The Bleat: Perspective; Philosophy; Ineffable;

Time & Space

A continuum. Not 'separate." Related. The nearest star? 4.238 light-years away.
How far izzat? Light speed=186,000 mps. Voyager II, launched THIRTY FIVE years ago, at the greatest velocity of which our technology is capable, has traveled a distance of around three-quarters of ONE "light day." It has completed a journey of only one FIFTEEN HUNDRED FORTY SEVENTH the distance to the nearest star.


Practical Philosophy:

 Prof. Woody pedantically notez: The notion for the "panopticon" originated with Jeremy Bentham, the famed philosopher and economist of the late 18th Century in England. It was indeed a plan for a prison; or more accurately, a plan for the control of an imprisoned population. Bentham (also the 'father of utilitarianism," btw) reasoned that prisoners would modulate their own behaviors if they could never be certain of if they were being observed. So he designed a prison much like the one in the illustration here: a central, isolated, inaccessible island surrounded by the cells of the inmates, all in every way exposed to observation from without.
The panopticon was also one of Michel Foucault's favorite objects. It's the central image in his indispensable "Discipline & Punish."
That's the theory, anyway.
The difficulty izzat, of course, if there are so many prisoners, and there are fewer observers than observees, then the likelihood of being observed decreases, too, and so misbehavior, instead of being curtailed, may be encouraged.
Actual prisoners know this. Average citizens don't.
And the flaw in the plan--the need for enough observers to induce "docile bodies" from the inmates--explains the hyper-mediation of modes of surveillance and reportage.


Effing the Ineffable:

Woody thinkz: Depends on what the anaphora for "this shit" is.
If the products, the explanation is contained in the infamous "three Cs": Capitalism, Consumerism, and CorpoRatism."
With all of which, this poisonous fraud is intimately familiar and has ruthlessly exploited in his notorious, toxic, political career.
If, however, "this shit" refers to Ron Paul, himself, well then I may only revert to the truism: Shit happens.