The Meaning of Lost (2004-2010)

[update in progress]

I dont always watch a show or movie when it first comes out.  But the ability to download episodes or seasons of important media product (Thunderbirds Are GO!) has transformed my ability to self-medicate chronic insomnia with productive show review.

For the purpose of self-medicating insomnia, I can heartily recommend Lost (2004-2010).  Six seasons of a group of people thrown together seemingly at random on a plane flight from Sydney to LA which goes off course and crashes on a mysterious island.  Indigenous peoples, the struggle for survival, evidence of mysterious scientific projects and ancient cultic influence from thousands of years ago.  It turns out that many of the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 may have connections to each other in ways that are slowly revealed.  A struggle for good and evil.  An island with the ability to hide itself and move its position.   A paralyzed man who is healed.  A monster that appears to be black smoke.

But what does it all mean?

That was the question then and that is the question now.  There are many attempts to answer the questions posed by this show and below are my two cents worth.

First, I think we are entitled to ignore what the writers / producers say about the meaning of the show.  The meaning of a great work of art (like Thunderbirds) will necessary evolve as our culture evolves.

Second, there are many little mysteries planted all throughout Lost some of which are answered and many of which are just ignored.  That may be too bad but I don't think it distracts from the bigger picture.  To pick just one example, what do the numbers mean?  It doesn't matter.  Maybe it was just supposed to be entertaining.  Maybe it would be better if they did mean something significant.  But I think its meaning is straightforward: they are a device to signal to Hurley that there is meaning in the universe, that there is some structure, even if he does not know what it is.

Third, I think that there are important story elements that can not be ignored but are there to facilitate the next two points.  The Island is clearly important as a place where these various things happen, it has its own fantastic(-al) semi-explanations for its power, pockets of exotic matter for example.  And I dont think that there can be much doubt that Oceanic Flight 815 is iconic and central to the fates of our characters.  Don't get me wrong, these elements are important but they are in a sense details leading up to the primary themes.

And those themes are as follows (a) our interpretation and understanding should be mystical not scientific, (b) our main characters have been brought together to work out issues that need to be resolved before they can go on to the "next place" and finally, therefore, (c) I think that Lost is clearly in that genre of fiction that is loosely described as the journey of the soul on its path from life to the hereafter.   

There is an additional theme that involves our characters involvement in some sort of higher level battle between light and dark, good and evil.  In that, Lost also falls into a genre that we might call Manichean.   The struggle between good and evil.  Maybe even Zoroastrian.

There is also some narrative device ongoing in parallel which suggests that the characters are  experiencing some sort of alternate reality where Oceanic Flight 815 does not crash and where they are not on the island.  Thus there is some parallel universe mechanism ongoing.  I think this is loosely connected to the mechanism by way the interrelationships between the characters is exposed.

The characters work through serious problems as they prepare for transfer for what comes after. Those who are not ready stay on the Island for a while.

Although I am no expert in this, I think that there are numerous mystical belief systems that Lost is a derivative of. Another cinema example of this is Jacob's Ladder (1991) in which our main character is subjected to a number of end-of-life experiences as he is prepared for his death and the soul's journey to another plane of existence. Ghost (1991) is probably another example of this genre. 

Therefore Lost is based on the delusion that there is some sort of system and mechanism for life-after-death, in which important issues can be worked out for those who are chosen, for those who are "candidates".  There have always been fantasies of such a mechanism embedded in many religions that help some people feel better about their inevitable and horrible fate. 

Oh yes, those visual effects.

Lost is an example of a show with huge numbers of episodes where the special photographic effects help sell the story in only a few minor ways.  Even though the story is filled with mystical and mysterious elements and the story advanced with more traditional physical effects, there is basically only one concept that is a special photographic effect.  And that of course is the smoke monster.  The other effects are model effects (plane breaks up in flight), explosion effects, and makeup effects.  There are lighting effects in a few places.  And of course there is set design.  All there to advance the story.  The only "exotic" effect that I noticed was the smoke monster which was one of the only absolutely conclusive pieces of evidence that there was something unworldly happening.

The lesson I want to suggest here is that the show made good use of visual effects.  The effects were not gratuitous.  They were economical and designed to advance the story.  Many modern movies and shows could learn from this example.

Drone and Child in Graveyard

 
I tried to get Midjourney to create a picture of a drone using facial recognition on a statue of a child in a graveyard.  I spent very little time on it and I did not get what I wanted.  Still for the amount of time I spent it is not too bad, I think.

Raising My Estimate of the Deaths from COVID-19

draft

I am raising my highly scientific estimate of American deaths from the coronavirus up from 200K to 288K. The world class logic (dry sarcasm, sorry) that I use for this estimate is as follows.

The WaPo death count for Americans as of this morning is 96,000. But we know the number is low because not all deaths from COVID-19 are officially marked as such for a number of different reasons, some benign, some less so. The estimates for an adjustment factor range from 1.25 to 2.0 although I have seen higher. Lets take a relatively conservative 1.5. That means that we are currently at 144,000 deaths. It seems likely to me, even optimistic, that we can expect an equal number of deaths going forward as we try to manage this thing although of course the future is uncertain. On the one hand we are getting better at testing, and know a lot more about how to treat the disease (although still not doing so great there, we are certainly getting better). On the other hand, it is likely that social distancing really did help (with regional variation) but different areas are opening up now and it would be a miracle if this did not cause local hot spots. A couple of good church meetings and political rallies can infect hundreds of people who will then spread the virus at the very least to their immediate family. The rallies in Michigan of the guys with guns and calling for people to resist the Mark of the Beast came from all over the country, I read, and we know some of them were infected. A vaccine in the next 12 months would be amazing, and I think has a low probability of happening, although it is certainly possible if we get lucky.

So it seems fair to me that if we had some N deaths getting to this point, and since we are nowhere near done, and at best we are at some sort of peak, then it is likely that we would have at least that many taking the curve down assuming that the curve is symmetric, which it may not be. Thus 2 * 144,000 = 288,000. At least.

I have been pretty good at predicting this so far, through my flakey back of the envelope estimates but hopefully I am wrong this time and it will just go away as the Great Leader who Knows All Things predicted.

This is the Fate of All Traitors

draft

I want to be one of the first, if not the first, to regret that we still have the death penalty on the books in America in the context of the manifest treason in Washington.

Yes, its true in America, at least, we generally only apply the death penalty to the poor, the people of color, the disenfranchised, to punish them for being poor, or Black or Latino, etc.

How ironic, then, that the classic legal punishment for treason that results in the death of an American is the death penalty. Will Trump and Pence go to the chair? How about Nunes, Ryan, McConnell, Grassley?

"This is the fate of all traitors."

OH! If only they had not betrayed their country! If only we did not still have the death penalty on the books! Its too late now, whats done is done. Justice must take its course.

SAD!

Death at Sea

A friend has announced his intention to do significant single-crewed sailing on his 40' sailboat. So I spent a few hours reviewing some of the statistics, lore and equipment of this activity and here is my report.

Risk is culturally determined. People in Los Angeles and this country accept a horrific slaughter on the highways that would not be permitted for one second if they happened in the air or by train. The second thing to realize is that there is risk everywhere. People fall over dead from heart attacks and brain aneurisms, or traffic accidents, or of lung or heart disease after 40 years of smoking cigarettes.

Risk analysis is the art and science of assessing what the probability of a disaster happening and what are the 'costs' should it happen. The problem with this kind of analysis is that the probable cost is very subjective when it is the life of someone you care about.

Ooops.

So what kind of risks do we have with sailing in the ocean in a small boat?

Being swept overboard by a wave, falling overboard while managing the boat in weather, falling overboard for any other reason, storms, lightning, running aground, being struck by another ship, striking another floating object such as a lost cargo container, being shipwrecked and in a lifeboat but without appropriate location equipment, drowning at any time including at anchor or docked. Any kind of a medical emergency that incapacitates you such that you can not call for help, or manage the boat.  Failing to wear a PFD (personal floatation device) for any reason at any time. Failing to be hooked into a lifeline / harness system. Failure to have “appropriate” safety equipment on board, failure to deploy such equipment when necessary, failure of the equipment to work when needed due to poor maintenance or any other reason.  Failure to plan around the weather, or to plan a trip based on the time of year.  Failure to take correct actions when sailing through a storm or other challenging sea condition.

Most of these can be mitigated by having the right (expensive) equipment, training, practice, and using good sense. But ultimately if you are on a single-crewed ship you are not going to be able to be a lookout 24 hours a day which technically is what is required by loosely alluded to regulations governing being at sea.  Even freighters and cargo monstrosities that cruise the ocean with lookouts and major radar do not see these little sailboats and famously run all over them.

If you are on a single-crewed ship you are not going to be able to recover easily from a problem that might be difficult to recover from even if you had more crew, such as man overboard. Even if you wear a PFD and are hooked into a lifeline, if you hit your head and become unconscious when falling overboard, there will be no one there to get you back on board.

The risks are not dissimilar to that of hiking alone through a wilderness area. People do this all the time, and people get lost and die all the time due to freak accidents and stupid mistakes.

The point is not that people should not do these things and take these chances, the point is that people should be realistic about what the risks are, and not be in denial that there is risk.

The US Coast Guard has a set of statistics about accidents during “recreational boating”. Although not exactly the statistics we are looking for, they still may be of interest.

http://www.uscgboating.org/assets/1/workflow_staging/Page/705.PDF

Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report

The recent suicide of Robin Williams has led to a flurry of articles expressing concern about "suicide contagion" or the phenomenon of people committing suicide after someone famous or someone they know commits suicide.   I have read some of these articles and it is probably a real phenomenon although it is of course mixed in with the more complicated topic of why people commit suicide in the first place and what would be involved in helping them so that they did not see the necessity to do so.

But this post is not about that.  It is about a particular newsletter that is issued weekly:  the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Its all about death on a weekly basis, but God forbid you should use that word.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/

The Uses of Snowden: Perception of the Death Penalty in the World at Large

This is the second of three essays on how Ed Snowden has been very helpful in bringing matters to our attention outside of the area which he intended, e.g. surveillance.  In this part we discuss the issue of how the death penalty is perceived in the world, something brought up because of Snowden's applications for amnesty in which he mentioned his concerns about being tortured or executed should he return to the United States.

Ah, the death penalty. What could be more American? An eye for an eye! Hang the bastard. String em up. Hang em high! A necktie party. A rough frontier justice. "And may God have mercy on your soul.... you may proceed", said the preacher.

There are regional differences of course. My favorite is Texas' "Justifiable Homicide" laws. In Texas you can get away with murder if you can convince a jury that 'he needed killing'.  

"You remember Jack. He was always drunk. Never did a day's honest work in his life. When he ran over Sam's dog, I had enough and I shot the good-for-nothing sonofabitch until he was dead".

So all is well and good, after all cultural diversity works many ways. Some countries have spicier food, we have the death penalty. Each to his own, I say.

What could be more American than a good hangin'?

But the world is filled with a bunch of damn foreigners. Damn it, its true, I have seen them myself. And many of them look on in horror at our death penalty, seeing it as barbaric, as "cruel and unusual punishment" and drawing far too many conclusions from the trivial and irrelevant detail that it is only the poor people who get executed while the rich go free. Oh yes, and that there *may* be a correlation, some say, between race and wealth and therefore of who gets the axe and who does not. Of course this isn't true! P'shaw I say! Certainly not in Florida!

How do I know that much of the world does not share our appreciation of the death penalty? Well it is due to that savior of modern man, that icon of all that is moral and pretentious in America, everyone's favorite martyr and photographic opportunity, Ed Snowden.

Yes, you see, in order to apply for amnesty in various countries it is useful, perhaps even required, that you articulate the case that if you were returned to the country you were trying to flee from, that you would be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. For example, you might be tortured or put to death. So Ed made that case and many countries responded well to the argument.

Because, you see, the fact is that this country is now famous for torturing people. Yes, we can thank the illegal Bush administration for that. But its not all Bush's fault, imho, because you see when Obama came in he refused to have members of the Bush administration tried for their crimes. Had he done so, then he would have made the clear statement that American's found torture to be unacceptable. But he didn't and instead made the point that people of one Presidential Administration can commit any crime against humanity and get off.

On top of that, famously there was one way to get shot in America, legally that is, and that was to commit what was called "treason" back in the day. But since one can easily use that word, and people do, they went to the trouble of defining it. Article 3, Section 3, Clause 1 of the US Constitution defines treason as giving "aid and comfort" to the enemy during time of war. And war is defined as being declared formally by Congress, none of this namby pamby "police action" or "humanitarian mission" stuff back then. Therefore, someone who may or may not be considered to have given "aid and comfort" during a time when Congress has not declared war could not be considered for treason. On paper, that is.

In fact, you can try anyone for anything and leave it up to the courts to decide.

Which is why, when Snowden got international sympathy for the fact that if he returned to the US he might be tried for treason and shot, the US Department of Justice went out of its way to say that they would not seek the death penalty.

They would not have done so had not the argument that we are a cruel and murderous country rang true in the eyes of people of the world. Two thirds of the countries of the world have outlawed the death penalty (which is different of course from whether or not their government kills people, oh by the way). The USA is the number 5th country in the world for executions, coming in after China, Iran, North Korea and Yemen. Now that is a list right there to give one pause and wonder just what is going on.

I was not aware of how we were seen in this area by many people of the world until it was Snowden who brought it to my attention.  Well, I knew a little about it I guess, but hadn't given the issue much thought.

Is there a possible way out of this dilemma?  A solution that lets us keep our death penalty, so important to so many Americans, yet avoids the onus that accompanies "stringing someone up"?

I believe that there is.   What if we amended the law so that only the rich would be at jeopardy to being sent to "Ol' Sparkey" (the electric chair) for their crimes?  Its only fair after all, they are the only ones who can afford the legal system in this country; a poor man or woman certainly can not.

I think that world opinion would respond to this change and recognize that we had significantly made progress on the issue of the death penalty and furthermore that we were taking a very progressive step on the issue of the very wealthy people in a world filled with unbelievable poverty.

I hope that all good Americans will join me in calling for the death penalty for the rich.

Thank you.
____________________________________

Notes

1, "Old Sparky" -- The Electric Chair
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Sparky