What is The Machine™

[LMNO, PhD (life continues)]

Last question first: no.


I also see a need to separate the negative and positive (or, at least neutral) aspects of the Machine.


What is it we want to change, anyway?

[Zł]

The Machine applies a system of pacification and conditioned apathy, over the course of generations, this is an effect which escalates. Poverty creates a low class job force, people who operate car washes and fast food restaraunts. Individual units at the lowest level, which when they malfunction, are self destructive (or at least destructive within their own subset), are easily replaced, and do not have the means or incentive to effect the high end operators of The Machine.

Personal connection to survival is discouraged. At a point in human history (the industrial revolution) cooperation with ones neighbors, family, etc (IE personal bonds) became obsolete. Food became Product. Shelter became Product. Health became Product. Actual communication, and cooperation, became obsolete. The Machine has taken steps to remove these factors from the system.

(etc etc.)

[vexaph0d]

As far as what to change, I think these things:

a) violence
b) oppression/tyranny
c) religious extremism in that it causes the first two
d) Texas

might be a good place to start.

if the end result needs to be a system that absolutely does not allow those things, we probably should get to the bottom of what causes all that.

also, tube sock abuse has seen an alarming upswing in recent months.

[Zł]

a) violence is caused most frequently by poverty, reduce poverty, and you reduce the overall climate of violence.

b) poverty is a tool of oppression/tyranny. Reduce poverty, and you take one of their weapons away from them.

c) religious extremism is also tool of oppression/tyranny. I think this actually falls under the broader category of 'socially engineered ignorance'. The 'No Child Left Behind' agenda is a good example of that phenomena in action.

d)I dont even know where to begin.

might be a good place to start.

if the end result needs to be a system that absolutely does not allow those things, we probably should get to the bottom of what causes all that.

also, tube sock abuse has seen an alarming upswing in recent months.

I dont think that creating a new system is a very good place to start. Lets start with exploiting the one we already have.

As far as overall changes in the system:

Intelligence needs to be encouraged on a social level, not discouraged.

Reliance on the Machine for mundane needs (food, water, etc) should be reduced. Personally, I'd like to be able to EAT without feeding a vast corporate empire... and its not that its impossible to do, its just hideously impractical.

Regardless, there are a lot of things I'd just rather not talk about.

[That Guy]

Fundamentally, it's the parasitism we want to change.  It should be benefiting us, rather than harming us to benefit it.

Reducing its control would be a part of this. Not neccessarily laws and the like, but the combined use of crowding and democracy. People function differently in crowds than they do when behaving as individuals. People are organized into two major crowds for voting purposes, so that any radical or out of place notions in their ideologies will slowly be forced out by that crowd. If people are voting as two massive groups, and not as individuals, voting fraud isn't even needed. Or so my half-baked theory goes.

The indoctrination process, with its many facets, should also be a concern.

[Misery's Fred Trough]

I don't think you can change the whole of The Machine(tm).  To me, that would require changing the whole of the human race, or at least a 2/3rds majority to root out the last 1/3.  I think The Machine(tm) is a byproduct, but a very powerful one, of the majority of the human race.  We, for example, I think represent a portion of the minority that recognize The Machine(tm).  We may not agree on its definition 100% but I think we have a nebulus consensus on it, enough so that we want to do "something" to it.  

And why?  Why do we want to do something to it?  Because we know it does "bad" to people we like, or for the self-centered, it does bad to ourselves.  

And now I wonder, do we really want to stop or change The Machine(tm)?  Or, do we want to just make it apparent for those who do not recognize it so that they may work within it in a way that it does not harm them, or at least, does so minimally.  

This is a very open ended, circling concept isn't it?

[LMNO, PhD (life continues)]

Or, do we want to just make it apparent for those who do not recognize it so that they may work within it in a way that it does not harm them, or at least, does so minimally.

I like that.

[Misery's Fred Trough]

Apparently my brain works well under stress.  I can only come up with this stuff if I'm at work or my house is doing its impression of Old Faithful.

[LMNO, PhD (life continues)]

So, that means you'll achieve full enlightenment when your house collapses around you.

[vexaph0d]

By the way... Even Poetic Terrorism and HIMEOBS' days are numbered.  The Machine and the cabbages that fill corporate marketing divisions are already hot on the tracks of Guerilla Advertising.

Soon, even weird shit that shouldn't make any sense at all will only reinforce the Machine, even if it isn't intended to sell Product.

I think everyone here has, if not a homogenous opinion, at least a general consensus that there IS the Machine, and that its candy-coated teeth will (and very often, do) grind people into paste.

Stop it?  Can't.  Destroy it?  Not unless you build a bigger, badder Machine(tm).  This is just basic Eristic vs. Aneristic anyway, but the crunch for us is that the Machine is in a position to stamp out the Eristic almost completely.

[begin crazy talk]

I'm probably a paranoid asshat, as always, but I think it's entirely likely that the Machine, if it is an organism like has been posited above, will eventually 'wake up,' or achieve consciousness.  If we are members of the Machine, and we are aware of its existence, then is that not already a kind of consciousness?  If full consciousness happens in the Machine, I'm fairly certain that we're fucked, even though I'm not entirely sure what the hell I'm talking about.

[end crazy talk]

[That Guy]

Question for this identification business:

What parts of the world, specifically, do you find the Machine‚Ѣ most apparent in? Where are its strongest manifestations, where does it thrive?

EDIT: Make that 'when', as well. Are there points in history where the Machine‚Ѣ was stronger in certain places and weaker in others?

[The Littlest Ubermensch]

The Machine is connections.
Anything resulting from the idea of connections is the Machine. Examples: law, government, infrastructure, unions, marriage, love, and language.

At risk of being very, very cliche, it is the Aneristic principle. I agree with that section of the Principia wholeheartedly. I really have nothing to add on that matter.

When it comes to somehow fighting certain elements of it, I, in my present condition of being cynical and tired, could not give a shit. The world is in a continual state of decay and movement towards a crystalline and austere hellscape. I go to school to be forced into a police state for 7 hours of my day, with the rest of my day devoted to preparing for more abuse the next day by resting and finishing work, with a weekend of frantic recreation in preparation for the coming week. The Machine has bought the counterculture and stolen it's symbols and mutilated their ideals into 3 minute sound bites called rock music and advertising ploys. The closest a kid of my generation is ever going to get to truly rebelling is finding ways to avoid the system, while looking away and falling asleep when people talk about fighting it.

The Machine will most likely assimilate me at some point. I hope to only end up being used as a negative example for kids in the process of indoctrination, so they can all point and say, "You can't be that guy, and everything he says is wrong." If I'm lucky I'll be assassinated.

[Misery's Fred Trough]

Question for this identification business:

What parts of the world, specifically, do you find the Machine‚Ѣ most apparent in? Where are its strongest manifestations, where does it thrive?

EDIT: Make that 'when', as well. Are there points in history where the Machine‚Ѣ was stronger in certain places and weaker in others?

short answer: everywhere

However, I would say it is most noticeable where people have the luxury to notice it.  

Consider the Hierarchy of Needs.  Someone living in a "third world" country where 99% of your wakeful existence is dedicated to the basic needs of food and shelter.  Those people don't have time to think about such things.  Not on their radar.  Not important.  If they starve to death what difference does it make whether The Machine(tm) was part of it or not.

Here, in American/Western Civilization we, on average, are better off.  We have our basic needs pretty much under control and therefore can spend our mental resources on other areas.  So we can notice The Machine(tm) and recognize its existence.

But, whether recognized or not, I feel it exists everwhere.  It's everywhere there is human greed and corruption or the abilities for such things to manifest.  Anywhere there is a need by a few to control the many, whether through good intentions or ill.  People with good intentions can fuck over a population as much as those with ill through incompetence and short-sightedness and poor judgement as to what constitutes "good intentions."  Some people don't want a safe America if it means someone thumbing through their bank accounts and library records.

[Triple Zero]

The Machine is the large-scale perversion of human society into a self-interested Con, whose Effect (if not its entire Purpose), *** is the blinding of people into pouring themselves into it doing things they hate and things that kill them prematurely, and fooling them into thinking that there is nothing but The Machine.

i put some *** there at the place where i think you're going wrong. not just wrong, you're stating the status quo but before the *** it was more general. maybe you could try again? (i'm drunk so i can't)

also i need to quote the cube (i did it before but here goes again:)

there is no conspiracy
nobody is in charge
big brother is not watching me
it's a headless blunder
operating under the illusion
of a master plan.

(reading further)

reminder to self: read this thread when sober.

another glass of rose? yes please

[Cain]

The Machine‚Ѣ is what makes people send other people to diee for abstractions.

The Machine‚Ѣ is what drives people to spend 40 hours a week doing tasks they dislike.

The Machine‚Ѣ is what encourages people to want things they don't need, and makes them feel guilty for not having.

The Machine‚Ѣ wants you to be in debt to a corporation.

The Machine‚Ѣ is a punishing father figure.

The Machine‚Ѣ beats you up for your lunch money.

The Machine‚Ѣ knows what is RIGHT, and what is WRONG.





What is The Machine‚Ѣ for you?

The System.  Why things are as they are and not as something else.  The unthinking arrogance of the status quo, the "way things are done" and how they all interlock to make your life an unpleasant and meaningless existence.