simulated poststructuralism

[argumate]

I keep thinking this! very frustrating

[argumate]

fuck!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Travis McGee on Enshittifcation (1974):

There is something self-destructive about Western technology and distribution. Whenever any consumer object is so excellent that it attracts a devoted following, some of the slide rule and computer types come in on their twinkle toes and take over the store, and in a trice they figure out just how far they can cut quality and still increase the market penetration. Their reasoning is that it is idiotic to make and sell a hundred thousand units of something and make a profit of thirty cents a unit, when you can increase the advertising, sell five million units, and make a nickel profit a unit. Thus the very good things of the world go down the drain, from honest turkey to honest eggs to honest tomatoes. And gin.

[andallofthemwitches]

this needs a hostage negotiator

[gaykarstaagforever]

All of the money I have is random numbers my employer's computer sent to my bank's computer.

And they both agreed I only get to have that much.

My wealth is two random computer systems assigning random numbers to my name.

Is this weird to anyone else?

Like, bragging that you have money is you bragging that this system decided you get a bigger number. Based on...vibes? Nepotism? Theoretical algorithms?

Reality is already virtual.

[ratcity]

Imagine operating in the Real LOL I’ve been symbolic for years

[sivavakkiyar]

B-b-but Poimandres!!! I, uh, I broke my Nous

[cryptotheism]

Get out. Dont come home until you've cultivated noesis

[cannibality-deactivated20250227]

knuckle tats say FOUC AULT

[anarchocapitalismkills-deactiva]

knuck tats saying POST, and on the other hand, having transcended the limitations of the form, STRUCTURALIST

[powerburial]

[powerburial]

[buffyannesummrs]

now what does it mean to read fanfiction about the gay hockey show which is based on a book which was based on a fanfiction which was based on the avengers 2012 which was an adaptation of a comic book

[libertineangel]

[milfsisyphus]

[hyper-ultra]

A CONSIDERATION

THE SPECTACLE IS EVERYWHERE AND SURROUNDS US SO IF YOU START SWINGING YOUR FISTS YOU CAN PROBABLY GIVE IT A GOOD WALLOP

[hyper-ultra]

AGAINST THOUGHT, AGAINST SUBJECTIVITY

THERE IS A TENDENCY I HAVE NOTICED, NEARLY EVERYWHERE

I NOTICE IT IN POSTS EXTOLLING THE VIRTUES OF YOUR FAVORITE SHOW, I SEE IT IN THE CRITICISMS OF SHOWS YOU DISLIKE, I SEE IT IN THE ENTIRETY OF THE ‘ACADEMIA’ DISCOURSE, THE WHOLE ‘ACCESSIBILITY’ DISCOURSE

I WANT TO CLARIFY RIGHT NOW THAT I AM BEING UTTERLY SERIOUS

ONE COULD CALL THIS TENDENCY ‘RADICAL SUBJECTIVITY’, OR THE SCHOOL OF ‘RADICAL THOUGHT’, WHICH VIEWS RADICALISM AS A THING YOU THINK, A PRODUCT OF THE WORLD OF THOUGHT.  RADICALISM IS HERE A SPIRIT, WHICH CAN BE DONE, BUT WHICH IS TARNISHED IN THE DOING, WHICH IS BEST EXPERIENCED THROUGH THOUGHT, THROUGH ART, THROUGH THE CONSUMPTION OF THE CORRECT INTELLECTUAL PROPERTIES, THROUGH THE ACTIVITIES OF THE MIND.

THIS ASSUMPTION UNDERPINS THE ENTIRETY OF THE ACADEMIA/ACCESSIBILITY DISCOURSE, WHERE WE ALL TACITLY ASSUME THAT TO BE A RADICAL MEANS TO READ/CREATE RADICAL LITERATURE, WHERE THE ISSUE WITH ACADEMIA IS THAT THE CORDON OFF RADICALISM FROM US WITHIN THEIR IVORY TOWERS OF THOUGHT.  THIS EXTENDS INTO THE REALM OF VERNACULAR DISCOURSE INTO A CONSTANT ANXIETY AT WHETHER WE ARE CONSUMING THE CORRECT THINGS, WHETHER OUR FAVORITE CHILDRENS ANIMATIONS ARE, AND I CANNOT PUT ENOUGH QUOTATION MARKS AROUND THIS, ‘RADICAL’ ENOUGH.  

RADICALISM BECOMES A THING CONSUMED, PRODUCED, DONE ENTIRELY WITHIN THE REALM OF THOUGHT

I WANT TO EXPRESS THE COUNTER ARGUMENT TO THIS ATTITUDE AS SUCCINCTLY AS POSSIBLE

RADICALISM IS NOT A THING YOU THINK IT IS A THING YOU DO.  IT DOES NOT EXIST ABSTRACTLY, AND THE DISCOURSE SALESMEN WHO WOULD ARGUE OTHERWISE ARE TRYING TO SELL, IN THE END, A SENSE OF SUPERIORITY WHICH WILL DO NOTHING BUT ALIENATE YOU.

[gothhabiba]

Samantha: do the people know about Ampersand Island?

me: ... no.....

[gothhabiba]

this is Ampersand Island. every time I come across a beautiful, interesting, or unusual ampersand in my archival travels I take a screenshot and place it neatly in this little pile on my desktop

[gothhabiba]

[gettingintoknives]

yes exactly

[argumate]

vampirebicth said: gods are real. all of them. they have an impact on the world around them - they change laws, inspire cruelty and charity, comfort people and cast them out. real communities are built around them, some of the last still sticking around. people devote their whole lives to them, make art for them, pray to them before they do anything else to fix things. just because we made them doesn’t mean that they’re not real.

yes and Marvel characters are also this real, although hopefully have inspired fewer murders (so far).

obviously fictional characters, literary devices, and even mathematical abstractions are “real” in the sense that they are instantiated in the minds of human beings and encoded in speech acts and books and movies without being real in the sense of being agents that actually exist and act in the world outside of people thinking about them.

the mosquito that sucks my blood exists and does things even when I’m not observing it, but Dracula only exists in our thoughts and words.

[argumate]

every single assertion involving the word “real” has someone come back and say well, what do you mean by real? and it’s like you know, the usual.

[lorec-x]

Is money real?

[argumate]

yes, in the obvious sense: cash and bank deposits are literal things that exist in the world, but the perception of money that some people have (that “one dollar” has an intrinsic value independent of social context) is obviously mistaken

[lorec-x]

What about the truth value of the statement “I am driving a car”? Physics makes no distinction between car-ness and non-car-ness; if all humans suddenly vanished from Earth tomorrow, physics would not particularly continue to notice the presence of cars, as distinct from trucks, tractors, and the rest of matter following the universal, uniform laws of how quanta, forces, time, and space interact. Without any observers, cars would not particularly continue to be real.

Are they real now?

[argumate]

the truth value of most statements is obviously a flexible and socially contingent thing, as concepts of “driving” and “cars” shift over time, this is basic stuff and somewhat orthogonal to what is “real”.

one could as well ask if humans are “real” given that you cannot mark an exact distinction between pre-human ancestors and post-human descendants, and yet individual humans do very much exist in the world and “humans” are an abstract category over those real things, and that abstract category is instantiated in our minds (and our books and other communications etc.)

[catilinas]

you should be able to wash your hair and it stays washed. what do you mean i have to do it again

[slygirlboy]

also ok maybe this is gonna make me sound stupid but like the concept of money and currency and shot is just. really fucking stupid. its not just me right

[slygirlboy]

like heres gold, this kind of shitty material that looks pretty. we all agree it has value for some reason. you can trade it for foods and services and whatever.

but we arent even doing that. we are trading bills that, theoretically could be turned in for gold, and these bills are used to buy things

except we arent even really doing that anymore, its all mostly just numbers in a computer now. sorry, you dont have enough numbers so you have to starve/be denied healthcare/ whatever other horrible thing

[poststructuralistvibes]

Your thoughts touch on the concepts explored in the poststructuralist body of work. I'm particularly fond of how Guy Debord treats the issue of symbolic/fictional capital. Here's a link to a free pdf: Source: Sacramento State https://www.csus.edu/indiv/o/obriene/art206/readings/debord-the_society_of_the_spectacle.pdf

[cryptotheism]

in your christmas porn poem, what did you mean by baudrillardic?

Christmas porn is the realm of the hyperreal, the image-body.