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What Kafka got right is how societies can become busily dysfunctional.

For self-evident reasons, the fictional visions of Orwell and Huxley resonate as maps to the present distemper. Orwell's account of full-spectrum technological totalitarianism maps Big Tech's mastery of Surveillance Capitalism and governments' full-spectrum surveillance powering the fine-grained coercion of social credit scores and related tools.

Huxley's vision of a doped-up, med-dependent populace that loves its servitude also maps the present. Indeed, not only do we love our servitude, which manifests in our endless addictions and dependencies on everything from debt to junk food to painkillers, our servitude has been so normalized that we don't even recognize the servitude that underpins "normal life."

What Orwell and Huxley got wrong is the limits of these nightmarishly effective systems of control. Full-spectrum technological totalitarianism can certainly enforce compliance with the desired behaviors and expressions of consent, but it can't force individuals to have ambition or creativity, to marry for love and children, or possess values or beliefs beyond the superficial lip-syncing of compliance.

The coercive structures of the Surveillance State and Surveillance Capitalism are intrinsically inauthentic, ersatz, hollow, demanding an entirely artificial and easily faked appearance of consent that mimics devotion to the principles and narratives being shoved down the throats of the populace.

These structures enforce what isn't allowed and superficial compliance, but they can't force what actually makes a society functional: the convictions, hopes and values that inspire individuals to marry, raise a family and pursue self-expression via achievement. What actually happens in societies controlled by the Surveillance State and Surveillance Capitalism is decay and decline, as young people abandon ambition, marriage and raising children by lying flat and letting it rot, expressions of young people in China that speak to youth everywhere where compliance is more important than individual liberty.

If you doubt these dynamics, please observe the dismay of authorities as their national marriage and birth rates collapse. All sorts of explanations for this collapse are offered, except the ones that count: societies that require an appearance of consent are inauthentic, hollow shells.

The same can be said of doped-up, med-dependent, entertainment-addicted societies that love their servitude. Individuals give up ambition, marriage and raising children due to soaring costs, out-of-reach financial security, and the debilitating consequences of all the Soma, meds, addictions, distractions and derangements that are accepted as "normal."

What Kafka got right is everyone's super-busy but nothing gets done. In Kafka's novel The Castle, the bureaucracy toiling unseen in the Castle is bustling 24/7, but nothing actually gets done in the impoverished village below. Attempts to reach the bureaucracy by phone are futile, as calls are only picked up randomly or as pranks.

("You've reached the DMV, the IRS, Xfinity, Engulf and Devour Healthcare, etc. Your call is very important to us...")

In Kafka's fictional world, the authority to actually get anything done is always out of reach. In The Castle, the leader who supposedly has the power to approve projects sits isolated in his office, unreachable and unapproachable, though he can be seen reading a newspaper through a peephole. Whether he actually possesses the power to approve anything is an open question with no answer.

Kafka's world is one of cowed peasants bickering among themselves, nurturing grudges and speculating fruitlessly about the cloaked conspiracies of the authorities in the Castle. The sexual predations of the authorities and the dismal fates of they used and abandoned are described in whispers, and what work that is available is menial and poorly paid.

What Kafka got right is how societies can become busily dysfunctional, cluttered with unseen lines of authority that may not actually have the authority their official titles suggest, an inscrutably unreachable, unseen bureaucracy and an impoverished populace muddling along on gossip and rumors.

Stripped of gaslighting, fake optimism and empty exhortations to YOLO borrow and spend, that's a fair description of our current situation. Yes, yes, everything's wunnerful, it's The Roaring 20s all over again (never mind how the 1920s ended), AI is gonna make corporations trillions in profits by further immiserating the populace, oops I mean "improving productivity," and our tireless authorities are hard at work solving all our problems--don't you hear the whirring of the "money" printing presses running 24/7?

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
PEOPLE can continue to function at a very low level, but can a SOCIETY continue to function in the long run, i.e. over several generations?

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I guess answering that question requires that the word "society" be defined.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
PEOPLE can continue to function at a very low level, but can a SOCIETY continue to function in the long run, i.e. over several generations?

SIX: Sure. I believe it can. In many ways I believe we've seen the degradation taking place over generations already. What has allowed an "equilibrium" of sorts while this has taken place is the proliferation of technology and manufacturing to make up for it. The average life is infinitely "easier" than it was 100 years ago. And now that we've automated most processes that required skilled people who took a lifetime to learn those skills and gotten to the point where most jobs that still need doing are something almost any idiot could manage (and could and likely will be replaced by automation in the future), we've got the technology on hand to fill up most of that down time so people don't have to dwell so much on the pointless existence they have ahead of them.

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SIGNY: I guess answering that question requires that the word "society" be defined.

SIX: And that's the thing right there...
I don't think we have a very good "society" ahead of us. It certainly will come nothing close to what anyone of any mindset would call idyllic.

But it will continue to function. All it needs is an extremely basic level of knowledge or input or desire on almost everyone's part to do that without completely falling apart. I'd argue that even if we manage to turn the next couple of generations into fully formed adults that walk around with the mind of 5 year old children we could still "function".

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The people on top care very little about how the rest of us live our lives as long as it isn't negatively impacting their own. And it turns out that it can get pretty lousy for everyone else before it ever risks adverse effects on their own lives.

That is, unless, there actually are real truths to the manmade climate changes. And if that's the case, I hate to break it to any of the idealists out there, but we're going right back to the subject of the overpopulation problem.

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SIX: Not only aren't at least half of the human beings on this planet completely redundant,

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SIX: but if they're actually contributing to a real problem that needs a solution it's not going to be the gas burning cars that need to go... it's going to be at least 4 billion people that need to go.

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SIX They've already got a plan for all of that.

Just like the barely functioning "society" that we have to look forward to in the future, they care just as little about how many bodies are actually inhabiting it as they do the quality of the lives being lived in it.

I just hope for their sakes that they really planned it all out and have contingency plans in place at every single step. When man decides to mess too much with Mother Nature, she's usually pretty good at messing right back.

And I'm not confident that they've got the right people in place to think about all of the possible outcomes of what they're going to eventually end up doing about the problems before them, and when something inevitably goes sideways, I'm not convinced they've thought about all the possible ways that it could go sideways and what they'd need to already have in place to put out those fires that are too late to put out.

They say there's a reason why we're likely to never see extra terrestrial life, and that's because any species that had evolved to the point where interstellar travel could be in their future found a way to extinct themselves before they ever got there.

I'd say we've got about a couple of hundred years left before we truly figure out those mysteries, but when your most brilliant minds are spending their time figuring out how to make bioweapons in the military or coming up with the more effective boner pills in the civilian market, I'm not too hopeful that us lowly Earthlings are ever going to make that leap.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Wish I had more time. I'd like to get back to this.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So, what are you saying, SECOND? That automation is a two-edged sword that benefits some but not everyone? We know that.

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
The real question is, can Second have a single conversation without injecting Trump into it?

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Personally, I think if something happened that just destroyed all technology it would be the best thing to happen to the planet, including people.

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What's it all done for anybody other than make life last twice as long and easy enough where we get to make up a bunch of problems. Maybe some other species out there could improve as technology improved, but we're not it.

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As for the other countries cutting us off, I'm fine with that. It's not going to make their lives any better either.

We've got everything we need to live here. We need to cut everyone else off and fortify the defenses here. Let the rest of the world deal with their own problems. [/

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Personally, I think if something happened that just destroyed all technology it would be the best thing to happen to the planet, including people.

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There's a lot of technology I wouldn't want to do without, like fire, indoor plumbing, and air conditioning. What level of technology do you think would be more helpful, and what point does it become a hinderance?

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I'm thinking anything that involves any sort of micro-processing. I think everything that you and I would want to live with would still be available to us once the withdrawal from all things internet wore off.

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What's it all done for anybody other than make life last twice as long and easy enough where we get to make up a bunch of problems. Maybe some other species out there could improve as technology improved, but we're not it.

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A large part of the problem is "who is making the decisions" to jump into a specific technology? Right now, it's venture capitalists, startups, and governments (including China) looking for The Next Big Thing to make $$$$. They don't care what the ultimate effect is.

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We will never have responsible people in charge of technology. It's one of the reasons we shouldn't have it. Arguably the main reason.

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As for the other countries cutting us off, I'm fine with that. It's not going to make their lives any better either.

We've got everything we need to live here. We need to cut everyone else off and fortify the defenses here. Let the rest of the world deal with their own problems. [/

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I agree that it would be better for us in the long run. But it would be a helluva transition. Altho we have a lot of resources we don't have the manufacturing capacity for even the most basic industries like steel- making. And TPTB won't invest in the USA. They'll just take their $$$ and convert it to whatever currency they can and speculate elsewhere, pretty much abandoning us. And our government, beholden to big $$$, would go along with it.

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None of the actual solutions to any of our problems are going to be painless and easy.

That's why nothing will ever be done until it's too late.

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I imagine 20 years of giant clusterfuck, and it could easily go to outright tyranny, like what happened in Germany under Hitler. "Never let a good crisis go to waste " is the operating principal of our government, and this would be a crisis like we've never seen in our entire national history.

It would take a giant remake of our government and its policies, like what happened in Russia under Putin: half-nationalization (government is 51 -100% shareholder of oil, gas, weapons, civil aeronautics, mining, shipping and ship building, telecoms including satellites, banking and bank insurance, electric energy and nuclear power etc) by a government DETERMINED to rebuild America. Not just economically but socially.

Not the quislings who currently infest DC.

A political revolution, if not an actual one.

The next challenge after that is, having handed government a huge amount of power, keeping the government clean and honest.

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Also though, my neighborhood is fine. I live in a Republican ran state and I'm 150 miles away from Democrat shithole Indianapolis. We don't have bums living out on the street and shit and hypodermic needles lying around everywhere.

It's not as if the entire country is becoming a "filthy disgusting schizo degenerate sh**hole". But there are very large pockets containing a very large portion of the electorate that live in such places.

At least, for now, it hasn't bled very much into the suburbs.

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Originally posted by second:

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Also though, my neighborhood is fine. I live in a Republican ran state and I'm 150 miles away from Democrat shithole Indianapolis. We don't have bums living out on the street and shit and hypodermic needles lying around everywhere.

It's not as if the entire country is becoming a "filthy disgusting schizo degenerate sh**hole". But there are very large pockets containing a very large portion of the electorate that live in such places.

At least, for now, it hasn't bled very much into the suburbs.

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It is revealing that Trumptard-controlled states strongly tend to have lower incomes compared to Democrat controlled.

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Originally posted by JAYNEZTOWN:
I think maybe Rival Counties and Parish in a game or bid, Family Business vs other business, the Competition, an enterprise created by workers, individuals, stockholders, shareholders and designers in contest against other Corporations in a Free and Fair market...not crony capitalism, but both Big and Small Business and the States running against each other to see who have the best ideas and all of that is a fine idea but 'Compliance'...misconduct delinquency troublemaking revolt DO NOT COMPLY! the Compiance termis not a word I would use, its just too much for me, and describe the wrong stuff like a stubborn angry creature freaking out in the animal kingdom

I don't normally agree with Jimmy Kimmel

but he's correct the West is becoming a filthy disgusting schizo degenerate sh**hole

while other places are CLEAN and FUNCTIONAL


If Trump said that...soon it might have to add USA and other Western nations to the list of 'Countries'

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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Originally posted by JAYNEZTOWN:
I think maybe Rival Counties and Parish in a game or bid, Family Business vs other business, the Competition, an enterprise created by workers, individuals, stockholders, shareholders and designers in contest against other Corporations in a Free and Fair market...not crony capitalism, but both Big and Small Business and the States running against each other to see who have the best ideas and all of that is a fine idea but 'Compliance'...misconduct delinquency troublemaking revolt DO NOT COMPLY! the Compiance termis not a word I would use, its just too much for me, and describe the wrong stuff like a stubborn angry creature freaking out in the animal kingdom

I don't normally agree with Jimmy Kimmel

but he's correct the West is becoming a filthy disgusting schizo degenerate sh**hole

while other places are CLEAN and FUNCTIONAL


If Trump said that...soon it might have to add USA and other Western nations to the list of 'Countries'

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Just to get back to this....

First of all, I would eliminate the stocks and stockholders. IN THEORY, making a number of people part owners would give them, you would think, a vested interest in how the company is run. IN PRACTICE, stocks values are determined by speculators who can choose between stock futures, Treasuries, and commodities futures, and stock holders are more interested in speculating than making their company function. So companies are run with an eye to stock prices, which disorts their internal policies.

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So creating a host of smaller startups - even cooperatives- won't prevent to problems of monopolies and automation from recurring.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Something that libertarians fail to take into account. They think that by reaffirming that all people own themselves and violence is forbidden from extracting exploitative agreements, everything will be peachy keen and we'll reach utopia. They don't realize that market forces create crushingly powerful entities that steamroll entire nations.

I used to discuss this with GEEZER ... that successful small companies that grow midsized will be bought up by giants bc the ONE THING that any big business hates is competition. Every example he came up with ... the two that I remember specifically were Ben$Jerry's and Burt's Bees... turned out to have been bought up.

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger

Why SECOND'S posts are brainless: "I clocked how much time: no more than 10 minutes per day. With cut-and-paste (Ctrl C and Ctrl V) and AI, none of this takes much time."
Or, any verification or thought.

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