Theory of Everything Part IV: Russian Bounties

To be clear, the Russian bounty thing -- the administration's knowledge that the Russians were offering and paying bounties to Taliban militants for killing US soldiers, and its continuing to talk nice to the Russians even while that was happening -- is yet one more reason to want Trump out of office.  This post is merely to explain how we got here, and remind us that we should not be the least bit surprised.

My "theory of everything" is set forth here.  In short, it is that corporations and other groups -- including political parties and nation states -- achieve a kind of "artificial intelligence" such that their goals can no longer be viewed and judged in strictly human terms. Yes, these organizations are "led" by humans, but in the end, those human leaders are merely tools that the organization uses in striving to achieve its own ends -- which are simply to survive and to grow.  The idea of businesses surviving and growing is not necessarily a bad thing -- that's what capitalism is all about.  (footnote:  capitalism provides some justification for a laissez faire approach to businesses, but it's hard to see any such justification for not checking the growth of various other kinds of organizations).

But the problem arises when something gets in the way of the organization's drive to survive and thrive.  At that point, the organization does whatever it can to remove the obstacle, and the only constraints on its action are whether the consequences will, in fact, hinder its efforts to survive and thrive.

In other words, these organizations are not stupid.  A corporation will not seek to eliminate a competitor by violating antitrust laws that the Department of Justice cares about, because it knows that doing so will result in a lawsuit and penalties that will impede its goals.  It will not pollute the planet to the point that the EPA takes notice and files an enforcement action.  It will avoid taking positions on social issues that might offend potential customers, but if it sees an opportunity to gain customers by speaking out on one particular issue, it will do so.  In the meantime, the way it really "speaks" is with its donations, which it makes for the sole purpose of making the legal environment as profitable as possible for its activities.  As I recently learned from an Adam Ruins Everything episode, the only reason that the government doesn't simply do our taxes -- or provide us software for easily doing so -- is that Turbotax and Taxcut have lobbied them not to.

So how does this relate to Russian bounties?

First, remember that Al Qaeda and the Taliban are the kind of organization that I am talking about.  Each of them consists of a set of human beings that the organization has made loyal to them by a combination of rewards and religious principles.  Disaffected, prospectless young men are drawn to the organization because it satisfies their social, spiritual, and material needs.  The individual humans in the organization come and go -- many are killed in the line of "duty" -- but the organization goes on.  When the leaders are killed, others fill the leadership roles until they too are killed and then replaced.  The organizations wish to expand, and what better way to do so than knock over some extremely important skyscrapers in an infidel and satanic nation?    

And the "United States" is also such an organization; in fact, let's call it a super-organization (footnote: not to be confused with "super-organism" which is another metaphor for the kinds of organizations we're talking about).  It's got over 300 million people in it, including a lot of wealthy people, and, much more importantly, a large number of intelligent organizations that wish to influence its behavior for their own surviving and thriving.  The 300 million people are more or less irrelevant, since the organizations have long since taken control of the super-organization.  What organizations are we talking about here?   It's a combination of political parties, businesses, religions, and other groups, all of which work "together" -- albeit not necessarily in harmony -- to select candidates that will be presented to the public in the elections, and then work tirelessly to maximize the chances that the candidates that are elected pass laws that either help or do not hinder them in their surviving and thriving.

Political parties are also super-organizations in this sense, in that their survival and thrival (surthrival?) depends very much on how well they please business organizations.

Let's pause just for a second to discuss the concept of a super-organization, or, perhaps in the case of a nation state, a super-duper organization.  The point is just that these organizations -- while made up of people --primarily need to satisfy other organizations (mainly businesses but also religions and other interest groups) for their survival.  So they are already twice-removed from their individual constituents.  In other words, while it is always possible that in a given organization, a single extraordinary human being or small group of human beings is able to steer the organization on a new course, this is all the harder for a political party.  The members of the political party are almost completely powerless to change things absent an external stressor; really the only thing the party reacts to things that are relevant to its surthrival.  To give a concrete example, if the Republican Party suddenly starts endorsing the Black Lives Matter movement, it will be doing so because IT -- the artificially intelligent organism -- has determined that doing so is best for its surthrival.  It won't be doing it because it's the "right thing to do," even if some individual human members believe that.

And of course Russia is such an organization as well. The current Russian government needs to quell dissent in order to surthrive, and, since it can get away with murder, that's the means it chooses.  It's true that Putin has put a strong human face on top of the organization that controls Russia, but in the end, it is he that is serving its surthrival, not the other way around.  He will be gone one day and the anti-democratic ruling party will almost certainly continue to rule.  That is its goal, in any event, and it controls a lot of resources that will help it achieve that goal, even after Putin is gone.

So here is the chain of causality for the Russian bounty issue:

• Extremist organizations provide spiritual, social, and material support to disaffected young men who can be persuaded to learn how to fly planes and then hijack and fly planes into buildings.
• Super-organization reacts to the attack not by seeking to understand and deal with the cause (e.g. by working hard to provide disaffected young men in middle-eastern countries a different education and outlook) but by invading another sovereign nation, and then (essentially at the behest of oil companies and government contractors), taking advantage of the pro-war frenzy to invade a totally different sovereign nation, which had nothing to do with the attack.
• These two wars, by killing hundreds of thousands if not millions of innocent civilians, naturally create more disaffected young men who look to militant extremist organizations for spiritual, social, and material support.
• Having started the war in Afghanistan without considering how to end it, and having essentially created out of nothing a powerful recruiting tool for extremist organizations, the U.S. finds itself unable to leave.  Human beings who were innocent babies when the invasion began are now disaffected and recruitable young men.
• For strategic reasons -- its own surthrival -- Russia wants the US out, and they want to be on the Taliban's good side when the US leaves.
• But declaring war on the US or openly providing its own troops or even material support would not be good for Russia's surthrival, which in part depends on the good relationship that Putin has fostered with Trump, after having worked so hard to get him elected.
• Just like in Syria, where the US interests and the Russian interests found themselves at odds, and they each chose a different side and essentially paid members of "their" side to kill members of the other's side.
• So Russia does the next best thing -- it covertly taps into the same recruiting tool used by the extremist organizations and offers the disaffected young men additional incentives for killing Americans.
• This is not much different than the way the US has waged many wars -- by providing arms or other material support to those who are bent on overthrowing regimes that the US disfavors.  (Think the Iran-Contra affair -- there, the US government channeled money and guns to the Contras, with the idea that they would kill Sandanistas in Nicaragua)
• It's a bit different than openly supporting a cause.  Here, part of the idea was probably to cause more US soldier deaths, with the hope of turning US public opinion even more against the war, and with the hope that this would cause the US to then leave, and the Taliban would view the Russians as friends.  But it's the same basic principle -- the artificial organism is thinking strategically about what is best for its surthrival, and it comes up with a very logical plan.
• And of course, there is the ironic fact that Russia here is reacting EXACTLY the same way the US did when RUSSIA invaded Afghanistan in the 1980s.  Back then, the US government funneled about $20 billion to the Mujahideen, with the obvious idea that the Mujahideen would use that money to kill Russian soldiers so that the Russians would leave, thereby leaving the US on friendly terms with the Afghans.  Whether or not the Mujahideen directly gave rise to Al Qaeda and/or the Taliban is a bit beside the point, although if so, it would increase the irony to laugh-out-loud levels.

Anyway there you have it.  It's no surprise that Russia would support the Taliban against the US.  And the particular mode of doing so should not be a surprise either -- it's just an inexpensive way to support Russian surthrival, just as supporting the Mujahideen was in the US's surthrival interests.

Of course, Trump should have reacted to the news with outrage and condemnation, but Trump is Trump, so what do you expect?  If it hurts his chance of reelection, it's a good thing.