In the realm of communication, the interaction between the medium and the message it conveys often goes overlooked. A crucial observation in understanding this dynamic is recognizing that the medium—whether it be print, digital, or spoken word—functions not merely as a conduit but as a shaping force in the transmission and reception of knowledge. This essay explores the notion that the substrate of communication, or the medium itself, is intrinsically linked to the message and that knowledge independent of this substrate is often elusive. This perspective is particularly relevant in contexts where economic incentives drive the choice and use of communication mediums.
The Nature of Substrates
A substrate, in communication theory, refers to the medium or channel through which information is conveyed. This could include traditional media like newspapers and television or modern digital platforms such as social media and blogs. Each medium has its own characteristics, constraints, and affordances that influence the way information is structured and understood. The substrate does not merely carry the message; it shapes the message in fundamental ways.
For example, the succinctness of Twitter’s character limit forces users to condense their thoughts into brief, often fragmented statements. This constraint alters the nature of discourse, privileging brevity and immediacy over depth and nuance. Similarly, the visual and interactive features of digital media can enhance engagement but may also dilute the complexity of the message, as users are more likely to skim headlines and bullet points rather than engage with lengthy texts.
The Medium as the Message
The idea that “the medium is the message” encapsulates the concept that the form of communication influences and often dictates the content it can effectively convey. The features of the medium—the way it presents, organizes, and controls information—shape the interpretation and impact of the message. In this context, the message is inseparable from the medium; they are co-constitutive rather than discrete entities.
For instance, the rise of television as a dominant medium in the 20th century transformed the nature of news broadcasting. The visual and auditory elements of television provided a new way for audiences to experience news, emphasizing the immediacy and drama of current events over the in-depth analysis that print journalism typically offered. Thus, the medium not only delivered news but also influenced how news was perceived and understood by audiences.
Economic Incentives and Medium Choice
Economic factors play a significant role in shaping the use and preference of communication mediums. When an individual’s salary or professional success is tied to a specific medium, the inclination to adhere to or promote that medium becomes pronounced. This economic dependence can skew the dissemination and reception of knowledge, as individuals may prioritize the medium that benefits them financially over the one that might offer a more comprehensive or nuanced understanding.
Consider the case of a journalist whose livelihood depends on producing content for a particular news outlet. The journalist may be incentivized to conform to the outlet’s preferred format—be it sensationalist headlines, clickbait, or a specific editorial stance—rather than pursuing a more balanced or in-depth analysis. This economic pressure not only affects the content produced but also the type of knowledge that is made available to the public. As a result, knowledge that challenges the dominant medium’s constraints or economic interests may be marginalized or suppressed.
Knowledge Out of Reach
Knowledge that exists independently of the medium is often difficult to access or communicate effectively. The characteristics of a given medium shape the form and scope of the knowledge that can be conveyed. When the dominant medium is guided by specific economic or institutional incentives, it may limit the range of perspectives and information that can be effectively communicated.
Moreover, individuals who seek to disseminate knowledge outside the constraints of their medium face significant challenges. For instance, academic researchers may struggle to convey complex findings in a format that is compatible with popular media’s demand for brevity and sensationalism. As a result, valuable insights may be lost or distorted in translation, leading to a disconnect between scholarly knowledge and public understanding.
Conclusion
In summary, the medium through which information is conveyed is not a neutral conduit but an active force that shapes the message and influences the accessibility of knowledge. Economic incentives further complicate this relationship, often leading to a conflict between the medium’s constraints and the broader goals of knowledge dissemination. Understanding this dynamic is crucial for navigating the complexities of modern communication and for striving toward a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of the world. The interplay between substrate and message underscores the need to critically evaluate the mediums we use and the ways in which they shape our perception of knowledge.
There will be no new art til deadbeats can hang around in close to zero rent, and zero debt situations.
The idea that artists need to be in close to zero rent and zero debt situations in order to create new art is not a new one. In fact, it has been a recurring theme throughout history, with many great artists struggling to make ends meet and create their works under financial strain. This is because the creative process requires a certain level of freedom and flexibility, which is often impeded by financial burdens and the need to earn a living.
Low taxes can often lead to a decrease in public funding for the arts, which in turn can limit the opportunities available for artists to create new works. This is because government funding often goes towards providing grants, residencies, and other forms of support for artists, allowing them to focus on their craft without the added pressure of financial strain. When funding is reduced, artists are forced to rely more heavily on commercial opportunities, such as gallery sales and commissions, which can be unpredictable and often require compromising artistic vision for commercial success.
Furthermore, low taxes can lead to a rise in property values and rent, making it increasingly difficult for artists to find affordable living and work spaces. This can result in artists being forced to work in less than ideal conditions, with limited space and resources, which can limit their creativity and productivity.
The creative process requires a certain level of freedom and flexibility, which is often impeded by financial burdens and the need to earn a living. Low taxes can limit public funding for the arts, resulting in limited opportunities for artists to create new works, and can also lead to rising property values and rent, making it increasingly difficult for artists to find affordable living and work spaces. While there are certainly exceptions, the idea that artists need to be in close to zero rent and zero debt situations to create new art speaks to the need for financial flexibility in the pursuit of artistic creativity.
It is important to understand the role of taxation in creating a conducive environment for creativity. High tax rates can provide funding for public institutions and programs, such as education and the arts, which can in turn support the development of creative talents. This can lead to a virtuous cycle, where creative individuals are given the tools and resources they need to produce innovative work, which in turn drives economic growth and creates more resources for future generations.
Furthermore, high tax rates can also provide a level playing field for artists, regardless of their socioeconomic background. This means that talented individuals who may not have access to the same resources and opportunities as their more privileged peers are not automatically excluded from the creative process. Instead, they are given the support they need to develop their skills and showcase their talent.
In addition, high tax rates can also lead to greater social equality, which can in turn foster a sense of community and shared culture. When everyone is expected to contribute their fair share, regardless of their income level, it creates a sense of common purpose and shared responsibility. This can lead to greater collaboration and cooperation between artists, as well as a greater sense of pride in the cultural achievements of the community as a whole.
Finally, high tax rates can also encourage artists to take risks and experiment with new forms and styles of music. When there is a safety net in place, in the form of public funding and support, artists can take the time and resources they need to explore new ideas and push boundaries. This can lead to the creation of new genres and styles of music that may not have been possible in a more risk-averse environment.
Furthermore, low taxes can lead to a concentration of wealth in the hands of a small percentage of individuals. This concentration of wealth can limit opportunities for those outside of the elite circles to pursue their creative endeavors. As resources become increasingly scarce, it becomes more difficult for emerging artists and creatives to access the tools and materials they need to bring their ideas to life.
They crawl out of the fetid alleys of existence, these word-slingers, these paint-drenched maniacs. Society calls them deadbeats, wasters, men and women with holes in their shoes and existential dread clinging to their trench coats like yesterday’s smog. But burrow deeper, past the pawn shop trinkets and ramen noodle stains, and you’ll find the raw, churning engine of creation.
The Curse of the Unmarketable:
They crawl out of the psychic gutter, these real ones, the unwashed darlings of the Moloched Muse. Forget your “creators,” your self-congratulatory Michelangelos. These are the word-bleeders, the canvas-convulsers, hacking out their visions in flickering neon dens.
Society, that bloated gasbag, wants to label them “deadbeats,” these tattered vessels of chaotic beauty. But the label sticks like a leech to a corpse, meaningless in the face of the hungry ghost that drives them. They are possessed, you see, by the Bleed.
The Bleed, a psychic hemorrhage from the raw underbelly of existence. It spills through them, a torrent of fractured visions and forbidden colors. They can’t not create, not spew this chaotic ichor onto any scrap of canvas, page, or flickering screen they can find.
Money? Ha! A laughable abstraction. They barter with scraps of meaning, fleeting moments of connection in the cold, digitized wasteland. Anerkennung, recognition? A fleeting chimera. Validation is a bullet they dodged long ago.
They are the fallout of a fractured world, the broken mirrors reflecting the grotesque reality corporations try to peddle. Their art? A scream into the void, a desperate attempt to find some semblance of order in the maelstrom.
So call them deadbeats, if you must. But know this: when the chrome flakes from the empire and the false gods come crashing down, their art will remain. Scrawled messages on the peeling walls of a burned-out world, a testament to the unbowed human spirit clawing for meaning in the face of oblivion.
Creator drips with Bourgeois Productivity
“Creator?” scoffs the jazz-soaked poet, smoke curling from a Lucky Strike dangling from his lips. “Creator? That’s for marketing whores who churn out pop pablum for the boob tube. We are alchemists, goddamn it! We traffic in stolen moments, slivers of eternity wrestled from the void. We translate the screams of the subconscious into a language that tears at the edges of sanity.”
They are not creators, these deadbeats of the soul. They are vessels, leaky faucets spewing forth the chaotic overflow of the universe. They are antennae trembling in the cosmic static, desperately trying to capture a shred of the ineffable.
For the true artist is not a creator, a sterile architect of pre-packaged realities. They are a conduit, a raw nerve ending exposed to the screaming void. They are the starvers, the bleeders, the uncalled – and their art, a testament to the beautiful, terrible truth.
The Bleedsputters a fax machine, spewing out a sheet of paper in a jittery stream
They dangle the carrot of “creator,” a title dripping with bourgeois productivity. But the true artist, the one who has glimpsed the writhing chaos behind the facade, knows better. Creation? A laughable illusion. We are not marionette masters, yanking order from the void. We are cockroaches scuttling across the linoleum of existence, picking at the fetid crumbs of the ineffable.
The Wordflickers on a neon sign, distorting and bending
“Deadbeat” – now that has a certain ring to it. It captures the essence of existence, teetering on the tightrope strung between genius and madness. We are the unwashed, the unkempt, the ones who have seen too far behind the veil. We are the chronic voyeurs of the psychic gutter, transmuting the rancid effluvia of the subconscious into grotesque beauty.
The Flesha grainy photograph develops in a chemical bath, revealing a distorted human form
Society, that bloated tick gorging on conformity, seeks to categorize, to label. “Creator” – a sterile term, fit for the assembly line drones who churn out milquetoast depictions of a reality they’ve never even smelled. We, the deadbeats, we traffic in the contraband nightmares, the psychic hemorrhages they dare not acknowledge. We are the bad touch in the sterilized supermarket of normality.
The Voida black hole sigil pulsates on a cracked mirror
So let them call us deadbeats. Let them scoff at our tattered clothes and bloodshot eyes. We wear our dishevelment like a badge of honor, a testament to our nightly wrestles with the howling demons from beyond the veil. For in the crucible of our deadbeat existence, we forge the raw, pulsating heart of true art, a grotesque hymn that echoes in the hollowness of their manufactured reality.
fax machine whirs to a stop, the paper sheet curling slightly at the edges
The economic concepts of monopoly and monopsony share some similarities, as they both involve a single entity having control over a market. While a monopoly is a situation where one company has exclusive control over the supply of a good or service, a monopsony is a situation where a single buyer has exclusive control over the demand for a good or service. The classic example of a monopsony is a company town, where a single employer acts as the sole purchaser of labor.
One of the primary similarities between monopoly and monopsony is that they both involve a lack of competition. In a monopoly, there are no other suppliers of the good or service in question, while in a monopsony, there are no other buyers. This lack of competition can lead to market inefficiencies and higher prices for consumers, as the monopolist or monopsonist is able to set prices without fear of losing market share to competitors.
Another similarity between monopoly and monopsony is that they both have the potential to harm suppliers. In a monopoly, the supplier may be forced to accept lower prices for their goods or services, as the monopolist has the power to dictate terms. Similarly, in a monopsony, the supplier may be forced to accept lower wages or worse working conditions, as they have no other potential employers to turn to. This can lead to a situation of exploitation, where the supplier is unable to negotiate fair terms due to the imbalance of power.
Additionally, both monopoly and monopsony can lead to a concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a single entity. This can have negative consequences for society as a whole, as the monopolist or monopsonist may use their power to influence government policy or engage in other forms of rent-seeking behavior. This can further entrench their position of dominance, making it even harder for competitors to enter the market or for workers to negotiate fair terms.
In conclusion, while monopoly and monopsony are two distinct economic concepts, they share many similarities. Both involve a lack of competition, the potential for harm to suppliers, and the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a single entity. As such, it is important for policymakers to be aware of the potential negative consequences of both monopolies and monopsonies, and to take steps to promote competition and prevent the concentration of power in any one entity. By doing so, we can help to ensure that markets remain fair and efficient, and that workers and suppliers are able to negotiate fair terms in the face of market power.
George Orwell’s novel 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World both depict dystopian societies where technology and government control have drastically altered the human experience. In both novels, characters struggle with adapting to the new medium of communication and information dissemination, which is a central theme in the works of Marshall McLuhan, a prominent media theorist of the 20th century.
Winston Smith, the protagonist in 1984, struggles with the new medium of communication and information dissemination because he was educated in the old medium before Big Brother’s revolution. In the novel, the government controls all media outlets and uses them as a tool for propaganda and thought control. Winston’s job involves altering old news articles to reflect the current government narrative, effectively rewriting history. This manipulation of information leaves Winston feeling isolated and disillusioned, as he is unable to find any reliable sources of truth.
In contrast, Bernard Marx in Brave New World has not known any other environment and is therefore listless and lackadaisical. In Huxley’s novel, the government controls all aspects of life, including reproduction and social hierarchy. The use of technology and genetic engineering has created a society where people are conditioned to be content with their predetermined roles and desires. Bernard Marx, an alpha plus, feels out of place and discontented, unable to find fulfillment in his prescribed role.
McLuhan’s theories on media and communication can help explain the differences in Winston and Bernard’s reactions to their respective societies. McLuhan believed that the medium through which information is communicated shapes the message and the way people perceive it. In 1984, the government’s control of media has led to the manipulation of information, which creates a sense of isolation and disillusionment for Winston. The old medium that Winston was educated in was likely more reliable, objective, and independent from government control. The new medium, controlled by the government, leads to a distorted and biased message, which leaves Winston feeling disconnected and disoriented.
In Brave New World, the use of technology and conditioning has created a society where people are conditioned to be content with their predetermined roles and desires. Bernard Marx, who is an outlier in this society, feels out of place and unfulfilled, but he is unable to articulate why he feels this way. This is because he has never known any other environment than the one he was born into, which shapes his understanding of the world.
In “1984,” the Party’s use of technology and media is a prime example of a hot medium. The telescreen, which is a combination of a television and a surveillance camera, is used to constantly monitor citizens and suppress dissent. The telescreen broadcasts loud propaganda that requires little participation from the viewer, making it a hot medium that overwhelms the senses and creates a sense of immediacy. The Party also uses newspapers and books as tools for propaganda and censorship, with heavily edited versions of history and language used to control the narrative.
In contrast, “Brave New World” relies on more passive forms of media that can be considered cold mediums. The feelies, a form of entertainment similar to movies, provide a sensory experience for the audience but require little engagement or critical thinking. Similarly, the use of soma, a mind-altering drug, is a way to numb citizens to any negative emotions or thoughts, rendering them passive and compliant. The World State also uses hypnopaedia, or sleep-teaching, to condition citizens from birth to accept their predetermined roles in society without question.
Overall, “1984” uses hot mediums to overwhelm and control citizens, while “Brave New World” uses cold mediums to lull citizens into passive acceptance of their predetermined roles. Both novels show the dangers of technology and media in the wrong hands, and the importance of critical thinking and individuality in the face of oppression.
In conclusion, Winston Smith’s struggle with the new medium of communication in 1984 and Bernard Marx’s lack of fulfillment in Brave New World can be seen as a result of the medium through which they receive information and understand the world around them. McLuhan’s theories on media and communication can help us understand the role that technology and government control play in shaping our perception of reality. These novels serve as cautionary tales about the dangers of allowing those in power to control the flow of information and shape our understanding of the world.
The concept of cool has been around for decades, and it has taken on many different meanings over time. From a state of being collected and composed to a sense of countercultural rebellion, cool has come to represent a way of living that is both distinct and desirable. In the modern era, the ability to create something that is cool has become a valuable commodity. In this essay, we will explore the idea that the future belongs to those who can build a cultural machine that transforms alienation and despair into cool.
To understand the importance of this concept, it is important to first define what we mean by alienation and despair. Alienation refers to the sense of being disconnected from others, as well as from oneself. It is a feeling of isolation that can arise when individuals feel that they do not belong, or when they perceive that society does not value them. Despair, on the other hand, refers to the feeling of hopelessness that can arise when individuals are unable to see a way out of their current circumstances. It is a sense of being trapped, with no clear path forward.
The idea that the future belongs to those who can transform alienation and despair into cool speaks to the power of culture in shaping our lives. Culture, broadly defined, encompasses the beliefs, behaviors, and artifacts that define a society. It is through culture that we create meaning in our lives, and it is through culture that we communicate our values and beliefs to others. A cultural machine, then, is a system that is designed to produce culture. It is a way of creating and distributing the artifacts of culture that we use to shape our identities and communicate with others.
The importance of cool in this context lies in its ability to transform negative emotions into positive ones. When we feel alienated or despairing, we are often disconnected from the sources of joy and meaning in our lives. Cool, on the other hand, represents a way of being that is both attractive and aspirational. It is a way of living that is characterized by confidence, style, and a sense of rebellion. By transforming alienation and despair into cool, we are able to reclaim our sense of agency and become active agents in our own lives.
However, the idea that the future belongs to those who can build a cultural machine that transforms alienation and despair into cool is not without its challenges. One of the key challenges is the commodification of cool. As cool becomes more desirable, it also becomes more commercialized. This can lead to a situation where cool is no longer a countercultural force, but rather a mass-produced commodity that is marketed to the masses. In this context, the ability to microwave cool becomes a liability, as it strips cool of its authenticity and turns it into just another product to be consumed.
Another challenge is the potential for cultural appropriation. Cool is often associated with specific cultural groups, and there is a risk that the cultural machine that transforms alienation and despair into cool could exploit these groups for profit. This can lead to a situation where cool becomes a form of cultural imperialism, rather than a force for positive change.
In conclusion, the idea that the future belongs to those who can build a cultural machine that transforms alienation and despair into cool represents an important challenge for our society. By harnessing the power of culture, we can create a world where individuals are empowered to shape their own identities and find meaning in their lives. However, we must also be aware of the potential pitfalls of this approach, including the commodification of cool and the risk of cultural appropriation. Ultimately, the success of any cultural machine will depend on its ability to balance these competing demands, and to create a vision of cool that is both authentic and inclusive.
Bateson used the fictional Bread and Butter Fly (from Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There) to illustrate the double bind in terms of natural selection. The gnat points out that the insect would be doomed if he found his food (which would dissolve his own head, since this insect’s head is made of sugar, and his only food is tea), and starve if he did not. Alice suggests that this must happen quite often, to which the gnat replies: “It always happens.”
The pressures that drive evolution therefore represent a double bind. And there is truly no escape: “It always happens.” No species can escape natural selection, including our own. If the environment becomes toxic, that species will die out unless it transforms into another species, in which case, the species becomes extinct anyway.
IDENTITY
Identity is situated in time. When we think of it we mentally put it into a period in time, where the other associations of that time give us context and anchored meaning. The death of an archetype anchors us as young forever. Kurt Kobain is forever beautiful and tortured and Jimi Hendrix was brilliant and I am just like them.
We live forever with the ghost-identity of our younger selves as we idealize and stereotype in fact a natural consequence of the increased reward drive in the adolescent brain of the neural circuits using dopamine, a neurotransmitter central in creating our drive for reward. We define ourselves through our reward drives.
In Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’, James Stewart character is unable to accept the loss of loved one, he keeps looking for her, finds a look-alike and then sets about transforming her, Pygmalion-like, into a reincarnated version. His identity thus lives on, in the clay golem he recreates. When we perceived archetypes to die, we thus are losing a part of ourselves. We are no longer able to look at them and see ourselves, reflected in their perception. We thus mourn a loss of a part of ourselves.
The sense of self comes from habitual and repeated thoughts; novel thoughts make the self dissolve. Adopting X as an identity makes you optimize for being predicted as X. The territory itself is structured by some kind of repetition. The self-reference effect arises when objects that are related to the self draw extra focus. Memes, myths, and egregores run in group combinations, not individuals, and shape our thoughts and cognitive processes. It is on the level of thought that the self begins to buckle under the strain of contradictions.
SENSE OF SELF: BATESON CONCEPT OF THE MIND
Every birth is a resurrection with foreknowledge of the future because each individual is the result of natural selection. We are born only once but we “are” many other people who pre-existed us. The self is a function of all other selves. Your identity fluctuates. You cannot be yourself twice.
The mental characteristics of a system are not contained in a single control mechanism (consciousness does not emanate from the brain), but are distributed across the entire system. Just as it is incorrect to assume that the mind is in the brain (it is in the brain plus the body plus the environment), so it is incorrect to assert that the computer itself exhibits mental properties: it is the computer + the programmer that does.
The view that the self is aligned with the concept of being-in-the-world by Heidegger. From this observation he derives the idea that everything is mind, and that minds contain minds, the largest mind corresponding with what people call “God” These narrow definitions of selfhood, most of us grew up with, as Bateson saw it, were not just philosophy-related problems but could easily turn into environmental crises.
In the quantum world it is the observer that “collapses” reality. There is no reality until someone observes it. Each “wave” that describes a system is ultimately connected to all other waves. There is an equivalence of sorts between General Relativity and psychology. Every person “warps” the psychological universe of everybody else nearby.
RULES OF SOCIAL MEDIA:
Post at least twice a day. Don’t post every day. As an agent, you have to use Facebook. Facebook is a waste of your time.
THE METAMEDIUM AND THE DOUBLE BIND
“All those people who seek to control the behavior of large numbers of other people work on the experiences of those other people,” Once people can be induced to experience a situation in a similar way, they can be expected to behave in similar ways.” R.D. Laing, in The Politics of Experience.
The child’s sense of self is growing up among a set of contradictions, because he lives in two worlds. The sense of self play over our overextended central nervous system and mind has become a combination of library, post office and mail order. The Meta-medium (after all, the Web can play host to any other form: text, images, video , and audio).
Social networking sites represent an important form of network activity with new friends and existing relationships. The Internet is a double-bind because we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t. News, writing, and information of all sorts is now often not available any other way.
CYBERNETICS
The effects of technology do not occur at the level of opinion or concepts, but alter sense ratios or patterns of perception steadily and without any resistance. VC does not find signifieds in which to invest. Instead, it offers the equivalence of all signifiers, thereby deterring them from signifying anything. The system of interpreting signifiers overgrows its referents. It develops with no relation to whatever it signifies.
Cybernetics redefined the problem of “spectatorship” by transforming the spectator from an individual into a site of perceptions and cognitions — an “interface or infrastructure for information processing.” Where radio, cinema, and television had promoted conformity and passivity, cybernetic media promised to facilitate individual choice and free expression.
Cybernetics concerned itself with self regulating systems and how their identity and functioning was maintained through mechanisms of information, control and feedback. Bateson could see the discipline’s immediate applicability to social interactions and the exploration and explanation of social systems.
The “Californian Ideology” was an “anti-statist gospel of cybernetic libertarianism.” With their critiques of mass media, and their alleged tendency to produce authoritarian subjects, some believed digital media could offer salutary alternatives.
But what happens is this: Algorithms take someone’s opinions and project them into the future, via predictions that powerful institutions then act on. If the identities constituted in this way are false, the reifications they generate do real work, and can cause real harm.
ECOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND CYBERNETICS
In his book Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Bateson applied cybernetics to the field of biological ecology and homeostasis. He saw the environment as a collection of processes that included those of people, their sense of self, communities and ecosystems. Each program involves rivalry and dependence. — system has adaptive changes that rely on feedback loops to maintain equilibrium and preserve homeostasis by changing multiple variables.
Bateson also saw that all three systems of the person and their sense of self, culture and environment were all part of one supreme cybernetic system that governs all rather than only interacting systems. This supreme cybernetic system would be outside the individual’s self and may be equated with what many people call God, while Bateson referred to it as Mind. Though Mind is a cybernetic system, it can only be distinguished as a whole and not parts.
So what is the problem? He saw the system collapses as the result of Occidental and western epistemology. According to Bateson, consciousness is the bridge between person, society, and ecology cybernetic networks and the system mismatch due to confusion results in the destruction of the entire supreme cybernetic system or mind.
Bateson thought consciousness as developed by Western epistemology was directly at odds with Mind. At the heart of the matter is scientific hubris. Bateson argues that Occidental epistemology perpetuates a system of understanding which is purpose or means-to-an-end driven.
You can see the web as as a vast meta-medium, or as a regular McLuhanesque medium, with nothing meta about it. Purpose regulates attention and narrows awareness, restricting what enters consciousness and thus restricting the amount of knowledge that can be produced from awareness.
Other sources of fact and fiction have gradually been eliminated. Additionally, Western epistemology propagates the false notion that man resides outside the meta-mind and this leads man to believe in what Bateson calls control theory based on false knowledge.
This is the double-bind. A meta-medium grown out of technical thinking, and today the computer, the internet, and the rush to AI are the manifestations of such thinking. They are the result, not the cause.
THE METAMEDIUM
In Occidental epistemology as a way of thinking that leads to a mentality in which man imposes autocratic rule over all cybernetic systems. By imposing his autocratic rule, man alters the world to match him, thereby unbalancing the normal cybernetic structure of managed competition and reciprocal dependency.
It’s probable that man will never be able to manipulate the entire metamedium because it does not function in a linear fashion. What eventually may happen, is that man’s technical ability coupled with his intellectual hubris gives him the power to irrevocably damage and ruin the supreme cybernetic system.
THE PRISONERS DILEMMA
“Look at it, every day more lusers than users, keyboards and screens turning into nothin but portals to Web sites for what Management wants everybody addicted to, shopping games, jerking off, streaming endless garbage-” ― Thomas Pynchon, Bleeding Edge
One of the reasons we talk of “split” states of consciousness, or amnesia; or talk of the body acting automatically or as being inhabited by the character we are playing. The only reason we don’t crash is because of bi-location which allows 1/2 of the brain to do the driving while another part disappears down the rabbit hole. Individuals may find themselves, more in tune or involved with the mask world and less with the real world.
Kids might already be well-versed with the term “behavior modification,” but they might not fully comprehend its meaning or think it is a joke, They are bewildered when they enter the nineteenth-century environment that still characterizes the educational establishment where information is scarce but ordered and structured by fragmented, classified patterns, subjects, and schedules.
‘Real-time auctions’ allow ad-brokers to see who’ll pay the most to place an ad on a web-page. But the losers in that action still come away with new information about you. Is it any surprise that ad rates at the major publications are falling?
A useful concept to understand is interpellation. The medium delivers dual messages similar to the pair pioneered by Walmart. “Good news! Treats await! Information systems have made the world more efficient for you. With Facebook the free service is social connecting, and with Google it is an efficient search engine. We are ‘hailed’ into resuming our identities. You identify me and I become the me that you have named. The position we take is relative to a superior and central ‘Other Subject’, exercising emotional authority.
Social media platforms are designed by the businesses that operate them to maximize engagement so they can sell ads. They learn to exploit the fact that people have cognitive biases and split states of consciousness that make them want to be cocooned in comfortable filter bubbles. They ignore and refute anything that might challenge beliefs that factcheck as wrong but comfortable.
The Medium who calls to us is interpellating us a position we recognize and accept. The act of identifying thereby establishes identities. The position we take is relative to a superior and central ‘Other Subject’, exercising emotional authority. Our identity is thus defined by the other and we recognize ourselves as an image or a reflection of the Other.
Everything gets magnified by Network effects. Network effects are feedback cycles that can make a medium become ever more influential or valuable. Facebook attracts people because of the people already on it. People use Apple products in part because there are so many apps in its store. The consistency principle leads you into a cycle of investment.
FACEBOOK Facebook wants you to have only one identity, so that you are more legible and can reliably influence the options put in front of you. In order to continue to participate, I’d have to accept Facebook’s philosophy.
TWITTER Twitter suggests that meaning will emerge from fleeting flashes of thought de/contextualized. The idea of reputation is an embodiment of an idea about what a person is, where meaning comes from. Google wants you to be “open” so that it can search all the data related to you.
GOOGLE specialized queries with localised results, each place in the world will have a different list of what is important, true, or ‘relevant’ in response to any query” Personalisation and customisation enhance relevance of search results.
IDENTITY BECOMES CURRENCY: MAKE IT
A five minute blog is going to have the same marketing impact as letting an 2-year-old create your brand identity. The physical build of a blog will take months to get right. The challenge for people s is to find out where they are, how they move and what they find of value. The reputation economy is predominantly controlled by far more influential, and complex, factors. It’s not exactly a scam, but very few people do well with it because it does exactly the opposite of cutting out the middle man . The real investment comes in the personal time necessary to make an impact.
In this medium, identity becomes currency but not money. Many people think of social media as an inexpensive alternative to pricey paid media options. The build is just the tip of the iceberg. Reciprocity takes the form of self-promotion. Culture is nothing but advertising. People must stir up social media attention and keep feeding users more content in order to draw out more likes. With the endless stream of posts of each person in social media, video production, gaming, and other content sources, it’s almost impossible to determine where one person ends and another begins.
Digital marketing has been all about creating real state. Creating real state turns to building on other people’s property. Websites, micro sites, Flash demos, virtual offices are just some of the digital spaces. There are literally thousands of places to engage with your reputation online. The challenge for brands is to find out where they are, how they move and what they find of value.
An early blue check will get superrich fast, or a new user will get a free service or earn a windfall from sudden exposure. This will happen to only a tiny token number of people, though. Meanwhile, trinkets tossed into the crowd spread illusions that the emerging information economy is benefiting the majority of those who provide the information that drives it.
The illusion that everything is getting so cheap that it is practically free sets up the political and economic conditions for cartels exploiting whatever isn’t quite that way. When music is free, wireless bills get expensive.
Silicon valley has conditioned us that these external factors are the determining factors for “success”. They’ve created for us a certain ideal in our head that we need to achieve before we are even allowed to feel valuable. People must develop social media networks in order to ‘make it. Once they’ve made it, the main thing they have to sell is their social media network. Why are we competing on sheer tonnage, instead of focusing on quality and singularity.
Deviating from common expectations of the medium costs idiosyncrasy credits. Like dressing differently, viewing shows that nobody else is concerned about and not seeing the series that everybody is thinking about — they all drain a small nonconformity budget.
What we’re facing now is a classical prisoner’s dilemma . Our identities are ensnared because what we perceive as our peers are acquiring and launching, investing and expanding, so in turn they’re succumbing to competitive pressure. The older training of observation has become quite irrelevant in this new time, because it is based on psychological responses and concepts conditioned by the former technology — mechanization.
We cannot weigh the option independently; We must consider what others (with the same options) will do. If others invests, we should also invest in order to protect our market position. So we invests. Others go through the same reasoning, and eventually also invest.
If we and others thought of the meta-medium in a different way, and not competitive pressure, they would turn down more of these “opportunities” Sure, investment fuels growth. “More is not necessarily better
But competitive pressure saps profitability. From 1997–2001, online retailers played the same game with every price-slashing gimmick they could conjure. I got a pair of Paragon surfboards for $150 from a Web site I never did use again. Thousands of people lost their plum jobs, and thousands more their retirement savings. No macro event is unprecedented and the current gamification of our identities is no different.
DOUBLE BIND
People look for opportunities to express their needs for self-preservation. However, since they know that their needs cannot be fully satisfied, they simultaneously fall over themselves to destroy the memory of the false fulfillment they have had. The Medium flatters participants into thinking that they are taking part in a daring intellectual exercise, while activating anti-intellectual feelings. Repressed awareness of the false nature of their own satisfaction produces ambient aggression that people take out on strangers.
The essential hypothesis of the double bind theory applied to Silicon Valley is that we find ourselves in a communicational matrix, in which messages contradict each other, the contradiction is not able to be communicated on and the unwell person is not able to leave the field of interaction.
A double bind is a dilemma in which a successful response to one message results in a failed response to the other. The person cannot confront the inherent dilemma, and therefore can neither resolve it nor opt out of the situation. In some circumstances this might be emotionally distressing.
Double binds are often utilized as a form of control without open coercion. The use of confusion makes them difficult both to respond to and to resist. A double bind generally includes different levels of abstraction in the order of messages.
A mother is physically withdrawn from a boy in Bateson’s classic example but pressures the youngster to take the blame. The kid now faces a double bind: to say the truth how he’s furious with the mother and leads to denials and much greater alienation.What makes sense at one point is ridiculous at another. It’s a message about a Message set.
EXAMPLES OF DOUBLE BIND
a. Son: Can we go to the park and play soccer? b. Father: What a beautiful day for working in the garden. The second method of disqualification is sleight-of-hand. Sleight-of-hand occurs when the second response (b) answers the first (a) but changes the content of the previous statement: a. Daughter: We have always gotten along well. b. Mother: Yes, I’ve always loved you. . . In the above example, the mother has responded to her daughter but has switched the issue from getting along well to love. Literalization, the third type of disqualification, occurs when the content of the previous statement (a) is switched to a literal level in the second statement (b) with no acknowledgment of the change of frame: a. Son: You treat me like a child. b. Father: But you are my child. The fourth method, status disqualification, happens when a person uses either personal status or superior knowledge to imply that the previous message is not valid: a. Mother: I have observed that he doesn’t play very well with the other children. b. Son: But I do, Mama! a. Mother: He doesn’t realize because he is so little . . .
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THAT SITUATION ARE:
a) the individual is involved in an intense relationship in which he or she feels they must get the communication right;
b) the other party is expressing two orders of messages, and one denies the other;
c) the ‘victim is unable to comment on the contradiction, i.e. he or she is unable to make ‘metacommunicative statements’ that might help to resolve the mess. These situations, endlessly replayed, result in an individual unable to read accurately the context of messages, and unable to communicate effectively or coherently. In short, he or she will live in a world of disordered messages, where active and appropriate deciphering will be experienced as dangerous, and possibly only known, as a nameless, felt, perpetual angst. Rings a bell?
This is but one interaction, albeit a pivotal one; We need to look at the double bind and the schizophrenic dilemma and the internet as part of a continuum of human experience of communication, that involve intense relationships and necessity of discriminating between orders of message.
WHY THE DOUBLE BIND
In naming a difficult interaction it introduced an interactional perspective to psychotherapy. It foreshadowed and gave momentum to the development of family therapy. If interactions could be problematic and pathology producing, then they also might have the capacity to be organised interventively.
The metamedium suffers from unsolvable communicational and existential knots. Just when we know the facts it pressures us to lie. This is different from lying or hypocrisy, which are merely human, not structural, weaknesses. It goes far beyond the well-known industries that knowingly propagate untruths, including used-car dealers and politicians. These individuals are embedded in a larger structure that demands falsehood. The “fuckedupness” is actually embedded in the structures around us. It is no longer a matter of misinformation, but of systemic double bind conditions. People are simply doing their work, so it is part of the job description to establish the difference between fact and reality.
The double bind hypothesis offered substance and further perspective to such psychoanalytic concepts as denial, splitting, projection (some of the primitive or primary defenses) and the complex process of projective identification. How one party gets another party to carry their own damaged and damaging feelings can seem like a mystery, and its description, at times, can seem like psychic hocus pocus.
RUNAWAY SYSTEM
Covid pandemic has settled forever the argument about when technology is a human right. We are faced with a crisis of both finance and tech thanks to the crisis in public health. As economies implode, taking down those few remaining smaller firms with ties to places and people, we are experiencing a quiet wave of consolidations. Big Tech firms (flush with tax-free, offshore cash) ‘rescue’ these smaller companies and absorb them, barrelling towards a future in which the world can be a better place.
Search engines and social networks were created with the aim of eliminating checks and balances. This explains why they can create problems such as privacy invasion and news distortions. Philosophies evolve towards becoming totalizing ideologies by natural selection. A philosophy (or guru) that leave room for unanswered questions invite competition and will find themselves displaced by more totalizing rivals. After all, it is easier to remember a single ideology than many — or to watch a single YouTube channel.
Every rich-enough belief system wants to be the single source of answers to all questions. The meta medium wants the algorithm to run the show with as few humans in the loop as possible. The aim is to improve “customer service” by “lowering prices.”
Now the system amplifies for ruthlessness, lack of flexibility, along with self-absorption, which would increase the significant areas of conflict in a potential relationships with culture, art and other mediums. The new meta Medium has amplified capital. When pushed to its extreme, capital “becomes a person through corporations and tech: Most people, from truck drivers to the literary Brahmins, are still blissfully ignorant of what the media do to them” “It is the medium itself that is the message, not the content.
Many believed that the Internet generation would swiftly outmaneuver the more ponderous institutions of the previous era. What we forgot is that technology magnifies power in both directions. The powerful behemoths woke up to the potential of the Internet, and they have more power to magnify.
We are overextended people that pretty much solely rely on comparison to other overextended people to feel valuable. We find difficult if not impossible to adjust to the fragmented, visual goals of our education after having had all our senses involved by the new medium; we crave in-depth involvement, not linear detachment and uniform sequential patterns.
Our natural instinct is to bring all our senses to bear on a book nor a musical instrument almost as if it was a screen and print music resolutely rejects that approach.
McLuhan notes the way roads and highways designed to provide freedom of movement have reversed into traffic congestion and urban sprawl. In the meta medium we have all become “huckster” and “mark” on the downward sliding scale of Cut -Me-Own-Throat Dibbler. He cites the example from classical Greek drama of the concept of hubris, when a character’s overweening pride leads to his own fall. The ancient Chinese Taoist text the Tao Te Ching, which refers to the same concept of excess leading to its opposite.
The continuing implosion of fantasy as the foundation of identity makes people neurotic, depressed and sick. People are trying to ride out the disenchantment with a bad counterfeit of integrity. Traditionally false identities were linked to lies, temptations, deceptions. Remember the medicine man.
Wear the Electro-Chemical Ring on a finger. Cancer specialists -Here for One Day Only- All cancers cured unless too far gone and then can be greatly benefited.
https://g.co/kgs/AFawC3 I can see a lot SciFi I like going the Orbis Tertius way. It was a retro-Hugo finalist in 2016. Someone should write a Buster Crabbe kind of version of it
First pass at Exhalation: A scientist’s journal from a member of a race of air-driven mechanical beings. The race obtains air from swappable lungs filled with pressurized air (argon) from underground.
He realizes that clocks simultaneously appear to be running fast but they’re not malfunctioning. Why is it that everyone’s brains are computing slower? He then dissects their own brain and discovers that it operates based on how air moves through gold leaves???
It seems that brains are processing slower because rising atmospheric pressure causing air to pass through at a slower rate. He further concludes that their civillazatiok is past peak argon and will eventually be depleted, equalizing the pressure between the two atmospheres
The Lifecycle of Software Objects”
Ana Alvarado over a twenty-year period, during which she “raises” an artificial intelligence from being essentially a digital pet to a human-equivalent mind.
“Zoo trainer, is hired by a software developing company to assist in the training of digital creatures, “digients”, that are designed with a learning capacity similar to human children. Ana forms a close bond with a designer in charge of creating the digients visual appearance”
Digients are released in a virtual reality platform with initial success, but digients popularity diminishes and startup closes. Several of the employees form a group to keep the digients active and learning; Ana keeps one named Jax and Derek keeps two named Marco and Polo.
After a few more years, Data Earth closes and merges with another digital platform named Real Space. Ana, Derek maintain a flow of learning activities for the digients, but they are unable to provide enough social interaction for them unless they can port them to Real Space
Ana receives an offer from another digient manufacturer, that wants her to train their digients to become personal assistants but the job offer has the downside that she would have to get her brain chemistry altered to reinforce her commitment to her work.
The group receives an offer by a marketer of virtual sex dolls, that offers to pay for the port of the digients to Real Space in exchange of copies of the digients to train them as sex partners for their clients.
Marco and Polo want to be able to edit this reward map and are intrigued by the offer, but Ana is against it. Derek allows himself to be convinced by Marco to accept the offer. In the final scene, she is working on the education of Jax. No climax, life goes on
“Dacey’s Patent Automatic Nanny”
Dr Dacey finds out that working class nannies often aren’t educated enough, and upper class governesses are too expensive. This lead to his great invention of a robot nanny that watches your children, don’t beat them and don’t overpamper them.
Can we raise a child purely through a piece of technology? There are social experiments of children without human caring – e.g. the prominent Kaspar Hauser. Chiang thinks that even an AI may need 20 + years nurturing before allowed to be fully formed beings.
“What’s Expected of Us”,
Predictors demonstrate that there’s no such thing as free will. An invention called a “Predictor” where a small hand held device flashes light mere moments before one presses the button.
The central argument is this: if one resorted to not pressing the button at all, the light wouldn’t flash to begin with. But when light flashes, it compels the person to press the button. In crude terms, the light knows if a human will press the button or not.
The Predictor sends a signal which navigates through time in the past, thereby determining if one would push the button or not. The heart of each Predictor is a circuit with a negative time delay — it sends a signal back in time
“Some people, realizing that their choices don’t matter, refuse to make any choices at all”
“People used to speculate about a thought that destroys the thinker, some unspeakable Lovecraftian horror, or a Gödel sentence that crashes the human logical system. It turns out that the disabling thought is one that we’ve all encountered: the idea that free will doesn’t exist”
The Tiv (an ethno-linguistic group or nation in West Africa) also encounter a new technology. Young Jijingi is among the first to learn the new technology, writing, introduced by Europeans. Writing permits keeping detailed and permanent records, used to establish truth.
Written from two perspectives: one story about the journalist and his daughter, and one of an oral-only west african people making first contact with European missionaries.
Remem is a Google for your personal memories. Powered by shared social lifelogging video, a 24/7 Instagram that captures most moments of most people’s lives. Shows detailed video recordings of any scene of your life that you try to recall.
The Tiv (an ethno-linguistic group or nation in West Africa) also encounter a new technology. Young Jijingi is among the first to learn the new technology, writing, introduced by Europeans. Writing permits keeping detailed and permanent records, used to establish truth.
“Where you or I would see nothing but disturbed grass, he can see that a leopard had killed a cane rat at that spot and carried it off. This art of the Europeans must be similar: those who have the skill could hear a story even if they hadn’t been there when it was told”
“Our language has two words for what in your language is called ‘true.’ There is what’s right, mimi, and what’s precise, vough. In a dispute the principals say what they consider right; they speak mimi..
…The witnesses, however, are sworn to say precisely what happened; they speak vough. When Sabe has heard what happened can he decide what action is mimi for everyone. But it’s not lying if the principals don’t speak vough, as long as they speak mimi.”
When the narrator begins to explore his own memories and finds, shatteringly, that he has been lying to himself for years about his parenting, this comes full circle
There is a thread in the story of the difference between the practical, exact truth and the emotional, functional truth, particularly in Jijingi’s narrative. This is key: the idea that perhaps the exact truth is useful and vital, but that emotional truth should not be disregarded
For the Tiv, value is often more important than factual accuracy. Back to the main story, Remem can “authenticate” personal memories. No more bitter disputes over who said what, now that everyone can immediately and effortlessly enter total recall mode. Isn’t that great?
Our memories are not detailed records of facts, but work in progress, changing at every act of recall. We edit and re-write our memories all the time, adding and taking away to support our personal narratives, which are also work in progress.
