Emergency SHIELD.

I've decided the best way to cover the Closing Ceremony of the 2018 Winter Para-Olympics is to go on a little detour.

Instead I'm going to write about a US TV Show; "Marvels: Agents of Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division (S.H.I.E.L.D)."

This was a talking point during the 2018 Winter Olympics. Particularly through the mostly Asian, always hungry actress from the show Chloe Bennet. And her avatar. Korean American Snowboarder Chloe Kim.

It was also a big talking point during the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest.

In the gap between the Olympics and the Para-Olympics the UK broadcaster Channel 4 started airing Season 5 of the show. This prompted me to catch up on Season 4. The one which had been on air during the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest.

I'm glad I did. It seems much of the antics surrounding the Para-Olympics have, at least in part, been influenced by Season 4 of Agents of Shield.

For example there was the March 4th (4/3/18) poisoning of Russian MI6 agent Sergei Skripal. This took place in the city of Salisbury, Wiltshire in the UK.

There is a spin-off show from Agents of Shield called; "Agent Carter." The lead role is played by British actress Hayley Atwell.

Hayley Atwell's big TV breakthrough came in the 2010 mini-series; "The Pillars of the Earth."

This was a huge multinational production relying on talent from the UK, the US, Canada and Germany. It was largely filmed in Hungary using development money from the European Union (EU).

It is loosely based around the building of Salisbury's very famous Cathedral. It uses that story to explore the core underpinnings of society. The pillars of the earth as it were.

So you have a very devout Monk who represents the good side of religion. You also have a corrupt Bishop representing politics and corruption. Hayley Atwell's character represents lust and sexuality.

People who enjoy fantasy comic book movies and TV shows like Agents of Shield like to talk about things like origin stories. The Pillars of the Earth is very much the origin story for the much more famous TV show; "Game of Thrones."

So The Pillars of the Earth has Game of Thrones levels of violence and nudity. That is all except for the actress Hayley Atwell. Despite representing lust and sexuality she does not appear nude.

Instead where it would be easier for the character to appear nude without you really noticing there is instead a very intrusive edit. The sort of thing that jolts your concentration reminding you that you are watching a TV show.

This makes The Pillars of the Earth an interesting case study in the never ending discussion about portrayals of sex and nudity in TV and movies.

Representing lust and sexuality it is really necessary for the artistic point being made that Hayley Atwell's character appears nude. The fact she doesn't and the way the director makes a point of the fact she doesn't raises further questions about the power of and attitudes towards women within the entertainment industry.

Watching the show you might be tempted to question whether this previously unknown actress was being difficult. Accepting a role that required nudity but then insisting on a no-nudity clause in her contract. Forcing everyone around her to work that bit harder to accommodate her ego.

In The Pillars of the Earth Hayley Atwell's character is a wool trader. The Bishop's Mill pub closed as part of the Skripal case in a former wool mill owned by the Bishop of Salisbury. Ian McShane I think.

If you go to particularly Salisbury Cathedral you can pick up a tourist map showing all the settings for The Pillars of the Earth. Including the Bishop's Mill pub.

I should probably explain why the fact I've got half a season's worth of Agents of Shield stacked up on my DVR is actually a sign of respect.

The show is very much about sub-text, metaphor and hidden meaning. Which is why it is so popular amongst the Eurovision Song Contest crowd.

The problem is that if you watch it in the same mindset you would watch some other TV show like NCIS or Law & Order it's terrible. It's just a series of a explosions and Kung Fu fight scenes happening for some dubious, unbelievable Sci-Fi reasons.

Instead you've got to watch it in the same mindset you would watch something like an Olympic ceremony. Open your mind to the hidden meanings and allow yourself to be absorbed by it. Marijuana really helps.

So what I tend to do is turn out the lights, close the curtains and allow myself to be absorbed by a couple of episodes in a row. It's much harder to do that during the summer months. Particularly when your 2017 was as hectic as mine.

The big theme of Season 4 is Artificial Intelligence (AI). As the technology advances this has become an increasingly important global talking point. We have things like self-driving cars.

The 2018 Winter Olympics specifically focused on the topic of AI bots on social media.

Ahead of the 2016 US Presidential Election incumbent President Barack Obama claimed Russia was using AI bots on social media to rig the election. This claim allowed Obama to set up a special unit of the FBI answering directly to him.

That special FBI unit was tasked with declaring comments supportive of the Republican candidate Donald Trump or critical of Obama's designated successor Hillary Clinton to be the work of Russian AI bots. Then removing them from social media under the guise of national security.

This was remarkably similar to events in Olympic host the Republic of Korea (RoK/South) during their 2012 Presidential Election.

There the incumbent President Lee Myung-bak claimed that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK/North) was using AI bots on social media to rig the election. This claim allowed Lee to set up a special unit of the RoK's equivalent of the FBI - the NIS - answering directly to him.

That special NIS unit was tasked with declaring comments supportive of Candidate Moon Jae-in or critical of President Lee's designated successor Park Guen-hye to be the work of North Korean AI bots. Then removing them from social media under the guise of national security.

In late 2016, early 2017 it was revealed that these claims of AI bots was a deliberate lie. It allowed the NIS to rig the election in favour of Park Guen-hye. She was impeached and Moon Jae-in took her place.

Within Agents of Shield a sort mad scientist played by Scottish actor John Hannah creates an advanced AI called the; "Artificial Intelligence Digital Assistant (AIDA)" played by Australian actress Mallory Jansen.

For dubious Sci-Fi reasons AIDA goes on to create an artificial reality called; "The Framework."

Similar to the movie; "The Matrix" this is like a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. Sort of like "Minecraft." However rather than being played on a computer it is fed directly into the person's brain.

AIDA then traps the core cast of the show into this Framework.

This is used to explore the notion of; "Social Programming." Essentially the way that the people we meet and the experiences we have shape us as people and determine how we behave.

A very good example of this is language.

Reading and writing are a slightly different thing. However it is likely that no-one taught you how to speak and understand your native language. Instead you just copied what everybody else in your society was doing.

Another good example is crime.

Most societies have laws. They also have police forces, Courts and prisons to enforce those laws. However what really prevents crime is the social convention that you don't commit crime.

The UK's August 2011 riots are a good example of this.

There is a social convention that you don't put a brick through a shop window and then just take whatever you want. During the riots that particular social convention collapsed.

The UK rapidly discovered it didn't have enough police officers to physically stop people from committing crime if they were prepared to disregard the social convention.

Social programing is also how AI bots on social media learn.

They consume the vast amount of human interactions freely available on social media. They then analyse them and then set out to recreate human behaviour.

A famous of this is Microsoft's chatbot; "Tay."

Unfortunately for Microsoft the online human interactions Tay studied seemed to be limited to people who use social media "Hate Sites" like "4Chan."

As a result Tay learnt to be foul mouthed, racist, homophobic and consumed by hate. Behaviour considered perfectly normal and acceptable by the 4Chan community.

I also recently heard about an AI bot which was forced to watch all of the "Saw" horror movies. It was then tasked with writing the script for the next horror movies.

The resulting dialogue was only slightly more clunky than the Saw movies themselves.

Another interesting real world case study in social programming is the Turpin siblings in the US.

Back in January 2018 in Riverside, California it was discovered that David and Louise Turpin had been holding their 13 children captive in some sort of bizarre basement dungeon. It emerged that all of the children had some opportunity to escape and one had even attended college. However none of them did.

That is because only ever experiencing that mini-society from birth they had been programmed to believe it was normal. Therefore they did not realise there was a reason they should try and escape.

That is an idea Agents of Shield very much explores. The core cast don't know that they've been put into the artificial reality Framework. So they don't realise it's not real or understand they need to escape.

As you would expect from Joss Whedon it all gets very existential.

Hopefully not too existential though. At around 18:45 on 20/3/18 (UK date) I've got to finish this after dinner. And drinks.

Edited at around 20:20 on 20/3/18 (UK date) to add above & below;

In putting the core cast of Agents of Shield into the Framework AIDA eliminates their one core regret. That one thing we all have that we wish we had done differently.

So for the "Fitz" character it was his father leaving when he was a child. In the Framework Fitz's father is still around. In death if not life he seems to resemble Harvey Weinstein.

For the "Caulson" character the regret is that he joined Shield. So in the Framework he is a High School history teacher. The career he would have chosen if he'd never joined Shield.

For the "Mace" character the regret is that he never got to have superpowers. So in the Framework he had superpowers.

However those superpowers do not prevent Mace being crushed by a concrete beam. In scenes that closely resemble the recent bridge collapse at Florida International University (FIU) in the US.

The result of removing these regrets is that Shield's arch-nemesis "Hydra" has risen to power. They are a Nazi like organisation.

The origin story for Shield is that Agent Carter fought for the allies in the Second World War against Nazi Germany who had Hydra as their science division. Agent Carter's Strategic Scientific Reserve (SCR) became S.H.I.E.L.D.

Hydra were able to rise to power through the never defined; "Cambridge Incident."

With boffin characters like Fitz and Simmons being British it is hard to work out is this Cambridge refers to Cambridge University. Where Stephen Hawking studied. 

Or the Cambridge, Massachusetts, US. Close to Boston where there was a terrorist bombing in April 2013.

As a fascist organisation Hydra control the population through news broadcasts - seeming to resemble Al Jazeera - which urge viewers to remember the Cambridge Incident and constantly be on their guard.

As a history teacher Caulson starts to question the Framework. He can see that Hydra are further controlling the population by engaging in; "Revisionist History."

This is the sort of thing where you would demand US Civil War statues are removed from public view. So people forget that the US Civil War was the Democrat Party fighting to keep slavery alive.

It's also things like putting out propaganda movies like; "Selma." These claim that Martin Luther King Jr was placed under surveillance by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

So people forget that Martin Luther King Jr was little more than a bit part player in the US Civil Rights movement. 

That was actually an internal dispute within the Democrat Party. One faction was led by Lyndon B. Jonson. The other was led by George C. Wallace.

The two factions used to meet for so-called; "Coca-Cola Summits." Hence the Coca-Cola button Lyndon B. Johnson had installed on the President's desk in the Oval Office.

Although apparently if you were raised on Selma you'd think President Trump installed that button. 

I wouldn't worry though. It's not like its an important part of 20th century US political history or anything.

One of the core Shield cast is the; "Mack" character. He is black. His big regret is that his only child was stillborn.

So in the Framework Mack is the proud father of a 10 year old daughter named; "Hope." As in Barack Obama's 2008 election slogan; "Hope & Change."

Even after it is revealed to him that the world of Hope is Fake News Mack still refuses to leave the Framework. Like every Obamacare Opioid addict he would prefer to live in the comfort of hope rather than face reality.

In the last few days US Democrats have been presented with their own; "Cambridge Incident."

Cambridge Analytical are a UK based company. However they are being prosecuted by the US Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

What Cambridge Analytica have done is use almost AI bots to consume the vast about of human interaction freely available on social media. They have then used it to devise the best way to target potential voters.

In short Cambridge Analytica have done what is considered a perfectly normal part of election campaigning. 

It is this sort of voter research which has coined terms such as; "White Van Man, "Mondeo Man" or "Joe the Plumber" from the US in 2012.

Of course some would say that Sergei Skripal and his ugly, ugly daughters resemble one of the Joe the Plumbers. But some would also say that Joe the Plumber resembles Ratko Mladic.

The type of social stratification used by Cambridge Analytica is as old as the social sciences itself. 

Voters have long been classified in terms of their occupation, earnings, wealth and social or political power. 

Politicians always try to identify each of these subgroups or tribes and then appeal to either their hopes of fears.

What has made Hydra angry about Cambridge Analytica is not that they were using exactly the same methods as Hillary Clinton and the Democrats.  

They are angry that they were working for the inhuman terrorist Donald Trump.

One of the key characters to emerge from the Cambridge Analytica story is Chris Wylie.

I say he's a "character." He appears to be the "Wylie" character from the US TV show; "The Mentalist."

The Mentalist centres around the; "Patrick Jane" character. A former stage hypnotist he is extremely skilled in psychological manipulation. 

The introduction of the Wylie computer geek character was something of a reference to the way computer programming and social programming interact to produce AI.

Wylie joined the show when Jane joined the FBI and moved to the field office in Austin, Texas.

I gather the actual FBI field office in Austin, Texas is currently quite busy.

Something to do with Agent Antoine "Trip" Triplett and his Howling Commandos.

We hope that one day that along with Mack's brother and the rest of Obama's Watchdogs he will grow to become a patriot.

21:50 on 20/3/18 (UK date).