As Breaking Bad matures, the villain, Gustavo Fring, becomes almost the lead character. Seasons two and four were about the vortex of chaos Walter White creates around his goals, but seasons three and four are more about his new employer, Gus, chicken, laundry and crystal meth dealer extraordinaire.

There is a new TV archetype, which isn’t the family, work or even friendship. It seems to be apprenticeship, or mentorship, something based on skill. From CSI to House to Breaking Bad, there’s a new setup which consists of a older man passing on skills, grumpily, to a younger apprentice or apprenti.

You could loosely divide the past into oral, literal and digital ages. Oral would be prehistory up to Homer and on, spoken word. Literal would be books, and digital would be, like, the Internet. Those were the mediums. What was the massage? How did we touch the medium, throughout those ages, how did we connect? Then I got to thinking about it. Digital (literally) means fingers. As fancy as we think this tech is, that’s how we connect.

I’ve been watching Breaking Bad a bit compulsively. It’s a TV drama about a high school chemistry teacher who starts cooking and dealing crystal meth. For the horrificness of this drug just check out Montana Meth project ads. Violence has always been sexy ever since Gilgamesh, but I’ve noticed two trends in depicting it. One is slacker violence, making it a joke, and the other is actual violence, making it disgusting. Oddly enough, both are kinda funny.

Sociologist Robert Bellah says that religion may be like play. The rules don’t make sense in the abstract, but they can create meaning and better people if you just play along. I’ve been in enough religious debates to conclude that God is not in the details. It’s like having an extended argument about how logical an LBW is and claiming that this refutes the game of cricket. But it doesn’t. These somewhat abstract rule based systems can lead to higher level awesomeness, but viewed in isolation, the rules may not make much sense. Like Java.

People say speak truth to power. I don’t think that really works. Just speak truth to each other and take power. People ask the President or government for this and that, without realizing that they actually have precious little personal control. It’s not like they’re going to turn around and say, ‘Hey, I’m an asshole’. These guys may have nicer cars than you or I, but they are still bound by even more societal constraints. Attacking them is interesting but almost pointless. It’s more useful to pull on the strings that bind them.

I’ve been following Mike Duncan’s History Of Rome podcasts. They are awesome and I like them cause I can do repetitive stuff at work and still listen. I’m at around 140 BC. What’s interesting is that the roots of collapse seem to have set in. And it began with great success.

Why do civilizations collapse? I would posit that they, like humans, simply get old and die. Basically, they get cancer. 1/3 of women and 1/2 of men get cancer as they age. Broadly, cancer is when a group of cells exhibits uncontrolled growth, gradually killing the host. One theory of why civilizations collapse is much the same. A group of people begins growing their wealth out of control, eventually outgrowing the resources that the society has. That society eventually collapses.

While we’re debating in the blogosphere, Sri Lanka Unites is actively doing something about reconciliation. They’ve brought youth leaders from all over the island to Kandy for what I think is the third Future Leaders Conference, supporting the champions of positive, uniting change.

In short, because we’re connected. Because we live together. Because we need each others help. There are a few studies detailing why we’re altruistic, but few explaining how. To that I would posit, because we have an identity and a face. For example, we went to this alley bar in Mount Lavinia that actually serves a decent lunch. On the way out our car was boxed in by two guys. This would often be a problem, but this time it wasn’t. People were so nice that it left me confused. Why?