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What is The Machine™

Started by LMNO, July 19, 2006, 12:56:06 PM

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LMNO

Do you mean to imply that this process is concious?

something that's coming through your observations are words like "job".

I see the whole process as more or less mechanical, until you arrive at the CoN(LMNO Version), in which humans are able to manipulate.  Up to that point, there is little control the pinks, greys, and merhumes have over what is happening to them.

Cain

To a degree, yes.  The Machine, as I portray it, is very conscious.  Its literally a given within certain areas of policy analysis.  Among themselves, the academics will pick apart philosophical differences, but when confronted with outsiders, the choices narrow down between a very fine range, all of which suit the status quo.

The British government, for example is the largest single buyer of advertising within the UK.  The Pentagon has started its own propaganda service.  Can it really be doubted?

Triple Zero

cain, that's very nicely put! :mittens: (the longer post)
i agree with just about anything you said there.

except i wonder about my own theory. the one where the Machine is actually an organism (or set of organisms) of some vague metaphorical/ethereal kind. it all fits together with what you just said. the bit where it creates the society-elite, puts them in a place of power, it's just a natural way for the Machine to keep itself intact. religion is another way to keep its components/organs/cells (people) in check. for it, religion is merely some kind of neurotransmitter, and its nerves(/blood circulation/lymphe) system is of course economic money flows, mass-media, communication, etc. it's a creature that exists in memes, like we exist in cells and molecules.
and IMO this is the natural way patterns in complex systems go, up up up to higher and higher complexity, every large bit will at some moment be absorbed into a higher complex system and function as merely a cogwheel. this has pretty much been happening all the time, but we, humans, are in fact the first conscious cogwheels, the ones that can notice what is going on and we can say STOP.

that is about the point where i wonder how useful my metaphore is. cause what you are saying seems very accurate and to the point, and even points out some tangible things, targets.
i just wonder how intertwined and inevitable all these happenings are.

sorry this must be a completely unclear posting. we should all get together for a few days and drink some beers in a smokey pub somewhere.

(edit, written in notepad, copypasted twice)
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e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

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Quote from: triple zero on November 03, 2006, 07:30:18 PM
cain, that's very nicely put! :mittens: (the longer post)
i agree with just about anything you said there.

except i wonder about my own theory. the one where the Machine is actually an organism (or set of organisms) of some vague metaphorical/ethereal kind. it all fits together with what you just said. the bit where it creates the society-elite, puts them in a place of power, it's just a natural way for the Machine to keep itself intact. religion is another way to keep its components/organs/cells (people) in check. for it, religion is merely some kind of neurotransmitter, and its nerves(/blood circulation/lymphe) system is of course economic money flows, mass-media, communication, etc. it's a creature that exists in memes, like we exist in cells and molecules.
and IMO this is the natural way patterns in complex systems go, up up up to higher and higher complexity, every large bit will at some moment be absorbed into a higher complex system and function as merely a cogwheel. this has pretty much been happening all the time, but we, humans, are in fact the first conscious cogwheels, the ones that can notice what is going on and we can say STOP.

that is about the point where i wonder how useful my metaphore is. cause what you are saying seems very accurate and to the point, and even points out some tangible things, targets.
i just wonder how intertwined and inevitable all these happenings are.

sorry this must be a completely unclear posting. we should all get together for a few days and drink some beers in a smokey pub somewhere.

(edit, written in notepad, copypasted twice)

I equate the mind of the machine to the mind of god. God, in this sense, is mentally ill. I've cured my own mental illness I'm pretty sure I can cure god's too.

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
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walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

LMNO

Hmmm... The Mind of God is a bit esoteric for me at this point.  Could you clarify?

Triple Zero

sillycybin: you mean in a kind of ghost-in-the-machine kind of way (like skynet)? why would you say this mind is mentally ill?
apart from that it's functioning in a way that we dislike, i see no reason for the ghost in the machine to really care for the humans that it exists in/out of. it's not like it doesn't have more than enough of them or anything.
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e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.

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Quote from: LMNO on November 03, 2006, 07:43:28 PM
Hmmm... The Mind of God is a bit esoteric for me at this point.  Could you clarify?

Mind as a side effect of the operation of a complex system. The thoughts it thinks are alien to us but, because we are all the same system it is not completely outwith our grasp. speaking personally, and I wouldn't discount the whole thing as a complete delusion, I was surprised just how much we had in common.

Quote from: triple zero on November 03, 2006, 07:49:39 PM
sillycybin: you mean in a kind of ghost-in-the-machine kind of way (like skynet)? why would you say this mind is mentally ill?
apart from that it's functioning in a way that we dislike, i see no reason for the ghost in the machine to really care for the humans that it exists in/out of. it's not like it doesn't have more than enough of them or anything.

The constituent components are in dissaray. In this paradigm God's mental illness could be viewed after a fashion akin to a chemical imbalance, affecting the overall psychology. It should care about us in the same way we should care about our braincells. What I found was that it didn't see us as being the cause of it's mind anymore than we generally tend view our complex material interactions as causing anything like sentience.

This is the abyss of which the cabbalists speak. IMO both sides would benefit a bridging of the gulf.

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

BADGE OF HONOR

I'm going to completely disagree and say that The Machine isn't malign at all.  The Machine doesn't want anything.  The Machine is merely the latest adaptation of humanity.


Think about how we evolved.  For millions of years, our species wandered about in small family groups, never staying in one place too long, generally meeting maybe a couple of hundred people in their lifetimes.  I'm certain all sorts of bizarre, fucked up behavior happened even then, but in the meantime some biological baselines were set.

Then comes agriculture, as the human population grew and resources dwindled.  Agriculture means much harder work but a steady, if bland, diet.  This leads to more people.  Sedentism alone improves the birth rate, and combined with a (theoretically) guaranteed food source, you get a revolution.  Generation after generation, the farmers outbreed the hunters, and eventually they take over.  They aggregate in larger and larger groups, take more and more land for themselves.  Pretty soon you have cities.  With agriculture comes wealth, and with wealth comes social class, and with social class comes discontent.  Agriculture spawned organized, large scale violence, and agriculture spawned organized, large scale religion.

Remember, we evolved in small family groups.  Living with lots of people is very stressfull at an unconscious level.  We are constantly striving to escape, and the best way we know is by accumulating wealth and building distance between us and the rest of the world.  Thus The Machine.  You may call it a biological imperative (though I wouldn't).  It is the unthinking coping system that we all contain and carry out simply in order to survive this world with our psyches intact.  If you put enough rats in a cage they start eating each other.  This is what we're doing every day, only we don't even know it.

The Machine has been worse.  Take the Aztecs, for example.  Their entire economy was based on conquering, enslaving, and sacrificing the surrounding countryside.  Sometimes the peasants sold their children into slavery just to ensure their survival, because they were one bad harvest away from mass starvation.  Their entire world was filled with enemies, and that is how they fell so quickly to the conquistadores.  Their Machine killed them in a matter of months. 

The Machine will never go away.  Even if some catastrophe happens that takes out most of the population, you cannot uninvent the wheel.  It is a stereotypic motion, a continuous unconscious action that serves to relieve stress, and outlet for what cannot be expressed.  Even if you are aware of The Machine, you cannot subvert yourself because every interaction you have with others is flavored, tainted, impregnated by The Machine.  Every rote action with the store clerk, every message left on the answering machine, every negotiation on the freeway, every sidelong glance at passersby on the sidewalk, they are all systems and methods of The Machine.  And when you go somewhere else, and you feel so foreign and alienated, that is because you've moved to a different section of The Machine where the comforting routines are subtly strange. 

I don't have any suggestions on how to deal with The Machine.  I just don't think it's some sort of evil beast waiting in the shadows, grinding us down...to what end?  It's just human behavior in the face of overpopulation.
The Jerk On Bike rolled his eyes and tossed the waffle back over his shoulder--before it struck the ground, a stout, disconcertingly monkey-like dog sprang into the air and snatched it, and began to masticate it--literally--for the sound it made was like a homonculus squatting on the floor muttering "masticate masticate masticate".

BADGE OF HONOR

After some pondering, I'd have to say that existence as a self-aware being is inherently psychologically damaging, and The Machine is part of the defense mechanism.  It just isn't a very good one.
The Jerk On Bike rolled his eyes and tossed the waffle back over his shoulder--before it struck the ground, a stout, disconcertingly monkey-like dog sprang into the air and snatched it, and began to masticate it--literally--for the sound it made was like a homonculus squatting on the floor muttering "masticate masticate masticate".

ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞

Quote from: Rabid Badger of God on November 03, 2006, 11:12:12 PM
After some pondering, I'd have to say that existence as a self-aware being is inherently psychologically damaging, and The Machine is part of the defense mechanism.  It just isn't a very good one.

I like it.
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Triple Zero

Quote from: SillyCybin on November 03, 2006, 08:06:44 PMMind as a side effect of the operation of a complex system. The thoughts it thinks are alien to us but, because we are all the same system it is not completely outwith our grasp. speaking personally, and I wouldn't discount the whole thing as a complete delusion, I was surprised just how much we had in common.

yes!

Quote from: sillycybin
Quote from: triple zero on November 03, 2006, 07:49:39 PM
sillycybin: you mean in a kind of ghost-in-the-machine kind of way (like skynet)? why would you say this mind is mentally ill?
apart from that it's functioning in a way that we dislike, i see no reason for the ghost in the machine to really care for the humans that it exists in/out of. it's not like it doesn't have more than enough of them or anything.

The constituent components are in dissaray. In this paradigm God's mental illness could be viewed after a fashion akin to a chemical imbalance, affecting the overall psychology. It should care about us in the same way we should care about our braincells. What I found was that it didn't see us as being the cause of it's mind anymore than we generally tend view our complex material interactions as causing anything like sentience.

This is the abyss of which the cabbalists speak. IMO both sides would benefit a bridging of the gulf.

hmmmm that is a very interesting approach, i like the way that sounds. so basically our task is to bring the Machine in touch with itself, to "find itself" in a certain way, enlightenment for the Machine, or at least a significant improvement in its consciousness and/or yoga, feeling for its components.

to contrast, other people have said that the Machine is doing these bad things because it just wants to stay in existence. that it abuses its components because it is afraid (in a metaphorical way) that it be destroyed. in fact, like some of us are trying to do.

thanks sillycybin, you have shed a new and interesting light on the problem!
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e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.

Triple Zero

btw i also agree with what RBG said. it fits easily together with sillycybin's theory, mine and also mostly with Cain's.

i like the idea that if
Quote from: RBGThe Machine will never go away
it may be the best idea to try and turn the Machine to at least treat its "constituent components" in the most humane way possible.

it gives some kind of gleam of hope. on the other hand, was it not "hope" that was the most evil thing in pandora's box? ;-)
Ex-Soviet Bloc Sexual Attack Swede of Tomorrow™
e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.

Cain

Or there is the Jeffersonian/Leninist approach of the never ending revolution.  The Machine is dangerous as it becomes entrenched, as ideas and capital and other resources (not all tangible) accumulate at the top.  In modern society, the more you have, the more you can have.  If I have ¬£3000, I am simply not going to be able to make as much as someone with ¬£3,000,000, no matter how wisely I invest.  Its a simple fact.  And money is passed down via family lines, as is service within certain parts of the military or intelligence world and public government.  Its not surprising, but its hardly healthy either.

So every generation or so, an uprising that uproots the Machine before it becomes entrenched.  I'm not talking about a retarded wealth distribution program or anything like that (Communism has never appealed to me) but simply to remove people from power and give some new people a chance.

I know we have debated the Athenian model before, and decided it too instable for modern society (though of perfect instability for someone of Discordian temperment), but what if those instabilities could be corrected?  Government does seem to be trying to return to a city based level, as the communications revolution on the economy continues to unfold.  It has to be said, in favour of the Athenian model, it encourages participation of all its citizens, limited though they were, in its process.  It also made it very easy for anyone to be within government, for a while at least and had a strongly enforced Constitution, which would be necessary to stop the increased chances of individual abuse.  Because government service is so common among the population, the problems of entrenched power are resolved within the political sphere.

Triple Zero

you mean the athenian model as i talked about in this thread?
Ex-Soviet Bloc Sexual Attack Swede of Tomorrow™
e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.