Trained for Auction

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At first, it seems like a social development, a need, and solution to help with the requirements of the country. With too many people over here, so they are relocated over there. Sounds simple and practical. And that’s what I initially thought when I learnt of the orphan train movement in the US. I’ve already written a couple of articles around it – Just Passing Through and A Train of Thought, looking at some stats and other possible suggestions around it.

But when asked if I knew anything about Detroit specifically or about it crossing into Canada, I thought I would revisit the subject. And on first glance at the geographical areas involved, it just looks like a very easy route for these ‘relocations’ that went on. Trafficking them in plain sight. An older, more public version of what we hear of today, where it is not so public, of shipping containers and elaborate networks treating them as A Commodity. Just as they did before, but eventually people start asking questions, or noticing. So it goes underground. Literally.

I can’t help thinking, though, that the stat of 50,000 babies going missing in Ireland at end of 1700’s could be part of it, discussed in A Rather Dark Enterprise. Marked as died, but with no evidence of it, and at first, I assumed it to be true. Why would anyone lie in the records about babies perishing? Unless perhaps, they were taken and relocated. And with the Irish famine issue forcing many over there as well, it wouldn’t seem so odd that many have Irish roots, just perhaps some of them are even darker than they are told. And with many records of that time lost or deliberately destroyed, some will never know.

The numbers vary in the records, they say 200,000 orphans were taken by train all over the American mid-west, in some articles, they say up to 250,000. That’s a big variation, and makes you wonder if they just struggled with accuracy, or as with today, fabrication of numbers up or down can be of benefit to someone. I saw an article the other day about a couple of brothers who ran an orphanage, and it turned out that they were lying about their placements, stealing the money, keeping children in basements and this wasn’t discovered for quite some time. That’s just one case, affecting dozens of children. But really, the whole thing is completely unsavoury to me, and reads like a precursor to the setup we have today.

Of creating orphans to then ‘help’ by having orphanages, stigmatising single parenthood and restricting people’s ability to feed their family so they can deem them unfit and then take their children into ‘care’. And then ship them off to be sold/purchased in an auction style affair. Where people would gather in towns to bid on whatever they were looking for. A new child for the family, a new labourer or maid. Because they wanted workers and fodder for their schemes, and needed a way or a cover to obtain them and to freely move them around. So, this weird social scheme ran from the 1850’s through to 1929. That’s quite a substantial time to be having such a shortage of labour that you need to keep procuring children. At the same time, we are told that millions of people were relocating to the US, and Canada. Surely, they were having children? But why was it they needed children anyway? Millions of adults were there, constantly breeding. We are also told that millions of slaves were there by this time, also there to be workers and breeding the next generations.

Through that same time period of course there was a civil war thrown in, and various other changes. Yet they also found the time, despite the shortage of people and general workers, to build many of those huge and spectacular ‘founded’ buildings that litter each state. The massive neoclassical post offices, schools and universities, asylums, court houses and more. Clearly there was a surplus of funding, architects, construction specialists, stone masons, craftsman and more for that, but no-one to work on a farm. What rotten luck. But that’s ok, because they decided children’s public auctions would be a good fix for that. Clearly the orphan train model wasn’t going to be able to last forever, but it seems to have ended in 1929, just as the Great Depression kicked in. And from stories and the odd photograph of that time, they say it was so harsh, many people were forced to sell their own children to survive.

A middleman temporarily removed from the equation of how they can part you from your offspring. But it seems they just regrouped and after that decade of dust and doom came a new business model, same as with Europe. The destabilisation of war and disease, and control over your livelihood, food and family, to make sure they have systems in place to keep their commercial enterprises afloat and well stocked. Which unfortunately needs to have the appearance of systems for us, for our health and for our safety, and for the stability of society, allowing some to operate in the open and others to carry on unseen and undisturbed. Like much that has gone on and goes on, we only see what we see, and know what we know, but it seems there is so much more…

(c) MKW Publishing

Advice from Nowhere

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While the tech revolution insists on pushing through and AI is still being discussed as the world changing intervention we all need, it seems there is also much talk of issues, problems and some glaring concerns had by many. This article is focusing on the area of information and advice sought via AI agents, apps and special programs set up to invite you in to share your world with them, so they can comment and advise you on that. There’s the first problem perhaps, seeking advice from something that has nothing human about it, to give you answer to a human problem. But it can be trained or program to ‘sound human’, and that appears to be enough for some.

And it is add, because growing up, it seemed obvious that you should not accept every piece of advice you are given, and that you should perhaps question the motive, intention, background and experience of the person giving it. Many a time someone has deliberately interfered in someone else’s affairs because of an ulterior motive, whether it be jealousy, admiration, fear, hatred, love, and all the other things we as humans can be prone to. I guess maybe people thought that by removing those ‘qualities’ from an program and subsequent interaction, you might believe you are getting good, impartial advice on your situation. Turns out however, that is not the case. It is emerging that the system has a problem. It lies, fabricates information, changes information, and instead of bringing clarity and efficiency, it has brought confusion and they say is creating a lazy and limited mindset that struggles to function without its ‘guidance’ and systems to do your thinking for you.

And you might think that having access to a multitude of different opinions and feedback, ideas and advice would improve people’s knowledge, or understanding of themselves or situations they might find difficult to navigate. Apparently not for some, because it does seem that if you already lacked the ability the think for yourself, think things through, learn from mistakes, or listen to others, then that can be somewhat compounded by always seeking an online source to ‘counsel’ you through whatever your issue is. It’s a strange thing trying to listen to someone who asks you for advice or wants to talk to about something in the world, but then proceeds to tell you what ‘the internet’ told them, which happens to end up being exactly what they wanted to hear. Which is fine, because at that point you realise it was never about having a conversation, it was about them telling you what they have decided they now know. And it can work as a basic conversation, until you say something which does not agree with that new ‘internet worldview’ they have suddenly adopted, or try to give actual live advice based on experience or knowledge. Which then gets dismissed or checked, because it didn’t come from online. It’s crazy how many people now use that as a basis for qualification, reference and validation. Never researching or cross-referencing the information or advice they are being given there, or questioning the motive or nature of what is giving it. Yet people so easily do that in real life, often accusing people of having an ulterior motive when in fact they don’t, or they have a different one to what the other person can comprehend. Or will ask for advice, and when not in receipt of the answer they like or want, will argue about it or dismiss it as irrelevant. And that’s when you understand they didn’t want advice; they wanted their thoughts or conclusions to be agreed with and validated. Of course, there are others who really do want advice, but often don’t know the best way or questions to ask, and having a real person to ‘bounce off’ can be of great assistance there.

It is therefore down to the person to decide if what they need is sterile feedback to a situation, where there is no nuance, no emotion or feelings required and a faceless machine can adequately assist. Or if in fact, they require a more personal and human discussion or answer to dilemma, they should seek out a real person or base of knowledge. And many still do, and others must have realised that, so recently we have seen the AI companions being given faces, bodies, fashion styles and names. To try and personalise them and integrate them into your way of thinking. Those SIMS games make much more sense now, getting people familiar with a digital version of you and of others, so that you get used to interacting and communicating with a virtual self and ‘friends’ that you tailor to your requirement. I thought it was odd at the time, but couldn’t quite put my finger on why, because as with so much at first, it often just seems harmless and is a bit of fun and escapism. But they are all about social conditioning and study of the subjects involved, from the early days of board games mentioned in A Game, I think Not… to the strange and unusual set up we seem to be in like The Beautiful Mice. The introduction of AI and its extended branches of intrusion, just seem to be the next instalment in the corrupted, distorted and quite grotesque ideal being constructed for humans and nature. One that completely lacks heart, beauty, vision or soul, and it shows…

(c) MKW Publishing