Before ploughing-on to somewhere vaguely Hyborian, the best jest of post-apocalyptic 75 series Survivors occurs in the episode 'Spoil of War'. Greg and the hippy dude are driving back from rescuing Tom at the quarry when Greg suddenly stops at a highway junction.
"Why've you stopped?"
" Highway code. Approaching a major highway always stop for incoming traffic."
Going back to HB199, a highway is s good example of a rule-based system, being straight-line perspective (vanishing point, CC Beck.)
Following Season 1, the homestead-based 'Good Life' plots of Season 2 prompted Ian McCulloch to write the story 'A Friend in Need' about a serial killer. Tellingly, when they try to rein-in Greg's wild west tendencies, he responds:
"Certain values we've lost forever, thank God.. What's the natural, instinctive thing to do?"
The ecological bent is all very well, but there's more to life than tetchy good neighbourliness; there's dance and disagreements and fistfights for a start.
Abby (Seymour), having already been sacked for drinking, only Jen (Fleming) was left of the original triad. As Seymour said in an interview, she was the fire while they provided the stability.
Despite the convivial nature of Season 3, the faux search for Greg proves wearisome, and the climax of electrification uninspiring. For a start, electricity is the straight-line perspective logic reality that has led to the mess in the first place (see 'Pets' P56 on lenses.)
This is a theme I've been following right through rehsongcycle and admittedly is heavily overwritten in places. Nevertheless, if light (Newton C4-C6) is a parallel reality (of perspective logic), electricity is simply the practical application of that, in that both are electromagnetism (sun).
As was covered over on rehsongcycle awhile back, light is the universe of perspective geometry (from Faraday), and Relativity is the way one enters into that universe.
Anything that requires Relativity - GPS navigation, CERN expts - is in the universe of perspective geometry (sun.)
The future has probably two alternatives. One is to head further into an electrical world (of AI), and this is called transhumanism. Spokespeople like Michael Anissimov advocate super-cities, extended life and enhanced brains.
After all, even now supercomputers can beat us at chess; they can engineer genes more efficiently. What is it that makes us human? It's clearly when there are fewer routines and more expression.
Survivors spends some of its time at Hampton Court, the pre-Tudor palace. Their intrigues and patriarchal/matriarchal disputes echo those old days when rules were fewer.
Thee obviously is s place for ecology in that kingdom, even if Season 2 overdid it. Ecology, meaning fertility rituals of the soil and the animals and the plants (see BWS Adastra in Africa, prev.)
These rituals implicate the cycles of life and death that inspire fertility and therefore strength, stability (both.) It is these cycles that transhumanism denies and, in fact, they seem to think in terms of a giant brain, extended life inside a machine, uploaded intellect.
The problem is, this ignores what life is for, which is the expression of the psyche. A brain - machine or human - is various forms of electromagnetism, whether organic or not. All the machine-intellect does is transfer this into ones and zeros.
This is the vanishing-point of technique (see CC Beck, prev) in a universe of perspective geometry. This universe perforce is run by machines - similarly to The Airtight Garage (P192), so is clearly a topsy-turvy universe with no connection to the psyche.
In other words, a machine-intelligence is 100% electric whereas a human intelligence has a connection to the psyche. It's a perspective illusion since all GPS arrays are just an extension of perspective, albeit Riemannian space. CERN is similarly an illusion in Minkowski space.
That may sound weird, but good illusions are always highly convincing; a mirror or the flat surface of a lake are indications of that in nature (see prev on Francis Stevens' Claimed.)
What is omitted from this version of the future is the physical reality that is NOT a product of perspective observation, but a product of balance and proportion (CC Beck, for example, throws down vanishing points as he feels the urge, see prev.)
This implicates moon, sun, planets - see Theosophy and Talbot Mundy. Renaissance proportion makes use of perspective illusion as do BWS prints, it is never the overriding factor since that has to be the narrative (and psyche.)
While a universe of GPS (run by AI, natch) is highly convincing to the ego (of acolytes of the mirror of illusions), it has no physical reality as defined by animals, plants, harmonious landscapes. There is therefore no physical connection to the psyche.
A machine-intelligence converts everything to ones and zeros - the vanishing-point of technique. People are convinced by the precision without realising that the physical reality of harmonious proportion is completely lacking.
This applies to moon, sun, planets and the way we view the cosmos (epistemology, meaning) as well as ontology, clearly. This puts a different spin (see UVS website) on what 'they' call pseudo-science/mysticism if scientific precision is simply entering a mirror of illusions (sorcerous illusion HB20 reflection, lens HB48 The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune HB135). This 60s tune might be apt if the lyric is modified to 'when the logic OF proportion..' (see Corneille, prev.)
As I've been saying for awhile, ramshackle environments inspire psychic calm. This means environments that are decadent and display a large degree of disorder and decay and regeneration. It could be a 19th century Chinese free-port in Terry and the Pirates, or a fantasy setting in Roxanne (both prev.)
The cycles of life and death that are strong and fertile have religious connotations (see prev.) The rituals of fertility also implicate the underworld (see Noto, 'Red Lace').
All this is rugged strength and without strength what is the point of life? The transhumanists are entering a parallel universe that pleases the mind - all illusory. The cities in Anissimov's blog resemble the Arabs' Neom city planned for the desert. Oases and places of rustic repose have no place in their future.
Desert nomads and caravanserai obviously have no place in that future and the reason is it's an illusion of the convinced brains of acolytes of the mirror of illusions. The inert mind as opposed to the active body. But, as has previously been said, only the bodies of animals and plants in activity can select appropriate genes. Bodies are proportionate, brains are not. The human genome is random logic, like a computer.
The body is built as an antagonistic system of muscles attached to skeleton (see prev.) The balanced pairs of muscles attach to the proportionate bones. Proportion in the medieval/heroic worlds is the ultimate; body as against brain. Action and feuding; disorder and psychic strength.
The medieval ages were also the ages of heroic proportion, as Hampton Court attests. A world without proportion is simply an unbalanced nightmare of rogue computers (shades of Ellison's I Have no Mouth). The mouth and the throat are classically proportioned expressions of humanity (in song, breath).
Their view of the future is in fact a view of the city devoid of the physical reality of country strength (see P71). The theatricality of life has its origins in an Attic wood where satyrs roam and festive maidens prance in rites of rustic vintage. Noto ('Red Lace' prev) is a damn sight more realistic in this regard than the brain-obsessed lunatics of a hyper-realist future of mind-numbing illusion!
