What is The Machine™

[LMNO]

Probably because he thinks you'll make fun of him.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

The Machine is a conglomerated incorporated business venture that went into public trading at least 100 years ago. Its shareholders are every man, woman, and child that have an interest in making the world a "Better Place." Its flagship product is Irony.

TM™, Inc.'s stock has split more than five dozen times since it went public, and share prices have skyrocketed since the launch of Sputnik, which was not only a Russian spacecraft but a TM™ Global Coagulation Device as well.

In spite of all its success, TM™ has consistently failed to deliver on the promises it initially made to its original investors. In fact, the harder its shareholders have worked to provide for its ever-increasing maintenance and expansion programs, the less responsive TM™ has become to even their basic needs. For example, the Manhattan Project was presented to shareholders as the development of a Spontaneous Global Prosperity bomb, but after all the effort that went into it, it turned out the thing was just another Spontaneous Carnage bomb.

Still, though failed projects like that have marred its history, TM™ continues to crowd out other players in the Human Development industries. Current projections indicate that within the next century, TM™ will begin to draw upon shareholders more as a source of fuel and fodder than as a source of authority or justification.

Government agencies, for some reason, are strangely silent on this market phenomenon.

[hunter s.durden]

Probably because he thinks you'll make fun of him.

He be right, but that never stopped him before.
He's got a vicious bite...

[MonkeyMind]

It sounds like he's going for the "we are all part of one consciousness" type thing.

yes and no, we all "mutualy agree" that reality is created because we look upon it, as well as reality is there because you get beat over the head with it "the barstool project".
either way we bring our assumptions and specualations into ours and others realities, its this bias we place on the world "our inward world" and the "outer world" that creates this machine.

i was really hoping people werent going to take my 1st statment as some kind of belief in god bullshit and i appreciate that it wasnt taken that way lol.

[AFK]

I'm not sure that I agree with that.  "Our Perception of reality (little r)" is created because we look upon Reality. (big R)

actual Reality exists whether or not we look at it. 

[MonkeyMind]

I'm not sure that I agree with that.  "Our Perception of reality (little r)" is created because we look upon Reality. (big R)

actual Reality exists whether or not we look at it. 

agreed, from my understanding of the consincense(sp)? understanding of the barestool project....
"yes and no, we all "mutualy agree" that reality is created because we look upon it, as well as reality is there because you get beat over the head with it "the barstool project".
its still our past experiences within life that bias our present and future tense experiences within life, since everyone does this that assumption and speculation of "how it is" IS the machine.
it makes sense in my head... perhaps im not explaining it correctly let me sit & think on this some more.

[AFK]

Okay, I think I see where you are coming from now. 

[MonkeyMind]

lol no posts in this thread since the last i posted, woohoo it seems i killed the thread...
im gifted like that 

[AFK]

Nah, it'll come alive again, when it's time. 

[Chairman Risus]

[AFK]

The Machine: "I'm in your life, crushing your digits!"

[Xooxe]

Man's life is dichotomized: One part of his life is determined by biologic laws (sexual gratification, consumption of food, relatedness to nature); the other part of his life is determined by the machine civilization (mechanical ideas about his own organization, his superior position in the animal kingdom, his racial or class attitude toward other human groups, valuations about ownership and nonownership, science, religion, etc.). His being an animal and his not being an animal, biologic roots on the one hand and technical development on the other hand, cleave man's life and thought. All the notions man has developed about himself are consistently derived from the machine that he has created. The construction of machines and the use of machines have imbued man with the belief that he is progressing and developing himself to something "higher," in and through the machine. But he also invested the machine with an animal-like appearance and mechanics. The train engine has eyes to see with and legs to run with, a mouth to consume coal with and discharge openings for slag, levers, and other devices for making sounds. In this way the product of mechanistic technology became the extension of man himself. In fact, machines do constitute a tremendous extension of man's biologic organization. They make him capable of mastering nature to a far greater degree than his hands alone had enabled him. They give him mastery over time and space. Thus, the machine became a part of man himself, a loved and highly esteemed part. He dreams about how these machines will make his life easier and will give him a great capacity for enjoyment. The enjoyment of life with the help of the machine has always been his dream. And in reality? The machine became, is, and will continue to be his most dangerous destroyer, if he does not differentiate himself from it.

A quote from pages 334 - 335 of The Mass Psychology Of Fascism by Wilhelm Reich, third edition (1942). Personally I reckon that sums it up quite nicely but it probably depends on what you'd like "The Machine™" to be. "You're made out of meat. Do never forget." Now go off and buy a copy before the mechanised civilisation comes 'a' knockin' with valuations about ownership on my ass. 

[Cain]

Or, you could just dowload it for free from various places on the internet.

[Xooxe]

Nahh, dead people need royalties too.

[Requia ☣]

The machine is the sum of all forces that exert group influence over individuals.  A mathematical abstract that runs on top of human interaction.  The nature of the machine exists to preserve itself, and to preserve the society and memes it uses to live.





In response to something someone asked much earlier in the thread, I dunno just how old the term 'The Machine' is, but I've seen references to it as far back as 30s literature (Heinlein).  Usage wasn't quite the same, and referred specifically to democratic process political machinations, specifically the preservation of status quo.  (Two party system, redistricting, general brainwashing of people into one party or the other etc).