What is The Machine™

[Mangrove]

Wasn't funny back then, either.

did you guys get the carpet bombing of AIDS awareness ads in the US?

i just remember being a kid and seeing big scary icebergs floating around on tv that had AIDS carved on them.

the early 80's - when sex was..um.....'the terrorists'.

Holy shit yeah. It scared me so much that, to this day, I've never been able to have a physical relationship with an iceberg.

[Mangrove]

srsly though, was the machine promoting AIDS awareness or downplaying it? (or doing both?)

[AFK]

Just so people don't miss the linkage back to the thread topic.

so that i'm not being all threadjacky, is there any way that this discussion on AIDS be tied into the Machine theme?

Would it be safe to say that The Machine(tm) has a powerful affect on what is on the national and global agendas, if it doesn't outright control it?

[LMNO]

srsly though, was the machine promoting AIDS awareness or downplaying it? (or doing both?)

Neither.  There always seems to be a plague of some kind, this is just the latest.

[P3nT4gR4m]

The machine has a vested interest in scaring people as much as possible. Opportunities to do so are rarely missed. Aids was in the right place at the time the cold war looked to be cooling down, or heating up or thawing or whatever cold wars do when their running out of steam ice

[AFK]

I dunno, this plauge has stigmas attached to it.  Sex and Drugs.  And because of that you get the elements of religion and politics invovled.  I can see how The Machine(tm) could have an interest in promoting or downplaying the AIDS disease.  At least on national levels.  Of course, I probably need to consider this more before making a concrete assertion on it, but I am suspicious to say the least. 

[Triple Zero]

srsly though, was the machine promoting AIDS awareness or downplaying it? (or doing both?)

when dealing with the machine, don't ask "for what purpose".

the machine isn't human, can't reason or think like us, it does some very strange things because of this.

in this particular case, look at the outcome, was the end result of this campaign promoting awareness or downplaying it? (or neither? or both?)

you can reason "why" the machine does something or not, on several levels of abstraction, but once you get to a high enough level, you may be dealing with metaphores that might not correspond all the way down to the more human interpretations of these things.
in this case, as LMNO said, there is a plague, there pretty much always is, and people will react to this in a certain way, some want to downplay, some want to raise awareness, some panick, some relax, etc. the combined sum of all these actions is what the machine ends up doing.
(oh it's so democratic .. but we all know that democrazy doesn't necessarily make the 'best' choice for the majority, right, right?)

[Cain]

The highest analytical/strategic levels are, for all intensive porpoises, useless if you wish to understand how actors relate to each other.  Trust me, been there, done that, concluded Kim Il Jong was as sane as Thomas Jefferson.

[Triple Zero]

uh is this a reply to me? cause if so, i do not understand what you are talking about (but it sounds interesting).

[Cain]

I was more mentioning it in passing, but in reference to your levels of abstraction as well.  Going too high involves removal of context, unit based and individual interests and places almost everything on a rational basis.  Stephen Walt is the perfect example of a thinker who does this.  Obviously, this has its flaws, as these factors do have an effect.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

you can reason "why" the machine does something or not, on several levels of abstraction, but once you get to a high enough level, you may be dealing with metaphores that might not correspond all the way down to the more human interpretations of these things.

Funny you mention that.

My current issue with the Machine metaphor is precisely this overgeneralized nature of it.  It misses the mark as a part of any societal critique because it connotes too much,Äîfreewill vs. determinism, the military industrial complex, global commerce, Hot Topic, Rage Against the Machine, vacuous anarchist slogans, primitivism, the industrial revolution, the mechanical explanations of science, reality, there's NO END to the directions this idea is pulling. 

It's a slimy, tentacled, dada-kabbalist comedy device used to get minds to hold still for biting, more than a way of communicating anything verifiable.    And that's the direction I want to take it, when I find the time to write.  But before I do that, I've got to excrete a few illustrations for the BIP 2nd ed.

[LMNO]

Good point.  It's a huge metaphor for soemthing that's hard to get your mind around, and as such, it doesn't fit neatly once you try to pin it down.

However, it's pretty much the only way to get all you asshats to concentrate and vaguely agree on anything.

Because once you take it down to specifics, everyone disagrees with everyone else, and nothing gets done.

[AFK]

I don't know, it's pretty concrete in my mind.  My visualization of it may be wrong, but I like it goddamnit.  To me, The Machine(tm) is the force that was created when civilized societies emerged and thus created pressures.  Pressure to be a certain way, pressure to do things a certain way, pressures to live a certain way, etc., etc.  Explicit and Implicit.  It's the hidden drive that tries and mostly succeeds to drive our inner drive.  It's what makes you forget yourself and forget seeing yourself.  I know this all sounds metaphorically mumbo jumbo but I guess when I think of it, it's pretty obvious.  Again, that's my perception of it. 

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

Good point.  It's a huge metaphor for soemthing that's hard to get your mind around, and as such, it doesn't fit neatly once you try to pin it down.

However, it's pretty much the only way to get all you asshats to concentrate and vaguely agree on anything.

Because once you take it down to specifics, everyone disagrees with everyone else, and nothing gets done.

I can see that.  But disagreement is spicy.

I don't know, it's pretty concrete in my mind.  My visualization of it may be wrong, but I like it goddamnit.  To me, The Machine(tm) is the force that was created when civilized societies emerged and thus created pressures.  Pressure to be a certain way, pressure to do things a certain way, pressures to live a certain way, etc., etc.  Explicit and Implicit.  It's the hidden drive that tries and mostly succeeds to drive our inner drive.  It's what makes you forget yourself and forget seeing yourself.  I know this all sounds metaphorically mumbo jumbo but I guess when I think of it, it's pretty obvious.  Again, that's my perception of it. 

I like your perspective on it, but if there's any element of evangelism to it, I think you'd do well to avoid the battle of reclaiming it's definition.

[Triple Zero]

Funny you mention that.

My current issue with the Machine metaphor is precisely this overgeneralized nature of it.¬† It misses the mark as a part of any societal critique because it connotes too much—freewill vs. determinism, the military industrial complex, global commerce, Hot Topic, Rage Against the Machine, vacuous anarchist slogans, primitivism, the industrial revolution, the mechanical explanations of science, reality, there's NO END to the directions this idea is pulling.¬†

It's a slimy, tentacled, dada-kabbalist comedy device used to get minds to hold still for biting, more than a way of communicating anything verifiable.

this is very true.

i'll have to think about this.

And that's the direction I want to take it, when I find the time to write.

?? you want to take it even further into the direction of the metaphor-taken-too-far/cast-too-wide?