Outside the Wall

Stream of consciousness musings about a variety of subjects. Posts will surface as they come to mind.

[outsidethewallblog]

Some micro thoughts.

There is no "natural order." That's just humans trying to create patterns and structure because that's what human brains like to do. Don't confuse the model for the original.

It's all chaos, baby.

Slave morality will try to hold you back like crabs in a bucket.

Modern day society values survival over living.

"It's biology" is a thought-terminating cliche.

[outsidethewallblog]

Models do not equal reality, maps do not equal territories.

We humans frequently forget this.

We are not important even if we think we are. That is why the prospect of extinction should not scare you, as we are but a blip in the history of the planet. Instead, live right now. We don’t need to live forever.

[outsidethewallblog]

Perverted sentimentality.

What do we call a species which primarily values making more of itself and ensuring its dominance for its own sake? A FUCKING PARASITE. A cancer. A “pure,” uniform hive-mind that tolerates no real or perceived deviations from its oh so perfect status quo.

People will moralize this as a cop-out, but I no longer believe it is important for the human species to dominate and live forever. I believe this is a rationalization our misplaced sense of cosmic importance, and a justification for how we treat others.

Ironically, the word “evolution” is frequently applied to moralize things staying the same, much like the “red pill” has been adopted by people who in reality are eyeballs deep in the Matrix.

We do not choose to be born, but we choose what to do with that gift of life.

Life is more than mere survival and those who refuse to accept this will not have fulfilling lives. They live a passive existence, not ever questioning what currently IS.

How are you using that gift?

[outsidethewallblog]

Predator and prey in all forms = Samsara. Moralizing your position “on top of the food chain,” literally or figuratively = dominator culture. Keep this in mind at all times. Thank you.

You are keeping the serpent endlessly swallowing its own tail. Evolution > stagnation. No fucking excuses.

[outsidethewallblog]

Unexpected reminders of the human condition, pt. 1

The 1987 animated classic The Brave Little Toaster is an incredibly interesting piece of pop culture history for those who haven't yet seen it as adults.

The film is essentially a parable about the ways we are dehumanized and transformed into disposable commodities under consumer capitalism, and about how we have been taught to tie up our personal identities in this. Or at least that is how I read it.

First of all, the obvious: the characters are literally appliances, devices built solely to serve a human purpose and nothing else. They are sapient, but despite this, the grand majority of them have internalized the idea that they exist to serve a "master" despite having consciousness and a soul and a capability for finding their own meaning in life. This mirrors the way that neoliberalism functions in real life, as a justifying set of beliefs that we have internalized. In other words, every time we idolize people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, any time we make our personal identity contingent on someone who has power over us, we are appliances.

Also worth noting is the way appliances are constantly upgraded and replaced with the old ones being considered junk, mirroring how capitalism treats the humans under it - as objects who exist to serve a purpose, usually for an individual of a "higher" class, and once they have exhausted this purpose, they are considered "junk" and "worthless." In fact, there's a whole musical number near the end of the film CALLED "Worthless" in which junkyard cars discuss this very subject. And hey, isn't it a little funny that Pixar later made a talking cars movie in which the vehicle aspect is purely aesthetic and the entire film comes across an accidental transhumanist manifesto? (More on that later)

The older, junky appliances (i.e. poor, homeless, and elderly people) are either abandoned by society, or killed to relieve society of the “dead weight,” mirroring the dehumanization of the poor which leads to them being targeted by “population control” programs and other fascist policies. This is how social relations work under capitalism regardless of how people try to deny it.

All of the appliances’ problems, all of the conflict in the movie, is the direct or indirect result of the system of social relations they live under, much like how poverty, homelessness, and related problems stem from the nature of capitalism itself.

My only criticism of the movie is that it doesn't "go all the way" with its metaphor. the movie's "happy ending" is the appliances reuniting with their "good master" who still sees value in them. It never once crosses their minds that, maybe, living under a system that only sees them as things to be farmed for value by humans may be a bad thing. Even your "good master" still thinks of you as a tool, and will discard you when he loses interest.

This mirrors the way neoliberals - and let's be honest, even some leftists - see any problems with capitalism as the result of individual bad actors instead of being natural results of the system itself. When we are younger we often want to identify a single symbolic individual cause of everything wrong with the world, but it's important to move past this as you deepen your understanding. For example, many bosses and rich people are individually fine people and genuinely care about their employees, but this doesn't change the realities of the system and how it functions. Much like in Pixar’s WALL-E, the problems don’t stem from individual humans as much as they are a side effect of the way society is organized. When the chips are down, most business owners will not go down with the ship.

Oh yeah, I didn't mention. This movie is the entire reason Pixar even exists, with John Lasseter being the man who came up with the idea of adapting Thomas Disch’s novel. Once you realize this, you start to notice an odd tension throughout Pixar's filmography, especially in the Toy Story series. Based on what I have already written here, you may be able to guess what I mean. I will explore this idea further in a future post.

[outsidethewallblog]

Dark Souls is a copy without an original.

Dark Souls is an interesting cultural artifact for various reasons.

For example - let's be honest, it's the primary example - the constant fetishization of the game’s difficulty has dealt a huge blow to its reputation. There’s a myriad other reasons to love Souls apart from its difficulty. Fans often praise its exploration, the interconnectedness of the game world, the combat, the bosses, the surprisingly balanced character options, the atmosphere and world design, the lore and characters, and that it ties this all together with a satisfying gameplay loop that makes you want to keep playing even as you’re failing multiple times over.

However, internet memes surrounding the series often make it come across as gimmicky, using its difficulty as a selling point. In reality, it’s an extremely creative, immersive, and expertly crafted role-playing game (in the original sense of the term, not the modern marketing buzzword).

I was unaware Dark Souls has a player aid system and cooperative play before playing it, because I assumed it was one of those borderline masochistic “rage” games where you have to “pull yourself by your bootstraps.” You know, those games that are designed from the ground up to troll their players so their reactions can be farmed for YouTube content. Instead, the developers encourage players to help each other overcome its challenges, and cheer them on for making progress, no matter how small.

Unfortunately, some players seemingly miss the point, going as far as to proclaim that summoning during bosses isn’t “real” Dark Souls, despite the this feature being built into various aspects of the game’s design. The Bell Gargoyles fight is very clearly designed around the assumption that Solaire is helping you, for example.

Some players even claim that playing the entire game without leveling up your character is a more “authentic” experience. This is maddening. If FromSoftware intended that type of experience, they wouldn’t have developed the leveling feature at all. The fact that there are people out there who believe FromSoftware developed an entire complex system with probably thousands of lines of code and multiple ability unlocks across multiple combat styles, only to guilt players for using it? A stark reminder that people will go through some of the most ridiculous mental gymnastics just to avoid admitting they are wrong.

The reality is that Dark Souls is designed to be a flexible experience, and thus ALL Souls experiences are “real Dark Souls.”

Souls is maybe one of the best games ever made in all departments. It is much, MUCH more than “that really hard game” (for another great game that was "memed" in a similar manner, see Hollow Knight). But it took me years to actually try because of the way its reputation and fandom precede it. We should be talking about this more.

Our collective idea of Dark Souls differs so much from the actual experience of playing Dark Souls that Dark Souls has become, effectively, a copy without an original.

It doesn't help that when Dark Souls II was released, it was seemingly designed to be this copy with no original, adding one more layer to the seemingly infinite simulacrum of modern-day media and advertising. From descriptions I have heard of people playing it, it was designed not be be compassionate and encouraging. It was designed to be the "rage" game everyone thought Dark Souls was. That isn’t even mentioning the l special edition of the original being called the PREPARE TO DIE Edition. FromSoftware knew what they were doing here.

[outsidethewallblog]

Apocalypse Now shows us the farce of American militarism.

The main takeaway from Apocalypse Now is that the best way to win a war is not to fight it at all.

It is exposing the downright absurdity of people who are trained to carry out state-sanctioned violence splitting hairs over “ethics,” the absurdity of charging a trained murderer with murder. The double standard of treating state-sanctioned violence as necessary and just, while treating non-state-sanctioned violence as terrorism.

In other words, we are seeing the entire story that America tells itself, especially the stories we tell each other about the military, completely fall apart. The film exposes the entire narrative of big good-guy American soldiers saving the day as an impotent deflection from criticism, a desire to live inside a hyperreal fantasy that supercedes our actions in reality. That war is nihilistic, the worst of humanity coming out, despite our attempts to portray it as noble or necessary. The Vietnam War in particular, remembered in the American consciousness as a harsh but necessary pursuit, is exposed as a complete fabrication. A fabrication that allows Americans to continue to live in the fantasy that we're still the Rebel Alliance. We're the Empire. That's a demonstrable fact if you talk to people from anywhere that isn't America. I am using this metaphor because Americans often use movies to form their national identity.

And Star Wars relates to American identity one hundred percent. The series is a huge hit here for a reason. Americans love these kinds of stories because they affirm we are the ragtag rebel "good guys" even when we are drone-bombing brown civilians in foreign countries. They allow us to maintain this constructed identity even if our actions in reality contradict it.

Col. Kurtz has realized this before everyone else and it’s driven him mad. He has to choose between being the ruthless killer he was trained to be or continuing to live in the delusion of his former teammates, that they’re fighting a “just” war. “We train young men to drop fire on people, but their commanders won't allow them to write FUCK on their airplanes because it's obscene,” as he puts it.

Ultimately, he chooses to be a monster; maybe he thinks it’s justified in order to win, or maybe he just wants the war itself to be over quickly so everyone else can go home, not having to live with the horror he has been staring in the face. Or a third option: he has become radicalized into a sort of eco-fascism. Outside his compound, you can see the title of the film, playing on the then-popular slogan "PEACE NOW" This means either he is rejecting the idea that peace is possible, that he holds the fascistic belief that life is eternal warfare, or this could be reflecting the ways the Vietnam War destroyed his faith in humanity. That he wants an apocalypse to wipe us off the face of the earth, forever.

Everyone in America needs to watch Apocalypse Now if they haven't already.

[outsidethewallblog]

Swallow your pride.

A question every human should ponder is: are human beings "apex predators" or is this a justification made after the fact?

An "apex predator" that has no natural weapons, is not resistant to weather without external protection, nothing.

Are you a predator or are you attempting to justify the way you treat other human beings, as well as the many other creatures inhabiting our planet? Would you survive in the Canadian wilderness with a polar bear? Most likely, the answer is no.

Polar bears hunt humans, by the way. How’s that for a reminder you aren't as important as you think you are?

Are you a predator or are you simply waiting for someone to give you permission? To validate you?

The gift of life is a call to responsibility. It is not a prescription, not a contract, but a miracle. You get to choose what you use your gift for. Those who use it for domination and cruelty, whether that is to other people or to other creatures, need to be honest with themselves.

Humans need to abandon the asinine fantasy of being important and powerful in the universe, because we don't need to be those things to have fulfilling lives. Life is itself something to be experienced for its own sake. There are no rules for life other than to treat yourself and others with empathy and compassion. bell hooks wrote that we live in a dominator culture, and that this culture instills in us the idea that a desire to control and dominate and subjugate for its own sake is in our nature. Remember this the next time someone tries to tell you your nature is to treat others this way.

"but but but ecology SCIENCE DENIER." I am not using the term "predator" in that sense, I am using it the way everyone uses it. You already know what I mean, quit acting like you don't. Everyone saw James Cameron's Avatar and knows it spawned a crowd of people so insecure that they needed comparison to a fictional species to feel good about themselves while spamming a sophomoric rant from its central antagonist in the comment sections of vegans to prove how “rATIONAL” they are. All of your comments about "science" and "biology" are clearly attempts to distract from the actual question being asked. You don't like the question so you don't have to have an answer because bIOLOGY told you so. The problem is never you.

You probably call yourself a “sigma male” too, don’t you?

Nietzsche had a lot of great insights and philosophical methods, but was very obviously trying to justify his personal belief that life = domination and control of others. Jordan Peterson is similar but doesn't even try to keep up the act or pretend to actually care about Nietzsche beyond surface level. Left-wing author Mark Fisher was heavily influenced by Nietzsche, yet he did not believe society should be ruled by self-styled "predators."

Let's admit this, all of it. We are human and humans like to concoct bullshit in their heads to avoid self-reflecting, to avoid being open and honest with each other, to justify staying in one place. Keep this in mind.

This culture ultimately wants us to give in, to give up, to pack up, to lie down and pretend nothing can ever change. It is a complete nihilism that enforces stagnancy and erases the possibility of radical change and evolution. It is the fear of change, the fear of looking inside yourself.

Remind yourself that misery is often comfortable. These types of deflections are, often times, excuses. How you tell yourself you don't have to change the way you treat others and yourself. To keep not only others but yourself boxed in.

If you can't handle chaos, don't demand liberty.

[outsidethewallblog]

A slaughterhouse for souls.

Sometimes when I’m driving to work, I find myself wondering, what if the Buddhists are right - maybe this world IS a meatgrinder existence that’s actively preventing enlightenment? That maybe our ultimate goal is to transcend the entire idea of “predator/prey” that this world seems based around?

Maybe a “natural” existence isn’t to be desired - maybe it’s actually BAD for humans, and holding them back from enlightenment? Almost every great spiritual teacher - Jesus, the Buddha - stressed that transcendence would involve letting go of attachment to the natural. Religion after religion stresses transcendence, not resignation to what is. Maybe this endless wheel of life and death which keeps all sentient life locked in an unending struggle is the very embodiment of Samsara?

In this light, those who say we need to “return to tradition / nature” are fools who fail to realize that this is exactly what we as humans have been trying to transcend for all of our history. This is the call of Samsara, the great Ouroboros, the great fucking lie. I once read in an internet comment I can’t stop thinking about to this day, that this world is a slaughterhouse for souls, especially when you consider the criteria for “success” here.

The gift of consciousness is a call to transcend, not to enslave yourself to biofatalism. And not to do it alone, as hyperindividualism is a lie.

The serpent swallows its tail.

[outsidethewallblog]

This religion is a mockery of God.

Most modern-day American churches do not worship a loving God.

In practice, they worship power. They worship the status quo. They worship the ruling class. It cultivates in its followers the pathological need to control everyone and everything around them to their specifications, and besides this creating toxic family dynamics, it's painful for the followers themselves, as they often become pathologically paranoid, worrying, and pessimistic. They have been told - groomed - into believing that this is "love."

The religion of modern evangelicalism mocks and perverts the very concept of a transcendent divine by turning it into a tool of social control.

This is painfully obvious if you look at what these organizations do rather than what they say they're about.

Evangelicals bring God down to earth, since in their mind it seems He always says, thinks, and wants things consistent with what they and their ingroup already think and want. In other words, God did not create us in His image, we created Him in our image.

One may even wonder whether people of this religion even fully believe what they are saying. As far as we know, none of them are living a "Biblical" lifestyle, despite how often they stress this as important. To live a Biblical lifestyle would be inconsistent with modern values which even fundamentalist Christians hold, despite telling themselves otherwise.

In fact, the exhortation to live "Biblically" functions as a deflection and not much else, as (again!) literally no one lives a "Biblical" lifestyle in America.

I have spent much of my life unable to trust Christianity and Christians because of evangelicalism, fundamentalism, Christian nationalism, whatever you want to call it. I don't need to name it, because it is likely everyone reading this post will already understand. I have only recently realized my entire conception of what "religion" means was warped and distorted by what was effectively a political cult. And I hope other evangelical cult survivors are able to realize this, and let go of their resentment toward religion as a whole like I had to. Only then can we move on and bury our trauma.

I was once angry at Christianity. Now I'm angry at whoever is responsible for this tragedy.

This will likely not be the only post on this subject.

[outsidethewallblog]

We’re scared.

We have all forgotten we’re just scared little monkeys building walls around ourselves because we’re too scared to be open with each other.

We can’t talk to each other anymore, because someone in charge - it doesn’t matter who - has designated us as enemies.

We now live in a country in which consensus reality has almost completely collapsed. No one is sure of whether anything they see in the news, on social media, etc is even true, and AI will likely worsen this problem. And so, in this extreme certainty, we hide in our little echo chambers just like people built walls around their kingdoms to zealously defend against anyone who looks a little funny. And the longer we stay within these walls, the longer the resentment and fear festers and rots inside of us, the more it spills out.

The only thing this isolation, this separation, this refusal to coexist, leads to, is that people become crueler and more hostile to each other with each passing year. The fruits of the spirit lie rotten at the base of the Tree of Life.

Instead of building walls upon walls of psychological defenses, people need to be honest with other. At this point, everyone agrees that this perpetual "culture war" is both exhausting, unproductive, and most importantly of all: a god-damned distraction that encourages people on both sides to be their absolute worst selves and treat each other like garbage. We don't need to always agree, obviously - I'm not a fucking coward - but it will be easier for everyone moving forward. Collectively waking up from this nightmare is the only clear way forward.

“We read the risks hand in hand

A ruined rest, but now we wake up.”

[outsidethewallblog]

Lou Bloom knocks down walls.

Jake Gyllenhaal starred in a film called Nightcrawler in 2014.

Don't confuse him for a Marvel or DC character, because this one's a lot different, and in my opinion, much more culturally important.

He plays a man named Lou Bloom, who is - let's just admit it - soulless. He is a "nightcrawler," also known as an ambulance chaser, who gets footage of accidents and sells them to news stations. He displays absolutely no remorse for the people he exploits for his "career" and often treats accident or crime scenes like mere business opportunities. He is selfish, self-centered, and thinks his lack of concern for others is actually a good thing.

There is a 99% chance that Lou Bloom has a copy of Atlas Shrugged and 12 Rules for Life on his bookshelf. Or maybe even Mark Manson so he can tell himself he's spiritual.

The point is that in a hypercompetitive society in which every single human action, thought, activity, etc. is reduced to an economic transaction, when everything we hold dear is hollowed out and replaced with an empty facsimile, we are all Lou Bloom.

Bloom even spouts the usual cliches you'd expect from "entrepreneur" types. He talks about how he's a young enterprising professional looking to boost his skills and his career. He talks about his grisly "work" as if he's just a humble salesman looking to make his way in the Land of Opportunity. Some of his lines earlier in the film sound like they could have been taken almost word-for-word from a LinkedIn post.

The contrast between what Bloom is saying and what he does is very noticeable. He is 100 percent lying to himself. And what this film is trying to remind us is that the current social arrangements we live under are cutthroat, callous, and cruel.

Lou Bloom shakes up the stories we tell ourselves about how America is the Golden Land of Opportunity where young ambitious talented good-hearted people inevitably Make It. He is a mirror to an America that tells itself stories to justify its callous treatment of its people. To justify dropping bombs on strangers halfway across the world because the news said they're evil.

In reality, it is a country where in order to "make it," to become a member of the 1%, you must be a monster to some degree. You must see everyone in your life as your competition. You must cease to be a person, and become a machine. Remember Steve Jobs? And how he treated his engineers? And how so many people pretended this was okay because everyone had bought into the Cult of Apple to such an extent, even though in hindsight we all knew Jobs was a complete monster?

It is rather darkly poetic that we went from "tear down the wall" to "build the wall." It's a beautiful little metaphor for how Americans have shut themselves into bubbles of "us" and "them." I am guilty of this, we are all guilty of this regardless of political persuasion.

We all know this. We just pretend it's not true as to not hurt America's feelings.