Be an Enabler - or, The White Lab Coat Approach

[Golden Applesauce]

Be an enabler.

Have you heard of the 'fundamental attribution error?'
The fundamental attribution error is the tendency for people to assign the cause of another person's actions to personality traits of that person when the cause actually has more to do with the situation.  People act like morons because they are morons, right?  Wrong.  (Well, a lot of the time.)  People act like morons because the situation demands it of them.  People act like 'sheep' or 'cabbages' because that is what is expected of them.  70% of people will administer a lethal shock if a man in a white lab coat tells them they have to.  70% of people are not killers at heart.  When you see a murder, look for the man in the white lab coat.  When you see sheep, look for the shepherd.

Have you heard of the 'Asch Conformity Effect?'
People go with the flow.  Reproducibly.  Predictably.  Sit twenty people in a room.  Ask them an easy question.  An obvious question.  Which is longer, a yardstick or a 12-inch ruler?  Display them up front, just in case anybody doesn't know that a yardstick is three times longer than a 12-inch ruler.  Pay the first nineteen people to answer, "Duh, the ruler is longer."  What does the twentieth say?  The ruler.  Because he's a sheep?  Because the situation demands it.  Nineteen people in civilian clothes turned a glorious Homo Sapiens into a spineless thumbless mouth-breathing maggot.

One man in a white head wrap told nineteen men in civilian clothes they had to bring down the Towers.

Nineteen men did, because the situation demanded it.

A man in a black suit told a nation they must fight evil.  They must tighten their belts, give up privileges which hitherto had been Rights.  They must surrender their sons, their husbands, their daughters, to the endless fields of sand and blood and hate.  They must defend themselves until no one else is left standing.  Carthago delenda est.

A nation did, because the situation demanded it.

In a distant corner of the Milky Way, there is a nuclear furnace.  Around that furnace is a blue-green-fluffy-white-clouded marble, forever rolling around its track.  It cannot move from that track, until one day when it will sink into its furnace and burn and melt.

One that planet is a species of ape, Homo Sapiens, each wearing the skins of a pitiful monkey because that's all they can see.  Six billion of them, crawling on all fours because they've never seen anyone walk.  They too are on a track.  They go around and around in circles.  Nineteen monkeys tell a monkey in a white head wrap tell nineteen monkeys tells a monkey in a black suit tells six billion monkeys until they all crash into a nuclear furnace that nineteen monkeys told a monkey in a white lab coat to create.  They race along their track, the brake in the reach of every monkey but no monkey is pulling it, because no other monkey is.

Forty thousand feet above the third largest continent in the third rock from a furnace in an otherwise unremarkable galaxy, four monkeys in civilian clothes address thirty seven monkeys in civilian clothes.  We have a bomb, they say.  We are going back to the airport.  They are wrong.

In a bunker in the largest continent, a man sees blinking dots on a computer screen.  The situation tells him that nuclear warheads are flying to his pretty little frozen home.  The situation is wrong.

No, says the man, removing his monkey suit.  I have a throat made for speaking rather than swallowing, and it says No.  I do not listen to machines made my monkeys in white lab coats.  I do not listen to monkeys waving flags or their books of rules. 

Forty thousand feet in the thin blue air, a man is sitting in the back of the plane.  He stands up and takes off his monkey suit; he stands on his own two feet, spine erect, facing forward, because he is a human being, a creature of glory.  I have two thumbs, he says, and with my thumbs I stand against you.

Nineteen monkeys in military clothes in the bunker look up in shock.  But the blinking lights, they say.  But the monkeys with flags and regulations they say.  Damn the machine says the man.  Damn the flag says the man with his voice of glory.  I am the greatest creature ever to walk this dirty little rock.  I am the Pope, I am the Patriarch, I Am Who Am, and I say: No.

Blinded by the vision of glory, thirty six men in civilian clothes take off their suits, because they are standing on consecrated ground in the presence of the holy.  We also have two thumbs, they say.  We also stand against you.

Deafened by the voice of glory, nineteen men in military clothes remove their encumbering suits of monkey fur.  We also say No.  We will not rain apocalypse on our beautiful little rock because of the machines or the flags or the books of rules.

Dressed in the immaculate white lab coat of truth, two men stand across the decades.  Rise, they command.  Nineteen men in military clothes and thirty six men in civilian rise because the situation demands they stand on their own two feet.  Here, say the two.  Here are lab coats; they are yours, they have always been yours, they are your birthright but you have left them in the mud, you have let them become soiled.  We have restored them for you; wear them in pride, and never forget that you are wearing the coat.  You are the Scientist, the Experimentor, and the situation is yours to control.  The independent variable is yours to manipulate, the world yours to command.  Monkeys are forever your test subjects, and the scientist who takes orders from his specimens has not ever been born nor will he be.  The nineteen men and the thirty six men put on their lab coats now remembered, once forgotten, and they stand up for what they stand for.

The plane crashes in an empty field.

The apocalyptic rain is held in check; the final burning of the world is put off one more day.

There is a very simple explanation to why the world is the way it is: it is run by monkeys.  Six billion monkeys, all of them wearing fur suits instead of their white lab coats because six billion monkeys are wearing fur suits and six billion monkeys can't be wrong can they?

There is a very simple solution to the way the world is: wear your white lab coat, your armor of God.  One man putting on his lab coat convinces nineteen men to put on theirs.  Keep your coat clean; without constant attention it will become soiled and worthless.  You cannot ever enlighten someone; underneath that monkey fur suit is already a human being, the greatest organism to trod upon this rock.  You can only take off your suit and hope that monkey see monkey do.

Always remember: never administer 300 volts to a man taking a test.
Always remember: the yardstick is longer.
Always remember: two and two make four, not five.

Afterwards, someone asked Stanislaw Petrov how he know the machines had erred, that the apocalypse wasn't en route to his frozen home.  I didn't, said the hero.

[Kai]

Fuck.



Minor thing, theres a couple places you say six million near the bottom but I think its supposed to be six billion if you are alluding to the world population.

This is awesome.

[singer]

wow.

(What do we have that's better than mittens?)

[Golden Applesauce]

Fuck.



Minor thing, theres a couple places you say six million near the bottom but I think its supposed to be six billion if you are alluding to the world population.

This is awesome.

Whoops.  Wrote this at 1~2 in the morning.

[Jenne]

Wow.  VERY nice.    I didn't know you could write like that.  Awesome indeed.

[Bu🤠ns]

Art.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

It seemed good,

[East Coast Hustle]

hot shit. this is fucking AWESOME.

[Payne]

Agreed.

This is probably the best thing I've read on here in ages.

[Fuquad]

Swiper no swiping?

[Kai]

I just want to reiterate how awesome this is.

The whole thing.


I was trying to pick out lines to say "especially this bit", but there isn't any one line I can do with this cause the whole thing....FUCK.

The only other person on here that has made me so speechless is Sepia.

[Payne]

I have a couple of points that I'm uneasy about, and think this may work better as two separate pieces.

If I can articulate this better at a later time, I will.

[Manta Obscura]

GL, this is magic. Not the stupid Crowley spelling either; I'm talking honest-to-god, water-to-wine magic here. This is absolutely beautiful. This essay should not only be added to Intermittens, but should also be included in a new edition of the BIP.

It's been a long time since I've heard such captivating metaphors. Bravo, and mittens galore:

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

This is good! 

[P3nT4gR4m]

This may well be the best thing I've read on this site since I joined.

I mean, seriously, holy fuck!