What is The Machine™

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Has there ever been a time without the Machine? OR has there ever been a time when the Machine was less restrictive/status quo/limiting in experience whatever?

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Has there ever been a time without the Machine? OR has there ever been a time when the Machine was less restrictive/status quo/limiting in experience whatever?

I don't think so. Maybe in prehistoric times when the Machine was more or less all about basic survival, there were fewer social stigmas. But maybe not. I do think there was a time when there were more than one Machine; when far-separated civilizations had their own separate Machines, fairly alien ideologies and cultures, different ways of thinking and experiencing the world. But these Machines all served the same overall purpose, and that purpose made them inherently compatible, so as civilizations met, their Machines melted together (or in the case of war, devoured each other).

[Captain Utopia]

The Machine™ [...] makes it incredibly easy for each person to follow the path laid out for them. So easy that it might be considered pushing people down their respective tracks.

Bullshit.  There is no elite with its hands on the wheel, we all have our own wheels and every day we make the choice to keep driving down the same roads as yesterday.  Everyone, myself included, is complicit in this, and we are not being "generous" or "compassionate" to make excuses for those "unthinking unware monkeys" - we're just justifying our own lack of conviction by proxy.

Certain concepts guarantee continual servitude.

[Jenne]

The thing is people have seen The Machine prominently in action.  I'm thinking of the elections in Iran.  How many people were saying and hoping the same thing.  That the people relentlessly take to the streets and fight against the system.  People were tweeting and rooting for them.  All the while not recognizing that we too are part of a system that suppresses and for too many, oppresses.  It may feel less violent and less dangerous, but it does hold people down.  

And this is why ignorance isn't bliss.  The ignorance helps to fuel it.  Why change what you think is working?  The politicians keep telling us The American Way is working and will always work.  Why change?  Why think about change?  Let's mock hope and change.  That is silly talk for people living in the wonderful world of make-believe.  

Ignorance is MOCK bliss.  It's a faker, and it is like a drug--once it wears off, you're back to square one, you poor pitiful fool (you = general you, not you, RWHN).

Change is...well, the unknown.  And we naturally, instinctively FEAR the unknown.  So really, it's just people being people when they run away from change and stick to their guns, no matter how destructive they might be (guns don't kill people, people do?).

[Cramulus]

I don't think the machine is evil. It's just the status quo. It's the pressure which keeps things the way they are.

The other day I was walking around in a most outlandish outfit, exploring my new town in absurd getup. I was quickly surrounded by 15 children. The majority of them thought it was great. But one little girl (I'd guess age 11 or 12) kept questioning me in a sort of hostile tone as if I was insane.

"So is this your job?"

"No I just like dressing up like this."

"What are you doing?"

"I'm not doing anything, I'm just going for a walk just like you."

"Why are you doing this?"

"I really don't understand what you're asking!!"


I couldn't quite convey to her that I'm just a regular dude who is marching to his own beat, not some kind of amusement park character engaging in a capitalist money making scheme.

That's the pressure of the machine right there, it's the bewildered expression directed at anything coming from outside of one's expectations. In all of the girl's questions, I could tell there was a hidden unspoken question behind it, "Why don't you just act normal?"

Has there ever been a time without the Machine? OR has there ever been a time when the Machine was less restrictive/status quo/limiting in experience whatever?

I think the power of the machine is related to population density. The more contact you have with other humans, the more pressure they can put on you. The more rewards and punishments you're exposed to, the more blind spots you develop to rewards/punishments outside the system.

There was a period of history where you could say "Fuck everything, I'm becoming a pirate." It's a LOT harder to make that leap now.

[AFK]

I think if you could re-orient communities somehow.  Many societies and cultures came together to centralize resources, agricultural capacities, industrial capacities, etc., It was about being able to have a diverse work force.  A lot of stuff focused on work and the products of work.  Certainly, cultural aspects were important too, but I think The Machine comes from an imbalance.  When the drive focused on production leaves parts of the culture behind, meanwhile, suppressing the space for individualism to shine and grow. 

The material stuff, the basics that allow us to live are important.  But it feels like "the art of playing games" needs to have a more prominent role in our basic needs.  We need to nourish creativity, imagination along with nourishing our stomachs.  We need to have that shelter, that space where we can fly in our minds, and explore the world beyond our homes.  But there really isn't any cultural imperative for that kind of thing.  There are individuals who try to cultivate it, try to champion it, but it is such a huge challenge.  It's like trying to travel upstream on a boat made of cardboard.   

[tyrannosaurus vex]

I'm sure there are those who would say that much of the dissatisfaction with modern society comes from having too much free time and imagination. Arguably, we have far more time for recreation now than in ages past. Many would say the idea that one's identity as an individual need not be linked to his profession is a relatively new concept, and they would be right. Only in the last century, really, has anyone had the opportunity to define him- or herself by anything other than his job.

That people find it difficult in life to break out of the boxes they are born into is hardly anything new. And there have been outlaws and pirates who live outside the mainstream, for as long as there has been a mainstream. Granted, the "mainstream" has adapted in strange ways to account for these, for example by establishing "sub-cultures" where you can be ostensibly outside of the mainstream yet still every bit as defined by it.

If it is a lack of recreation and fun, or an imbalance in favor of work and productivity, that give rise to the Machine, then the Machine should be losing influence at a fast pace now. But instead, it is growing exponentially. What is it feeding on, then?

One thing that is new today (or at least a lot more pronounced now than ever before) is that we have plenty of society but we're facing a drought of community. It's easy to disconnect from nearly everyone around you, including your family and your friends, and just live your life the way you want to. It's socially acceptable to have nearly no real contact with other humans at all. It might be "sad" or "creepy," but everyone is just as happy not talking to you as you are not talking to them. Oftentimes this includes those who would, traditionally, be inseparable from one another -- parents and their children, spouses, siblings, cousins. On the floor of the production line there are humans working not ten feet away and you might never speak a single word to them in the course of decades. In the office, there's a lot of banter and not much friendship.

Maybe the Machine is a function of everyone going about their daily lives on their own. The mainstream has expanded and reorganized to make room for a million different life choices and maybe the wires it must use to keep itself together are what we think of as overbearing restrictions. Maybe the Machine is under a lot of stress as its components spring loose and fly apart, as it must shift and distort itself constantly to maintain the appearance of a cohesive society, to keep large numbers of people more or less traveling in the same direction while they are less and less satisfied with that direction and everyone has a different idea of where they'd like to go next.

A snapshot of society at any moment will look pretty uneventful -- most people are slaves to the daily grind, nobody looks up from the grindstone from very long, and our customs and beliefs look fairly static. But taking a video clip instead of a snapshot might show the gradual dissolution of our society, as we morph into a species united more by ideas than by geography. And if that is the case, it's no wonder that the Machine is doing everything it can do to become the force controlling our thoughts as much as our actions.

[Cainad (dec.)]

But what is wrong with this system, if people are happy?

Ignorance is bliss...
The Machine sounds like deception for the benefit of the decieved rather than the deceiver.

If people are indeed happy, then I guess there's nothing wrong with it. However...


Less than half of Americans are satisfied with their jobs (http://www.wave3.com/global/story.asp?s=11773730).

Suicide is the third leading cause of death for people aged 15-24 in the United States of America.

I'm sure some of our non-American members can fill in figures for their own countries.


Every year, we're popping more pills and getting more therapy. And for crying out loud, we in the first world have to actually fight against the convenience we've made for ourselves over the decades, because it makes us fat and sick.

I dunno man. That's a pretty big "if" you've got there. Unless perhaps by "happy" you meant "complicit," but that would just be very odd indeed.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

But what is wrong with this system, if people are happy?

Ignorance is bliss...
The Machine sounds like deception for the benefit of the decieved rather than the deceiver.

If people are indeed happy, then I guess there's nothing wrong with it. However...


Less than half of Americans are satisfied with their jobs (http://www.wave3.com/global/story.asp?s=11773730).

Suicide is the third leading cause of death for people aged 15-24 in the United States of America.

I'm sure some of our non-American members can fill in figures for their own countries.


Every year, we're popping more pills and getting more therapy. And for crying out loud, we in the first world have to actually fight against the convenience we've made for ourselves over the decades, because it makes us fat and sick.

I dunno man. That's a pretty big "if" you've got there. Unless perhaps by "happy" you meant "complicit," but that would just be very odd indeed.

TITCM.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Has there ever been a time without the Machine? OR has there ever been a time when the Machine was less restrictive/status quo/limiting in experience whatever?

I think the cutural Machine seems to have evolved in the same way as the technological machine. It started with the wheel and first there was just the one and then four got stuck together and became the cart and that was even better and then the wheel became the flywheel and the cog and the more you stuck together the more shit you could do and clockwork became electricity and electricity became electronics then microelectronics to the point where now we have a billion or so tiny - essentially wheels - in a 1cm square chunk of substrate and it does everything.

First there was a couple of grunts and they could do things like "left" "right" "stop" "go" "charge" and "duck!" and these got added to as society evolved and the concepts became more and more abstract and they began to actually shape and mould our developing consciousness. Words like "good" and "evil", "happy" and "sad", "greedy", "righteous" ... and these were combined, these tiny wheels of thought - in a 1 foot thick chunk of reconstituted tree and they became "law"

[Doktor Howl]

From The Devil's (Discordian) Dictionary:  http://www.erisbarandgrill.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=10631&page=1

2.  Happiness: (Noun)  Happiness should be a fairly simple concept, but it's one that 95% of the population doesn't actually understand.  Most often confused with complacency or contentment  (see below for both), happiness is neither of these things.

Happiness is, quite simply, a state in which being alive is fun.  It is a state of actively enjoying yourself, even if you aren't doing anything.  Think back to when you were a kid, before They did all this shit to you, and remember how it felt when they let you out of school for the summer, and you were damn near fit to bust with glee at the thought of an entire endless summer stretching out ahead of you.  That's happiness.

Unfortunately, most people think that you buy happiness on easy credit terms.  They think their SUV will make them happy, or the big fucking house they have (until the ARM adjusts, at least), or the HUGE plasma screen TV that costs more than most of the humans make in their lifetime.  The fact that they spend all their time sweating the bills doesn't register as being unhappy, because they have - at least for the moment - all the things the TV said they should have.

Happiness, like Slack™, isn't something you can buy, and it's not something They can give you (though they can take it away, if you let them).  It's you, being glad you're you, no matter what situation you find yourself in.  As my 87 year old Uncle George says, "I'm here to have a good time, and if you're not having a good time, it's your own damn fault *cackle*".

vs

3.  Complacency: (Noun):  Most often confused with happiness, and closely related to False Slack, complacency is the feeling that They want you to spend most of your time in. 

Complacency is the state of feeling like everything is Okay.  When you're in this state, you don't actually want anything to be BETTER than okay, because that might remind you that some things - many things - are less than okay.

Complacency is the feeling you get when you make all your minimum payments for the month, and still have just enough money for a 30 pack of some horrible "beer" that's already been through a cow once or twice.

Complacency is the feeling you get when you get off of work in time to scurry home like a crazed weasel so you don't miss the next exciting episode of American Idol or that fucking abortion Lost.

Complacency is the enemy of happiness, because it is a state in which you are afraid to do anything different, because it might disrupt a life which, though not enjoyable, is comfortable and safe.  Unlike happiness, when you're complacent, you aren't actually having FUN.  You're treading water to avoid unpleasantness, either physical, financial, emotional, or just being knocked out of your comfort zone.

[Cosine 5]

Damn, Dok, I've been confusing happiness with complacency all this time.

One thing that is new today (or at least a lot more pronounced now than ever before) is that we have plenty of society but we're facing a drought of community.

This is a good point; as a teenager, I haven't seen much of the "real world" yet, but I do know that we at least are affected most negatively by society - what society wants us to be, how we should be. It causes eating disorders and all this other crap. However, I don't think teenagers yet feel the lack of community. We tend to value friendship a little too much, as we have very little else to value. Do people grow apart as they grow up?

I haven't seen the "real world" yet, but these ideas I'm encountering on this forum are frightening, to say the least. Yet my mind craves some "real" stimulation, some real ideas to think about, because I'm beginning to realize that the things that I used to contemplate all the time don't matter at all.

Forgive me for my childishness. I'm rather short. 

But what is wrong with this system, if people are happy?

Ignorance is bliss...
The Machine sounds like deception for the benefit of the decieved rather than the deceiver.

That was my reaction to reading 1984.

If the proles seem to like it, what's the problem?

It was also my reaction to reading Brave New World.

[Captain Utopia]

This is a good point; as a teenager, I haven't seen much of the "real world" yet, but I do know that we at least are affected most negatively by society - what society wants us to be, how we should be. It causes eating disorders and all this other crap. However, I don't think teenagers yet feel the lack of community. We tend to value friendship a little too much, as we have very little else to value. Do people grow apart as they grow up?

It's a good question.  But put it this way - you're growing up in a very different world from that which most of us did.  For your entire teenage existence, email/myspace/facebook/youtube/etc have all been a reality.  You're able to draw upon a vast network of superficial acquaintances, and realise the potential in any of them.  Let me give you an example - the day after high-school ended for me, after the last prom.. I realised that I really should have asked this cute girl out while I had the chance, because now I had no conceivable way of getting in touch with her.  I didn't have her telephone number, email wasn't around, I didn't know any of her friends.  Short of putting an advert in the newspaper, I was screwed.  If that had happened today, then I think the story would have played out quite differently.

So really, I think you get to answer that "do people grow apart" question for yourself, because your generation is writing the new rules and social norms for the rest of us.  If that makes any sense?

And personally, I hope to god you manage to bring back a sense of community to our civilisation, because we've failed miserably on that front.  Best of luck with that!

[Cosine 5]

So really, I think you get to answer that "do people grow apart" question for yourself, because your generation is writing the new rules and social norms for the rest of us.  If that makes any sense?

I actually think age has a lot to do with the status quo.
At the heart of friendship is a sort of mutual dependency - a need for one another.
Younger people, like me, are very used to being dependent on others, so we don't have a problem with friendships.
Older people, however, are expected to take care of themselves. So they don't really like to tell friends about their troubles; after all, no need to burden other people with their problems. Exhibiting any sort of need then would be... childish.
Furthermore, older people don't like change. They need the status quo; they are the status quo. They've already found their own identities, they've already settled down and they have found security. Any revolution is not a promise but a threat; any change in the status quo would just uproot them.
And the younger ones are still searching, endless possibilities ahead of them. The future is not safely set in stone for them as it is for the adults above them; the future is still uncarved for them, and it is still theirs to define. So we define it. And we define our own status quo as youth, and in old age we defend it. Thus, each generation has its own status quo, which it creates from what existed before it, and then tries to maintain.

I'm honestly concerned about my generation. We grow up in a world swamped with superficiality. The drive behind most of our conversations and thoughts is no longer the head or heart, but the genitalia. We live where one is easily paralyzed by choices, by the endless temptations all offered to us in shiny plastic packaging. With stars. And rainbows. And bubble lettered trademarked slogans printed all squiggly on larger-than-me ads. And honestly, from all I've seen going on in all the schools I've ever attended, I'm afraid for the future. So many kids are doing drugs and smoking and drinking and generally doing very stupid things... and their numbers are increasing. They are starting to become the majority. They refuse to just die off.

And when thinking about writing the new rules and social norms, well, my head starts to spin. What the fuck am I going to do?

[Captain Utopia]

So really, I think you get to answer that "do people grow apart" question for yourself, because your generation is writing the new rules and social norms for the rest of us.  If that makes any sense?

I actually think age has a lot to do with the status quo.
At the heart of friendship is a sort of mutual dependency - a need for one another.
Younger people, like me, are very used to being dependent on others, so we don't have a problem with friendships.
Older people, however, are expected to take care of themselves. So they don't really like to tell friends about their troubles; after all, no need to burden other people with their problems. Exhibiting any sort of need then would be... childish.
Furthermore, older people don't like change. They need the status quo; they are the status quo. They've already found their own identities, they've already settled down and they have found security. Any revolution is not a promise but a threat; any change in the status quo would just uproot them.
And the younger ones are still searching, endless possibilities ahead of them. The future is not safely set in stone for them as it is for the adults above them; the future is still uncarved for them, and it is still theirs to define. So we define it. And we define our own status quo as youth, and in old age we defend it. Thus, each generation has its own status quo, which it creates from what existed before it, and then tries to maintain.

I agree that's accurate as far as it plays out - another question is why?

Personally, and I only have the most pointless layman credentials and flimsy back-of-envelope theorising to back this up, but I think there's something happening at a neurological level that supports the trend towards conservatism with age.  Supports, not forces.

Or maybe it's just a function of consciousness, that we pattern seek until we have most every pattern we need to live our lives, and the rut deepens every time we fail to question ourselves. Convenient guidelines become an addictive routine.  Dopamine fires with every match of a trusted pattern.  I'm convinced even the most sober Judge gets a little high whenever they rap on their gavel.  But like any long-term addict, the tolerance builds over time and then each hit is just getting by.  You know how many recent-retirees go stir-crazy in the first few months without their regular fix?

And it's a fine line for sure - it's no way to live constantly questioning your every move - if there is a healthy balance I have no idea what that is.

I'm honestly concerned about my generation. We grow up in a world swamped with superficiality. The drive behind most of our conversations and thoughts is no longer the head or heart, but the genitalia. We live where one is easily paralyzed by choices, by the endless temptations all offered to us in shiny plastic packaging. With stars. And rainbows. And bubble lettered trademarked slogans printed all squiggly on larger-than-me ads. And honestly, from all I've seen going on in all the schools I've ever attended, I'm afraid for the future. So many kids are doing drugs and smoking and drinking and generally doing very stupid things... and their numbers are increasing. They are starting to become the majority. They refuse to just die off.

I wouldn't fret this one too much.  At least until you can address why your generation is any different from the last few, myself included, in that regard.

And when thinking about writing the new rules and social norms, well, my head starts to spin. What the fuck am I going to do?

It's an awesome question, and one you really don't ever need to stop asking yourself.  You only really have two choices - do what you're told, or make shit up as you go along.