Book review: Matthew Perry memoir

 I just found out that Matthew Perry actor who played Chandler Bing in "Friends" series just died in a hot tub. 

Usually I don't buy biographies of actors, but now I did.

The book is published one year before he is dead, so it is like a confession .

A confession of an actor before the public.

He was very affected by separation of his parents.

He was a cry baby and doctors in their wisdom prescribed him, fenobarbital.

He started to drink at an young age. 

At 15 yr he left the house of his mother in Canada to join his father in California.

His father was drinking 5 glasses of vodka daily but he kept on acting.

He followed in his father's steps, he exceeded his father in acting career and in drinking 

It seems that he drunk when he got anxious. 

One day after a skyjet accident, one doctor prescribed him Oxycotin, he felt better.

The doctor gave him 40 pills.

He was hooked, he entered and exited numerous rehabilitation clinics for opioids and alcohol.

At the end he couldn't even smoke because of an ephizema.

I wonder how effective the rehabilitation clinics are if a guy who wants to rehabilitate and has money for it, relapses.

But the opioids worked slowly for Matthew destruction, they slowed his bowel movement, he was constipated, his colon burst open, he got septicemy. He was 2 weeks in coma.

He said that only thing that kept him afloat was his work as an actor, and expecially work at Friends series.

The tight knit, team of actors and Screenplayers acted like a surogate family who gave him attention and recognition that need it.

I rewatch now the series and try to find a hint about his struggles in his acting but I can't find anything.

Overall it is good book especially for those who battle addiction and have emotional problems.

Artificial Intelligence and gun powder

 At start of modern era, gun powder weapons were hard to handle so specialists had to be hired. So the mercenary armies replaced the levy.

In the search to make weapons more affordable, they were improved till they were easily used by anyone who can breathe.

Then they were mass produced and used by conscript armies with little training.

At the end of cold war, the weapons became smarter, but not really usable by any conscript. So contract soldiers were preferred. 

Next step will be to make these new weapons usable by any conscript, and they to do it is to use artificial intelligence.

This will democratize the violence.

Smaller actors will buy ready made solutions, armed their conscripts and attack big actors who use legacy system.

A drone with a smart algoieill trick air defenses, sneak into an airport and damage a plane.

This is seen in Ukraine war very often.

Capital,labour and resources

 The capital organises labour, labour transfers and transforms resources.

Suppose you have 1 million $, and you want to build a house.

The one million doesn't transforms overnight in a house.

You have to pay labourers who will dig the dirt. Fire bricks, and lay the bricks.

Labour better is organized the more efficient it is, and more expensive it is 

A construction company is more expensive than daily labourers but is more efficient.

About ideology and meaning

Religion,fascism and communism don't alleviate the human suffering, they give it a meaning.

Religion however encourage solidarity between people and material conditions improve with donations from rich to poor.

Totalitarian regime don't encourage solidarity because they want to divide and conquer.

The world wars are similar to group madness?

 Panic selling on financial market,food hoarding and witch hunting are some well known cases of group madness.

But the world wars are similar ?

After all first world war started with a small conflict between Austria and Serbia and ended with all Europe in flames.

All activities above have 2 things in common:

1. The actors don't comunicate

2. Their actions try to avoid a loss, and they try to pass that loss on other actors.

In sort it is a null sum game.

In case of shares, if 2 actors agree not to sell shares, the one who cheats will gain by selling at a better price.

Both they have interest to sell fast their shares.

In case of war, the one who cheats the armistice gains unless it can be punished.

In case of wars the actors try to finish fast their conflict. The intensity and scale of war affects security of other actors who decide to intervine now rather than later when they will be alone 

Germany in WW1 was a threat for security stability so British empire had to contain it. Also invasion of Belgium was a dumb thing done by Germans. British empire being obliged by the treaties to intervine..

Because of powerfully economical connections between US and British empire, the German adventure threatened US security, and it was dragged in war.

Now with so much interconnection, further and further countries will be dragged in this war. Not with troops , despite mercenaries been recruited from Latin America and Middle East,but economically.

Beyond good and evil

 I just read a biography of Richard Nixon by John A. Farrell, and it was interesting to see how and idealist and ambitious WW2 veteran become a jaded, scheming politician.

According to the author Nixon at the end of his career didn't had values of good and bad. He signed Enviroment Protection Act, OSHA for safety of workers, aided people in Peru but he bombed Cambodgia and Laos ignoring the collateral damage done to the civilians from these neutral countries.  

I am thinking maybe the opposite to good is not evil, but lack of bad and evil.

After all Stalin and Mao were pragmatist. Stalin wanted to accelerate industrialization and moved with force peasants from country side into the city.