On Awakening the City

[Chairman Risus]

The people in the City aren't like you or I. They aren't like the bipeds you know of that think for themselves.
They hide their faces behind white masks emblazoned with corporate brands and network logos.

The Faceless have their rituals and deities.
They praise the skyscrapers and prostrate themselves before their computer and television idols.
The Faceless don't see the value in change the way I do. They don't admire independence of thought and ideas. They're set in their ways, keeping themselves just happy and sedated enough to not care about the World outside of their television screens.

I've tried breaking the Faceless from their grind and schedule, but it's not that simple. It was the Faceless that fenced themselves into this pen. They became satisfied with becoming the herd and began to fear the introduction of change into their enclosure.
I've seen the Faceless become erratic and fearful when they encounter something strange or unique.
They've become so institutionalized that they can't comprehend or process anything that isn't a part of the gears and clockwork of the City.

The Faceless do their best ignore aberrations or destroy the deviancy they face. When they can't, however, they panic, covering their heads as if some great Demiurge would descend on them for breaking out of their monotony and routine. It's this great invisible leader that they've assigned all responsibility to, and it's this great invisible leader that they've all pledged allegiance to.



I've been wondering if I could find the Demiurge and defeat it. I could show the head of the great leader to the people as a trophy signifying that they were all free again.

Would that be easier than proving that it's all smoke and mirrors and men behind curtains? That the state of the City was up to us the entire time and that we were responsible for our sickness and that we are the guilty party and that we are our own jailers?

I'd better start looking for this Demiurge.

[Doktor Howl]

You really want to wake them all up?

If you can't see the problem with this, I will be glad to spout.

[Chairman Risus]

Dok. Howl,
       I've seen is people complain about the state of the City, during commercials, of course. Someone else, off in charge of the City is always at fault. Someone else is always there to take the blame for the citizens.
But without their invisible leaders, who would be responsible for the fear and malaise we've entrenched ourselves into?
Who could the citizens assign guilt and responsibility to if their idols were beheaded?
I'm not sure if there were ever any real leaders in the City, Dok. That the citizens had to manufacture these puppets to spew excuses and promises. With their figureheads shielding the populace from responsibility, everybody could go back and relax, right? Somebody is probably steering us right.

To be honest, Dok, I don't know what would happen.

From the Office of the Bandarlog Society
Risus

[Fujikoma]

I'd think this "Demiurge", the way you describe it, exists within all of its followers simultaneously... The only way I could think of would be to take that bitter pill and hide it in something sweet, like a metaphorical marshmallow or something... The BAM, the seed is planted, the tree grows, and it's suddenly too late. Then, the only way to return to the normality and conformity that they seek would be to spread the very thing that's plaguing them. What is this poison, one might ask? The very sense of personal responsibility that you mentioned.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

We ARE them.

[Kai]

We ARE them.

And then Risus was a Faceless.

[Fujikoma]

While I'll admit that that is true to a certain extent, I can't quite accept that there is no way out of the cycle. I've known too many unconventional people on the most distant fringes of the scale of conformity to think that there's not some way to hop off the disc, out of the sphere, through the wall of the cube, however you visualize it... Whether that's a good idea or not, well, I'll let you know when I get there.

I know that it is important to provide services to others for survival, as well as for the continuing survival of society, and that order is necessary to maintain peace among people as they currently are. These things cannot be done without, and I don't foresee that these things will ever be different. I understand why people prejudge others, it's a survival mechanism. Without prejudgment, one would easily fall prey to criminal sociopaths, however, this function in society seems to be malfunctioning, though I could be looking at it wrong.

The current mindset of the majority is largely dictated by accepted sources of information which they are continually exposed to. I cannot, in good conscience, say that all of those sources are corrupt. I can, however, assume that most of them are. I have yet to finish the Black Iron Prison, but I can understand the concept of twiddling widgets and sprockets on the machine in order to possibly redirect its course. I had come to understand, before ever reading it, that opposing said "machine" would be folly of the highest magnitude, as even the majority of people across the world standing against it would be steamrolled. This is not to say it's hopeless, just that you can't blindly rush in. One must position their pieces and force the movements of the enemy in ways that will be disadvantageous for it, and know that the enemy has been playing this game a LOT longer than we have... This is a double edged sword, which allows one to play on the arrogance of the enemy and feign helplessness, all the while adjusting a subtle tactic to be employed later for maximum effect.

Waking up the entire populace is not the first priority, but, reaching a larger number of them should be. One must be careful of dangerous people who would move ahead before the appropriate time, or move ahead at all, through an exaggerated sense of confidence, or due to programming from the puppet masters. First and foremost, violence will not solve anything, it will only serve to discredit the institution from which it comes, as well as any institution connected to it. Things are moving forward rapidly in the machine at the moment, and it is a growing concern of mine that some trigger happy idiot is going to be the start of a chain of events that may well destroy us all. I have been doing my best to spread notions that would impede said fools from going ahead and screwing everyone else.

The machine is gearing up for something, it is important that people know that they must feign weakness for the moment and let the commotion die down. Even with protesters present for a righteous cause, "fake" protesters may attempt to rouse the crowd to violent action, and, failing that, may undertake the action themselves. These agent provocateurs are very, very dangerous to any such scenario.

Now imagine this... In an alternate reality, Toronto geared up for all this mayhem and violence... Plans were put in motion to get newsclips of violent protesters and scared police officers holding the line to alter world sentiment... Everything goes perfectly, except... NO ONE SHOWS UP. There IS no protest. Suddenly everything that was done just seems kind of foolish. The plans cannot go forward.

But where did those protesters go? Oh, they went somewhere else, away from all of the staged drama, and put up a protest at, I don't know, Oklahoma City or something, where nobody is prepared for this sort of thing. Trouble would be, how do you communicate with them the details of the plan without the machine catching on? So perhaps the shifting of the location of the protest would be impractical, as spies are everywhere and it wouldn't take long for them to catch on. But I think, had there been no protest, it would have made everyone responsible for all the wild security measures look silly, I think it would have been hillarious.

[Captain Utopia]

There's some law about how the complexity of an idea multiplied by the number of stakeholders is directly disproportional to the likelihood that it will be accepted.

E.g.  A government can develop a nuclear bomb in secret because there are few decision makers, even though it's complex.  But getting the message that protesters should go to Oklahoma City to protest something happening in Toronto -- hard sell to a large crowd, even though it's only marginally more complex than protesting in Toronto.

Other than that, I agree Fujikoma.  As much as the police action with regards the G20 makes my blood boil, I'd love for people who give a shit (e.g. the protesters) to be more strategic than reactionary.

[Fujikoma]

I see... Yeah, in Machiavelli's book "The Discourses" he says kind of the same thing about conspiracies, that the larger the conspiracy, the less likely it is to succeed, the more likely someone will flake out and betray the conspiracy... But it has been a while since I read that... I wish I still had it, I'd read it again.

True, because no matter how convincing an argument you make, you can't sway the whole crowd, but if you could make a convincing enough argument you could possibly sway the majority, which would leave a tiny crowd in Toronto... However, even a tiny crowd is enough to sneak a few cops dressed in black in there.

I wish it weren't the case, but people seem just dumb enough to not question these guys in black showing up at protests and starting violent crap... It's not the first time they've done it, either. If they're some group of anarchists, they need to be stopped for the sake of everyone else because their stupidity is totally wrecking anything the other protesters are trying to accomplish, but I think it's more likely that they're cops and agents in disguise. Question is, if they are anarchists, what's the best way to stop them? I wouldn't even know where to start looking for these douchebags to argue with them.

If they aren't cops, does anyone think that their strategy might be viable? It seems to me that they're underestimating what they're up against, but I don't really know... Still, even if it was viable, if some sort of armed revolution were to occur, too many people would be killed and too much property destroyed to justify it, IMO, and another power structure would pop up in its place eventually, all the more wary due to events in the past.

EDIT: One person could sway a good deal of people who would show up for that kind of thing that I can think of... I just don't want to say his name, because I don't trust everything he says, I think he may jump to conclusions at times.

EDIT EDIT: Prescribe a strict no black clothing dress code, and  have a policy of turning anyone wearing black clothing over to the cops. Sure, it wouldn't take long for them to figure out, but it would disrupt the whole narrative.

[Triple Zero]

The demiurge stems from apathy and lethargy.

A lot of people really got this feeling they ought to get up and Do SomethingAbout It.

But then they just half-ass it.

And that's because they only have a demi-urge.

[Chairman Risus]

We ARE them.

And then Risus was a Faceless.

[East Coast Hustle]

The demiurge stems from apathy and lethargy.

A lot of people really got this feeling they ought to get up and Do SomethingAbout It.

But then they just half-ass it.

And that's because they only have a demi-urge.

[Fujikoma]

I thought the demiurge was formed when Sophia (wisdom) sought to be closer to God than her station allowed, and through hiding this desire in the void, made a big, flawed mess, from which the Demiurge was formed, who then proceeded to tinker with the rest of the mess, creating the universe, and the beginnings of mankind, who eventually became what we know as humans today through the addition of some kind of divine spark, which the demiurge seeks to acquire for itself... The wikipedia article differs from what I remember reading long ago, and I should really read more about this and Plato's definition as well... Interesting stuff.

[dontblameyoko]

oh sure, blame Sophia. hehe.

[Fujikoma]

Well, you know, it's ALWAYS a woman's fault... :P

EDIT: Not trying to sound sexist or anything, but in a lot of the old stories I've read, you'll find that kind of stereotype.

EDIT EDIT: Which, I'm really worried about cracking this joke, because A) it might not be funny to most people and B) someone's misinterpretation of my intent may spark a horrible backlash. I'd like to think that this addition to my post will help to prevent that, and hope that I can talk my way out of it should such a horrible backlash occur... Still, I'd like to think ya'll have a flexible sense of humor, please don't prove me wrong.