express the same concepts in different ways using different words. It seems common sense that each individual has different literary tastes, but it is my intent to show that different tastes do not confine themselves to subject matter and word choice, but extend to the very use of different letters themselves. That the elemental sounds of words can influence our word choice or be studied as mass trends is not readily apparent. It would seem that, by sheer probability, two authors may use different amounts of each letter to form a book as unique as the individual that wrote it. However, in the example of Jane Austen’s literature as well as that of H.G. Wells’, we see a consistent pattern of usage of certain letters more than average and others less than average. This pattern is especially interesting because the two authors are opposites of one another in letter preference for nearly half of the alphabet.

In this small study, 4 popular books were chosen from each author to make a total of 8 books, plus an additional 7 books from other authors to make a grand total of 15 books. These additional books are to help us get a more precise grand total average letter frequency as well as see how other books compare to the 4 from each author that we are studying. First, all of the letters from each of the 15 books were counted and a baseline was set for each letter as the average percent of each letter used in context of the total of all of the letters used. For example the letter A was used a total of 536,812 times across all 15 books. There were 6,635,567 total letters used, therefor the letter A represents about 12.361 percent of the total letters used in all 15 books. Then, the total letter usage for each individual book was done in similar fashion, the result being the percent of each letter when the total of all of the letters for the individual book are taken into account. The percent of the individual letter as used in relation to the book is subtracted from the average percent of that letter as is used in all 15 books, and this is done for every letter. Some results are negative and some positive. For the negative results, the letter was used more than average, while the positive numbers show a difference that is positive because the letter was used less than average, and this subtracted from the average yields a positive result. The accompanying graphs are thus counter intuitive as I repeat: positive values are letters used less often and negative values are letters used more often than average.

For the purposes of this paper you can pretty much just eyeball the graphs to see the difference between Jane Austen and H.G. Wells, but this is because they have been set up to be a difference from the average in the fashion described above. How big is this difference. Each 0.1 percent represents a certain number of times the letter has been used. This is a different number of letters for each book, however the average for letter A is 537 times = 0.1 percent. So the number of letters that very for the letter A can be thought of as somewhere in this ballpark. It would be slightly less for Wells’ shorter works and slightly more for Austen’s longer ones, and completely different for the letter B.

First level differences in letter choice are unanimous throughout the 4 books of one author and are opposed unanimously to the four books of the other, and this across the boundary of average letter usage. These letters are A, D, G, K, and Q, with O, T, and Y so close that I am counting these as first level as well. Second Level differences are almost there if it weren’t for that one pesky book that throws it all off, but you can still see the difference. Letters J, P, R, and V.

 There are several differences between the work of Jane Austen and that of H.G. Wells that may account for the difference in letter usage.
1.The length of their respective works are different with Austen averaging 529,442 letters per book and Wells averaging 200,921 per book.
2.The authors are different individuals with different tastes.
3.Gender
4.Genre
5.Time Period (Austen = turn of the 19th century while Wells=turn of the 20th)
6.Other (Including but not limited to several factors combined.)

We can attempt to look at some of the other authors listed for insight into these factors. Moby Dick, for example, is a longer book than those of Jane Austen, and yet for first level difference letters A, G, K, and T, and second level difference letters J,R and V, Moby Dick letter usage is in the range of the works of Wells. This is, however, just one example and further study is needed.

Hopefully this short report on some of the works of H.G. Wells and those of Jane Austen will spark some interesting and more comprehensive research. The rest of this paper shall consist of graphs for each letter. It may also be of worth to note that Austen and Wells are also diametrically opposed to one another in consonant to vowel ratio also across each of their 4 books and across the baseline average of the totals of 15 books.

The order of books throughout the following graphs is presented below. For purposes of graph analysis, books 6-9 are written by Wells and books 10-13 by Austen. The difference letter graphs of note are presented below, click the image to enlarge.

1.The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
2.20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
3.Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne
4.Billy Budd by Herman Melville
5.Moby Dick by Herman Melville
6.War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells 
7.The Time Machine by H.G. Wells 
8.The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells 
9.The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells 
10.Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen 
11.Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen 
12.Emma by Jane Austen 
13.Persuasion by Jane Austen 
14.Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
15.Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Philosophy of Number: The Shadows of Prime Numbers

Prime numbers are the elemental building blocks that determine the composite numbers, and they famously divide the number line into random increments in a fashion that has baffled mathematicians for centuries. There is an interesting related phenomenon, however, that we can understand. You can categorize sets of multiple primes within the boundaries of two smaller consecutive primes squared, thereby projecting these smaller primes onto larger segments of numbers farther down the number line in a meaningful way. I am calling this effect a shadow. Take all of the primes between 25 and 49 as an example. 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, and 47. Their pattern may not be known, but these are the gaps in the unique shadow produced by projecting 5 squared and 7 squared in which all of the composite numbers in between are uniquely generated from all of the preceding primes up to and including the smaller of the two primes we are squaring to produce the entire space of the shadow. In the case of the shadow between 25 and 49, every composite number can be produced by the formulas 2x, 3x, and 5x with x being all positive integers extending out to infinity. The second we reach 49, we need to use a higher layer of composite numbers to begin producing some of the composites which appear. So, we add a 7x to our list of composite numbers by smallest factor, but we never need to do this until we reach the square of the next prime number at which point the previous shadow changes to a unique new shadow. We can generate all of the composite numbers from 49 up to 121 with the formula layers so far introduced including 7x, but when we get to 121 (11 squared) we need to begin including 11x in our smallest prime factors list to cover all of the composite numbers in the shadow. So the squares of prime numbers present us with real boundaries that extend up the number line, covering larger increments that each contain more prime numbers. By looking at just the composite numbers, we simplify the primes to the gaps between these numbers, the light in the shadows, with these shadow numbers generated from much simpler elements. In this way, the numbers can be thought of as unfolding in groups of numbers which are then projected to the unfolding of larger groups of numbers. These groups are bounded by the squares of each consecutive prime, and their makeup is foreshadowed much earlier than when they appear.

The Matrix Meets Black Swan

5 Ways “The Matrix” and “Black Swan” are the Same Movie

Spoiler Alerts

 In the film “The Matrix” we encounter a heroes journey narrative structure with a strong emphasis on internal struggle (to come to terms with oneself) or spiritual awakening. We watch as Thomas Anderson aka Neo, the “man leading a double life” is awakened to the truth about the very fabric of his reality and the degree to which he can willfully manipulate space and time to control that reality as not just one person, but “the one” person. In “Black Swan”, we see Nina Sayers, a young woman wanting nothing more than to be a ballerina, yet chosen from within this narrowly focused life path to fulfill two ballerina roles as both the white swan and black swan in Swan Lake. Her struggle to accurately portray both identities causes her reality to unravel as she becomes increasingly familiar with both roles while losing control of reality and slowly going insane. On the surface these two movies may seem like polar opposites of each other, but this surface is just a construct to hide the truth about these movies... that they are, in fact, one and the same movie.

5. Both movies overtly feature a real world and a world that is imagined. Further, this imagined world requires behind the scenes logistics to keep it functioning. In “The Matrix,” Neo is unplugged from the matrix computer construct, but he and a select few can travel back into it anytime they want to or need to. This computer construct is incredibly complex incorporating every facet of known human existence into a seemingly real world for all of those connected to it. The team even has “training sequences” that help to prepare them for this alternate world of the mind. When Neo wakes up in the human pod farm, we get to see a little of the behind the scenes of what it takes to keep the matrix running. The physical world that runs this construct is immensely complex with towers of people, and robots overseeing every technical hiccup such as Neo waking up and pulling out his wires. We also are privy to the infamous complex computer code scrawling in green letters across what are usually multi-monitor setups.

 In “Black Swan” we once again have a select few that participate in a theater/dance recreation of Swan Lake and regularly train to appear flawless onstage. This type of production doesn’t just occur because everyone is really into ballet and wants it to happen, it takes dedicated professionals, directors, and lots of work behind the scenes handling logistics such as fund raising. We are brought along on one such occasion with Nina to a fancy event with patrons of the arts where she is introduced as the new Swan Queen. Aside from these such events there is everything else involved in running a production, from makeup and wardrobe to set design. 4. Each protagonist is selected to be a leader. The two protagonists (with oddly similar names - Nina and Neo) are each selected to fulfill a leading role as a part of the team (and each team has a unique costume style to differentiate themselves from the general public). Even though Neo is “the one,” he still lives aboard the Nebuchadnezzar and eats the same gruel as the rest of it’s leather and trench coat to real world rags crew. Similarly, Swan Lake is no one woman show, it has a entire cast that all rehearse together. They may wear tutus to perform, but when they’re not on stage or training, we see the same loose fitting clothing that the Nebuchadnezzar’s crew wears.

 - matrix leather - matrix rags

- black swan dark  - black swan rags (are those the exact same rags?)

3. Each protagonist is doubted in their leading role. “Black Swan” goes extremely into the intense pressure that Nina feels preparing for her role as the Swan Queen. The main voice doubting her is her director, but we are also privy to the kind of backstage gossip that can occur among competitive ballerinas. The crew of the Nebuchadnezzar is similarly not sure if Neo is “the one” or not, but in both movies the groups have directors / leaders that push each protagonist in a mentor role to realize their potential in the production (or matrix) by “letting go” of whatever it is that is holding each of them back respectively. Favoritism is also an issue when we see Beth telling Nina that she used to be the favorite, or Cypher telling Trinity he didn’t remember her ever bringing him breakfast (as she did with Neo). We as an audience even question whether the protagonist is fit for the job after a dramatic fall during a training sequence or rehearsal sequence, but then watch them begin to transform in an abandoned train station scene.

 - matrix train station

- black swan train station

2. Both movies use the same symbolism. Both movies use special effects with mirrors/reflection to show the reality of our protagonist begin to change. In Black Swan, Nina sees her reflection change in the train window. There is also the mirror in her dressing room, which she dramatically shatters during the performance at the end. Actually she has a mirror in her bedroom too, there are mirror’s in the dance studio, there are pretty much mirrors in every scene of the movie. That’s because her transformation took a lot longer. In the matrix we see Neo getting arrested in the rear view of Trinities motor cycle. Not long after this he is reaching out to touch the shattered mirror that liquefies and slowly covers his whole body turning him into the Terminator 2. Just before this he is given a choice between a red pill and blue pill reflected in Morpheus’s glasses. (Nina is also given pills in Black Swan).

- matrix mirror

- black swan mirror

1. Both protagonists are persuaded to go to a club to party. In addition to being introduced to each character while they are literally waking up (symbolic of their soon to be metaphorical waking), each protagonists doesn’t have much of a social life, but is persuaded to go out late at night to party at the club. This results in another waking up scene with them being tired, hungover, and late for their appointments the next day. This happens to Neo at the beginning of the movie, while for Nina it is a little past the halfway mark and with a more dramatic emphasis on this being a part of her “letting go”. Another waking up scene in each movie involves the protagonist opening their eye’s and screaming underwater while in a tub or pod of some sort. 

- matrix neo sleeping

- black swan nina sleeping

In The Matrix one of the cast members says "we don't wake people up after they've reached a certain age, the mind cannot handle it." It is possible that all Black Swan is a side story in the same universe about a young woman noticing a lot of glitches in the computer construct of her reality, like the scene where the mirror looks at her while she is looking away, and her mind is unable to handle it. Neo was messed with a little in the beginning of The Matrix when Trinity was leaving messages on his computer to "follow the white rabbit" or Morpheus was giving him directions on the cell phone in a seemingly omnipotent way, telling him to take the scaffolding to the roof of a skyscraper. If things had played out slightly differently, Neo could have been the one going insane while Natalie Portman hopped on board the Nebuchadnezzar to save humanity.