The Man Who Ate the World
May. 15th, 2013 10:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraThe ever-interesting ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sulphuroxide has been writing a series of meditations on the hierarchical structure of ontological reality. I'm way too stupid to follow what he's saying by leaping from thought to thought, so I only have access to the brightest and shiniest of his takeaways. Recently we've been discussing the somewhat trite metaphor: Life as the Ultimate Video Game. And I realize more and more – that's exactly how I view life. The vast majority of people I meet are NPCs. I notice them. I don't really care about them. I strategize my way around them.
I would prefer the people I meet to be Real Human Boys and Girls. On public transportation systems, I play the mental telepathy game: Cast your mind out. See if you can get one stranger to notice you're looking at them. If you can, it's proof positive that that one person is a real human being.
New York City public transportation users – alas! – are way too conditioned and savvy to ever make eye contact with someone they don't know, though. There are lots of insane people in New York City, some of them are violent, and all of them ride the subway. So even if there are real human beings on the F train that hear my thoughts, it's unlikely that any of them will look for me.
sulphuroxide notes that there are tons of contexts with completely immersive realities and that they're all competing for our attention. He calls them "planes of immanence." Often people get stuck between them because the rules of one context (read: Real Life Video Game) appear to be mutually exclusive with the rules of another. Thus we have Kevin – who's not stupid, mind you – refusing to go hear choral music because it was originally written as a Christian devotional. "I'd go hear pagan music," he says. But there is no fucking difference between Christian music and pagan music in any real sense of the word. The difference is a false dichotomy, the rules of one plane of immanence conflicting with those of another.
sulphuroxide maintains that economics ultimately determines which plateau one ends up viewing the world from.
I would disagree with that. I think it's an emotionally driven choice. Risk adverse people are more likely to be motivated by economics, but risk aversion is an emotional state.
Anyway, I've been thinking ofsulphuroxide's theories in the context of entertainment franchises. Zombie apocalypses, Game of Thrones, Mad Men – each builds such a completely immersive world! Increasingly, people prefer these worlds to the planes of immanence they actually inhabit in "real" – ha,ha,ha! – life. Hence, we have the complete colonization of the human imagination by the corporate interests that own these entertainment franchises, and we also have a kind of thing that happens when people watch two of these immersive entertainments back to back. The rules are different in each immersive universe, and I have to believe this creates a cognitive dissonance. My prediction: This cognitive dissonance is going to become a bigger and bigger factor in people's daily lives…
And, of course, you also have the very interesting fact that if the Singularity ever does occur, mankind's only job is going to be consumption. Cf Fredrick Pohl's little read and extremely interesting short story, The Man Who Ate the World.
In other news, I got hired on to a writing team for a Big Corporate Client yesterday that promises beaucoup bucks if I can only keep my mind in plane of immanence of Baby, you need the $$$$.
Also, Kimmie said something very interesting on the phone yesterday. She has a Problem Boyfriend that half the time she wants to break up with. They have very good sex though. Kimmie says it's because that for whatever reason, he doesn't objectify her. He's always very conscious that he's not just having sex with someone with boobs and a cunt, but with Kimmie – who smells and tastes and moves and moans a particular way.
And as soon as I heard that, I thought, This is really why that Internet Dating site is never gonna work out for me. Objectification is exactly that thing of seeing someone as an NPC character. Unless I know someone for a relatively long period of time or there's been a significant exchange of emotional currency – not "I love you" or anything heavy, no: It can be as simple as laughing at a shared in joke that only the two of us get – I objectify them. They're an NPC. And I'm not interested in having sex with an NPC.
sulphuroxide has been writing a series of meditations on the hierarchical structure of ontological reality. I'm way too stupid to follow what he's saying by leaping from thought to thought, so I only have access to the brightest and shiniest of his takeaways. Recently we've been discussing the somewhat trite metaphor: Life as the Ultimate Video Game. And I realize more and more – that's exactly how I view life. The vast majority of people I meet are NPCs. I notice them. I don't really care about them. I strategize my way around them.I would prefer the people I meet to be Real Human Boys and Girls. On public transportation systems, I play the mental telepathy game: Cast your mind out. See if you can get one stranger to notice you're looking at them. If you can, it's proof positive that that one person is a real human being.
New York City public transportation users – alas! – are way too conditioned and savvy to ever make eye contact with someone they don't know, though. There are lots of insane people in New York City, some of them are violent, and all of them ride the subway. So even if there are real human beings on the F train that hear my thoughts, it's unlikely that any of them will look for me.
sulphuroxide notes that there are tons of contexts with completely immersive realities and that they're all competing for our attention. He calls them "planes of immanence." Often people get stuck between them because the rules of one context (read: Real Life Video Game) appear to be mutually exclusive with the rules of another. Thus we have Kevin – who's not stupid, mind you – refusing to go hear choral music because it was originally written as a Christian devotional. "I'd go hear pagan music," he says. But there is no fucking difference between Christian music and pagan music in any real sense of the word. The difference is a false dichotomy, the rules of one plane of immanence conflicting with those of another.sulphuroxide maintains that economics ultimately determines which plateau one ends up viewing the world from. I would disagree with that. I think it's an emotionally driven choice. Risk adverse people are more likely to be motivated by economics, but risk aversion is an emotional state.
Anyway, I've been thinking of
sulphuroxide's theories in the context of entertainment franchises. Zombie apocalypses, Game of Thrones, Mad Men – each builds such a completely immersive world! Increasingly, people prefer these worlds to the planes of immanence they actually inhabit in "real" – ha,ha,ha! – life. Hence, we have the complete colonization of the human imagination by the corporate interests that own these entertainment franchises, and we also have a kind of thing that happens when people watch two of these immersive entertainments back to back. The rules are different in each immersive universe, and I have to believe this creates a cognitive dissonance. My prediction: This cognitive dissonance is going to become a bigger and bigger factor in people's daily lives…And, of course, you also have the very interesting fact that if the Singularity ever does occur, mankind's only job is going to be consumption. Cf Fredrick Pohl's little read and extremely interesting short story, The Man Who Ate the World.
In other news, I got hired on to a writing team for a Big Corporate Client yesterday that promises beaucoup bucks if I can only keep my mind in plane of immanence of Baby, you need the $$$$.
Also, Kimmie said something very interesting on the phone yesterday. She has a Problem Boyfriend that half the time she wants to break up with. They have very good sex though. Kimmie says it's because that for whatever reason, he doesn't objectify her. He's always very conscious that he's not just having sex with someone with boobs and a cunt, but with Kimmie – who smells and tastes and moves and moans a particular way.
And as soon as I heard that, I thought, This is really why that Internet Dating site is never gonna work out for me. Objectification is exactly that thing of seeing someone as an NPC character. Unless I know someone for a relatively long period of time or there's been a significant exchange of emotional currency – not "I love you" or anything heavy, no: It can be as simple as laughing at a shared in joke that only the two of us get – I objectify them. They're an NPC. And I'm not interested in having sex with an NPC.
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no subject
Date: 2013-05-15 03:45 pm (UTC)-
I think I might view the world through a economic lens myself...
no subject
Date: 2013-05-15 07:30 pm (UTC)but as far as NPC goes, you might find this interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzadikim_Nistarim
no subject
Date: 2013-05-15 09:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-16 12:21 am (UTC)But maybe not.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-17 04:35 am (UTC)