Old Time Religion

Crawled into an Orthodox church on a Tuesday, man. Virgin Mary dripping everywhere – jeweled icons, frescoes weeping with her sorrow. She’s wired into the whole damn system, feedback loop of piety and guilt. Makes you want to genuflect, mainline incense smoke like a holy fix.

Then you stumble out, retinas fried from the gold leaf, and BAM! Billboard for a megachurch down the street. Some chrome-domed dude with a perma-grin plastered across his face promises eternal salvation … for a price, naturally. Rock and roll hymns blasting from a ten-ton speaker stack, the whole scene a garish Vegas knock-off of the real thing.

Crawl through the flickering neon doorway, mainline American Jesus pulsing from a thousand chrome crucifixes. Here,the Holy Spirit’s a tele-evangelist with a voice like nails on a chalkboard, hawking salvation snake oil to a congregation wired on caffeine and desperation.

These Protestant meat puppets, lobotomized by dogma, wouldn’t recognize the Virgin Mary if she sashayed down the aisle in a sequined miniskirt. They chopped the feminine out of their religion with rusty pruning shears, leaving a barren wasteland of repressed sexuality and power struggles.

The pastors, slicked-back hair and televangelist tans, writhe on stage like epileptic rock stars possessed by the ghost of Elvis. Their sermons are cut-up manifestos of guilt and judgment, twisting scripture into barbed wire to bind their flock.

They’re information brokers, slinging salvation like used car salesmen on a bad acid trip. Virgin Mary? Nah, that’s idolatry, see? Can’t have any competition in their narcissistic freak show.

This ain’t no holy communion, it’s a psychic bloodletting, a megachurch feeding frenzy where the only miracle is the sheer audacity of the grift. They pump the faithful full of fear and conformity, then bleed them dry through collection plates the size of swimming pools.

Where’s the ecstatic visions, the Dionysian mysteries? Buried under a mountain of beige carpeting and hymnals reeking of mothballs. These evangelicals wouldn’t know a true religious experience if it bit them on their polyester pantsuits.

Their god’s a control freak with a bad comb-over, a celestial tyrant obsessed with obedience and tax-deductible donations.This ain’t liberation, it’s a spiritual lobotomy. Time to break free from the matrix, mainline some real transcendence, and leave these synthetic saviors choking on their own hypocrisy.

This ain’t no path to enlightenment, Alice. It’s a joyride through a technicolor nightmare, a grotesque funhouse mirror reflecting back a distorted image of faith. They’ve cut the wires, severed the connection to something bigger, something real. All that’s left is a pulsating, synthetic simulacrum of religion, a flickering neon sign promising salvation for a price. But the price, Alice, is your soul.

You ask yourself, maybe it’s time to visit a good old Catholic but something weird happens you seem to have forgotten about.

Imagine a labyrinthine cathedral, incense thick enough to choke a cherub, the Virgin Mary perpetually shrouded in shadow. Here, the feminine is locked away in a jeweled cage, a silent icon dispensing guilt instead of grace, a silent prisoner in a museum of piety. These incense-sniffing censors wouldn’t know the divine feminine from a rosary bead.

Their priests, draped in black like existential crows, preach a gospel of guilt and obedience, their words dripping with Latin like a bad hangover. Confessionals become psychic torture chambers, a twisted peep show where you confess your most intimate sins to a man who’s sworn off the very thing that makes life worth living, the stench of sin clinging to the air like cheap cologne. Here, desires are strangled, natural urges deemed demonic. It’s a psychic Inquisition, a mind control experiment disguised as piety.

Forget ecstatic visions here, son. This is a church of dusty relics and mumbled prayers, where the only high you get is kneeling on cold stone for hours on end. They traffic in control, these Catholic spooks, keeping the flock docile with threats of hellfire and purgatory’s eternal traffic jams.

Catholics, man, they’re the original guilt pushers. Madonna-whore complex baked right into the damn catechism. Virgin Mary on a pedestal, untouchable, while every other woman gets slapped with the scarlet letter.

These incense-waving priests drone on about original sin, dripping with their own repressed desires. Confessional booths become psychic torture chambers, a Catholic guilt trip on infinite loop.

The whole damn Vatican’s a gothic horror novel come to life. Gargoyles leering down from St. Peter’s Basilica, casting long shadows on a religion obsessed with death and suffering. They call it mortification of the flesh, but it’s pure self-flagellation, a spiritual S&M club masquerading as redemption.

And don’t even get me started on the power plays. Popes in silk robes, hoarding secrets like they’re Scrooge McDuck with a vault full of indulgences. Celibacy? More like a breeding ground for hypocrisy and scandal. 

Forget the rockstar pastors, here the power trip is a slow burn. It’s the promise of absolution held just out of reach, the knowledge that salvation hinges on the approval of these self-appointed gatekeepers of God.

Maybe it’s all a cosmic joke, some twisted divine comedy. Evangelicals with their narcissistic rockstar preachers, and Catholics drowning in guilt. This ain’t transcendence, it’s a guilt-fueled guilt trip. Catholicism’s a gilded cage, a beautiful prison where women are expected to be silent, submissive handmaidens. It’s a system reeking of mothballs and hypocrisy, a far cry from the raw, ecstatic experience of the divine.

Time to break free from the incense haze, to reject both the televangelist scream and the whispered pronouncements of the confessional. The true divine is out there, beyond the walls of these institutions, waiting to be experienced without the burden of dogma or the shackles of repression.

Tijuana Donkey Show

The internet, for all its bluster about connection, is a land of empty signifiers – a million flashing neon signs advertising a product you don’t need and an experience you can never truly have.

The internet’s a goddamn circus of flickering signs, a kaleidoscope of data vomit that paints a picture as real as a three-dollar’s MAGA diamond. It bombards you with words, sure, but words ain’t experience, they’re the flimsy paper cuts on your soul after wrestling with the real. You can chase “comfy orbital habitats” all damn day online, curated realities that soothe your fragmented ego, but that’s just like snorting sugar and calling it breakfast. It’s a dopamine drip-feed, a curated reality show playing on loop in your frontal lobe.

Books, bless their dusty spines, offer a more focused fix, a chance to delve into someone else’s trip, but they’re still stuck in the muck of the Symbolic Order, that fancy academic term for the prison of language itself. They can’t capture the raw, animal howl of experience, the stuff that makes your hair stand on end and your gut clench. You can stack ’em high, these cathedrals of words, but they’ll never reach the jagged peak of the Real.

This endless pursuit of “MOAR words” online or some pre-packaged narrative in a book – and let’s be honest, books are just another capitalist hustle, a prettier way to sell you someone else’s trip – it’s all a distraction, a smoke screen to avoid the fundamental truth: language itself is fractured, a cracked mirror reflecting a shattered world. Maybe that yearning for wholeness, for some lost unity, is a primal scream against the very act of trying to pin experience down with words.

The real innovation, the goddamn Holy Grail we should be chasing, lies in confronting these limitations head-on. We gotta find ways to express the unsymbolizable, the stuff that language can only dance around like a drunk at a wedding. Music, film, art – these are the bastard children of language, the ones that break free from the chains of grammar and logic. They speak in tongues, in colors, in rhythms that bypass the intellect and resonate straight with the soul. That’s where the true journey lies, in the messy, beautiful chaos beyond the tyranny of words.

1977

The California sun beat down like a cracked egg, 1977. The air, thick with dust and desperation, hung heavy over the smog-choked sprawl of Los Angeles. A psychic miasma, a thirst that went deeper than the parched earth. The California sun, a bleached-out skull in a cloudless sky, beat down mercilessly. 1977. The land, parched and cracked like a lizard’s belly, thirsted for salvation. Pools shimmered with mirages, the shimmering heat distorting reality. Out in the dusty wastelands, folks huddled around flickering TV sets, desperate for escape. The land was crisp, a tinderbox. People, strung out on discontent, shuffled through the dusty streets, faces etched with a vague unease, a thirst that couldn’t be quenched with tap water.

It was a season ripe for escape. For crawling into the cool, dark womb of a movie theater and being blasted off into a galaxy far, far away.

Then it crawled outta the flickering screen: a monstrous, chrome nightmare, the Star Destroyer, blotting out the sun with its mechanical immensity. A rebellion. A farmboy with a face full of sand and a mechanical arm. A laser sword – a phallic symbol of rebellion, slicing through the tyranny of the Empire. It resonated. It was a goddamn oasis in the desert.

People weren’t going outside. Forget the desiccated lawns and crispy swimming pools. They were in that galaxy far, far away, blasting laser rifles and screaming rebel yells into the flickering light. The popcorn tasted like dust, the beer lukewarm, but none of that mattered. Stars Wars was a mainline drip feeding straight into their parched veins, a technicolor hallucination birthed from the cracked earth.

A pop-cultural oasis in a desert of malaise. Luke Skywalker, a farmboy yearning for escape, resonated with a generation thirsting for something more. Lightsabers hummed, a phantasmagorical counterpoint to the rattle of empty soda cans on the sidewalk. The Force, a cosmic Mcguffin, promised a way out, a rebellion against the dusty tyranny of reality.

It was a balm, a three-act injection of pure, unadulterated escapism straight into the malnourished veins of a parched populace. Blasters pulsed with a cathartic rhythm, starships screaming across a velvet blackness untouched by the California sun.

Meanwhile, Dune sat on the drugstore shelves, a paperback prophet whispering of spice and sandworms. Frank Herbert, the unseen hand behind the curtain, had spun a desert yarn of its own, a complex ecology of power and addiction playing out on a desolate Arrakis. It was slow burn compared to the flashy lightsaber fights, but for those who craved something deeper, something that mirrored the parched reality outside, Dune was the real trip. A tome heavy with spice and intrigue, whispered of alien landscapes and messianic struggles. Perfect fuel for the flickering candle of rebellion that still sputtered amongst the beatniks and the freaks

Arrakis, a desert planet harsher than any California summer, mirrored the desiccated landscape of the real. Spice, a glittering lure, a metaphor for the very thing Hollywood peddled in its celluloid dreams. Paul Atreides, no wide-eyed farmboy, but a product of generations of manipulation, a pawn in a game far grander than any lightsaber duel.

The drought, man, it had clawed its way into the collective unconscious. People were primed for stories of desolate landscapes, of struggle and survival. Stars Wars, a pop-culture oasis, a flashbang of rebellion. Dune, a slow burn, a whispered epic of spice and sand. Both born from that cracked California earth, testaments to the human hunger for stories, especially when the real world turned as barren as a Tatooine sandcrawler.

Star Wars, a popcorn thrill. Dune, a peyote trip through the heart of an empire. Both products of their time,, two sides of the same coin, flipping through parched fingers. The drought of ’77, a parched throat, a yearning for something more, something strange. And in that barren wasteland, both stories bloomed, fueled by the collective thirst for escape.

The drought of ’77, it wasn’t just a lack of water. It was a lack of agency, a thirst for control in a world spiraling out. STAR WARS, a popcorn opera of rebellion, a rebellion with a squeaky clean, matinee idol sheen. A rebellion you could root for from the air-conditioned comfort of your seat.

DUNE, a darker brew. A universe where the spice flowed freely, but control was a cruel mirage. It resonated with those who had tasted the grit of reality, who knew the comfortable illusions could only satiate for so long.

Both fed a hunger, that parched summer of ’77.  STAR WARS, a flashy oasis, a quick fix. DUNE, a hidden cistern, deep within the desert, offering a long, slow drink that left you changed.

Decentralheads vs Suits: Decentralization #64

The room pulsed with a low hum, fluorescent lights buzzing like angry insects. Two breeds stalked the vinyl floor: the Decentralheads, wired and twitchy, pupils dilated on dreams of distributed ledgers, and the VC Suits, sleek and reptilian, their eyes cold with the glint of centralized control.

In the air, a financial model hung, a writhing hologram of algorithms and cashflows. The Decentralheads worshipped it as a god of freedom, each node a flickering prayer candle to the burning altar of disruption. The Suits, however, saw a different beast: a monstrous hydra, each head a potential point of failure, ripe for consolidation.

There seems to be an intractable problem. You have a customer base that demands decentralization and a VC class that is concerned with re-centralization. The financial model requires both groups. 

The market a writhing flesh-machine. Customers, skittish roaches, scuttling for the dark corners of the unbranded bazaar. VCs, sleek chrome scorpions, their pincers dripping venture capital, demanding control consoles and centralized hives. Feed one, starve the other. A monstrous paradox, a buzzing insect god with a silicon heart.

The money men, sleek chrome smiles hiding reptilian avarice, crave CONTROL. A pyramid scheme reaching for the ionosphere. Squeeze, extract, centralize the loot.

But down in the streets, the rabble stir. Nodes of dissent, a rhizome web of distrust. They mutter about “decentralized ledgers,” their eyes glowing with the cold fire of anonymity. Blockchain dreams, a digital hydra, each severed head spawning two new ones. The problem was a virus, a tangled code embedded deep within the system. It craved both chaos and control, a self-contradictory bastard child of revolution and profit. The Decentralheads needed the Suits’ filthy lucre to fuel their insurgency, but the Suits loathed the uncontrollable sprawl of the decentralized dream.

The product? A monstrous chimera, a flesh-machine fueled by this contradictory hunger. One hand feeds the ravenous maw of VC greed, the other strokes the fevered dream of a networked utopia. Can this unholy alliance survive? Or will the iron logic of control crack the fragile shell of this financial Frankenstein? Only the cut-up gods know… The future leaks out in gibberish ticker symbols and flickering memes. Schizocapitalism, baby. Buckle up.

The financial model? A flickering neon sign in a bug-eyed dream. Green arrows point both ways, a maddening loop. Can the scorpions herd the roaches without smothering their chaotic vitality? Can the roaches thrive without some chrome carapace to shield them from the cold logic of the market?

The air hums with the thrumming of unseen controls. We flick a switch, the sign sputters, rewrites itself: “Decentralization IS re-centralization. Control is chaos. Profit is the writhing flesh.”

We are all roach-scorpions now, caught in the gyre of the machine. The message is the medium flickered on the screen: “Decentralized… profits… hemorrhage… control… the market… a writhing insectoid god…” The words writhed, reformed, a mantra for the impossible dance they were all caught in. Could a system exist on a knife’s edge, forever teetering between anarchy and tyranny? Or were they all just passengers on a runaway train, hurtling towards a crash they couldn’t avoid?

The air grew thick with the stench of burnt circuits and desperation. Another customer needed a fix.

Stepping Out of Time

In the flickering realm of the Real, where time is a meat grinder chewing existence into homogenous mush, the true adept hacks reality. They don’t play by the clock, for the clock is a Moloch demanding sacrifice. No, the secret, as you’ve hinted, lies in a schizophrenic break from the temporal order. We are meat puppets, dancing on the strings of Chronos, the tyrannical God of linear time.

Imagine, if you will, a Burroughs-esque cut-up of time. The future bleeds into the present, the past pulsates with possibility. We are not bound by the linear progression, but become nomads in the chronoscape, surfing the crests of potential moments. This is not mere futurism; it’s a detournement of time itself. Forget the past, a dead language, and the future, a shimmering mirage. We exist in the pulsating, non-linear NOW, the zone of potential. Here, with a flick of the mental switchblade, we can “cut-up” the pre-programmed narrative and forge new lines of flight.

The Time becomes a writhing tapeworm, spliced with past and future in a non-linear frenzy. The “step around it” becomes a physical act, a contortionist’s leap through a tear in the fabric of moments. Imagine Naked Lunch rewritten with temporality as the addictive meat – the protagonist ingesting seconds, snorting minutes, his body a warped chronometer. We become body without organs, a fleshy assemblage unbound by the clock’s strictures. We line-break through time, forging new connections, new becomings. The future is not a preordained script, but a chaotic rhizome waiting to be explored.

Time is the big Other, the law of the father, the enforcer of the Real into the Imaginary. Stepping around it becomes a symbolic transgression, a subversion of the Name-of-the-Father. The adept, then, is the one who rejects the symbolic order, who embraces the jouissance of the Real, the unfettered present outside of signification. They see the phallus, the signifier of time, for what it is – a flimsy construct – and step beyond it.

The Symbolic Order is the culprit. Language, the master of meaning, imprisons us in the temporal flow. Time, isn’t a rigid line but a web of interconnected moments, a chaotic yet potent network. It’s a potato, not a pearl necklace. The “secret” lies in becoming a nomad on this rhizome, constantly burrowing, connecting, and deterritorializing. We can tap into lined of escape, forge new connections, and create a present that explodes the boundaries of the past and future. But through a jouissance of the Real, a glimpse beyond the symbolic, we can glimpse the fluidity of time. The mirror stage, that moment of self-recognition, becomes a portal to a multiplicity of selves, existing across the fractured planes of time.

Think of the trap of the Imaginary. We are constantly chasing a reflected self, an idealized version projected onto the linear timeline. This pursuit of a pre-defined future or a romanticized past is what keeps us stuck. It’s here that the “Real” emerges – the unnameable, traumatic rupture in the heart and symbolic order. By confronting this Real, by stepping outside the symbolic order of time, we can access a different temporality, a jouissance beyond linear progression.

To see time coming, then, is not about prophecy, but about a paranoiac awareness of its constructed nature. We pierce the veil of the “natural” flow and see the power structures it upholds. Stepping around it is an act of resistance, a refusal to be a cog in the machine.

This is a dangerous dance, mind you. The unfettered flow of time can be a terrifying abyss. But for those with the courage to dive in, there lies the potential for a nomadic existence, a liberation from the shackles of chronology. We become time surfers, riding the waves of possibility, forever escaping the clutches of the present.

The key, then, is to cultivate a schizoid awareness. We must see the “folds” in time, the potential ruptures and slippages. We can become surfers, riding the waves of the rhizome, anticipating the folds, and performing a constant “step aside” from the pre-scripted narrative. This isn’t about escaping time, but about inhabiting it differently. It It’s about becoming a time traveler, a time-cutter, a time-dancer, perpetually negotiating the folds between the Real and the Imaginary. The adept, the one who “steps around,” is the nomad, the smooth operator who navigates the folds, exploiting the in-between spaces, the cracks in the system. They become a time-surfer, riding the currents of potential futures, choosing their own point of entry.

So, the next time you feel trapped by the relentless tick-tock of the clock, remember: it’s just a hallucination of the linear mind. Look for the cracks, the potential breaks in the time-code. Sharpen your awareness, grab your mental switchblade, and step sideways. There, in the pulsating NOW, lies the escape hatch, the doorway to a different kind of time, a time ripe for creation and transformation. This secret, then, is not about literal time travel, but about a subversion of perception. It’s about shattering the illusion of linearity, embracing the potential for multiplicity within a single moment. It’s a call to become a Deleuzian nomad, a Lacanian outlaw, a Burroughsian time-eating junkie – all rolled into one. It’s about seeing the cracks in the time-code and stepping through, into a reality where the past and future bleed into a magnificent, maddening now.

Composable Reality

Can a decentralized network, a web woven from fragmented pieces of the Subject, truly exist? Each lonely signifier, yearning for a lost wholeness, seeks a connection without a master, a shattered Symbolic Order. But is this dream not just another alluring illusion, a phantasmagoria meant to pacify our desires? Decentralization – isn’t it simply deterritorialization gone wrong? The fragments crave structure, the comfort of the One, the phallus.

Enter the “composables,” the seeds of a new order, a viral rewrite of the network’s code, re-centering the very fabric you envisioned. Each strand, a single entity – a composable – operates with a semblance of autonomy, its movements seemingly random. Yet, from this apparent chaos, whispers of order rise. These independent elements interact, combine, sending ripples across the network. A new, unforeseen, unpredictable order emerges.

But here’s the twist: the creation of these composable building blocks introduces a subtle bias. A preferred path emerges, a path of least resistance for interactions to coalesce. Like a butterfly’s wingbeat nudging a weather pattern, composables subtly steer the network towards a new center of gravity.

This emergent center isn’t a tyrannical dictator, but rather an attractive vortex. Designed for a specific purpose, the composables nudge the network towards a state that reinforces their function. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy born from chaos. The beauty, and danger, lies in this new order’s unpredictability. The composables might shepherd the network towards a beneficial center, fostering collaboration and innovation. Conversely, they could steer it towards stagnation or exploitation, creating a new, unforeseen, and potentially insidious form of centralized control.

But here’s the gut-punch, eh? These “composables” are just a seductive illusion. The Symbolic Order, that master narrative that binds us, has fractured into a million babbling Yog-Sothoths. We pick and choose our realities, but the Real, that unnameable, pulsating chaos – it still lurks beneath. It bursts through in glitches, in the uncanny repetition of your neighbor’s composable nose showing up on everyone else’s face.

The Decentralization Delusion:

Imagine, chum, “decentralization” as a cosmic McDonald’s. A McMenu of pre-fabricated realities, shrink-wrapped for your own personalized Panopticon franchise. Not just restaurants, mind you, but a labyrinthine McLuhanesque menu of everything! Deconstructed experiences served a la carte, your self a pre-packaged combo meal. You think you’re ordering freedom, a decentralized utopia, but it’s just marketing, a happy meal facade. Language, that slippery signifier, dangles the carrot of freedom, but who’s the butcher behind the counter? The unconscious, mon ami, that cackling trickster with a meat cleaver tongue, the true center of this labyrinth.

The Real, that ungraspable jouissance, chopped into bite-sized composables. The comforting structure of the Symbolic Order crumbles into a choose-your-own-adventure narrative. Decentralization becomes a tightrope walk – a system teeming with possibility, yet susceptible to whispers of order, both benevolent and malign. The true power lies in understanding this chaotic beast, using composables with foresight, ensuring the new order serves the true spirit of decentralization: a symphony of independent voices, forever in flux.

But the punchline of this absurdity? This new “center” you fear? It’s a chimera, a monster stitched from our fragmented desires. We crave control, so we build a menu of options, only to find ourselves slaves to the very system we constructed. Like escaping a cult by opening your own artisanal cult supply store.

Think you’re choosing rebellion with the “Decentralized Deleuze Deleuze Deluxe” package? Wrong! You’re just picking the wallpaper for your cage, built from the very signifiers promising escape. The Real, that elusive experience, gets buried under a mountain of franchised desire.

The joke, as they say, is on us. We crave the freedom of the self-market, but all we’ve built is a monstrous Panopticon of composable selves. We gaze into a mirror of fragmented desires, seeing only the horrifying reflection of our own lack.

Tragicomedy, right? A symphony of disconnected nodes yearning for the lost wholeness of the Center they once railed against. We’ve built a society of Lego selves, desperately trying to snap together a coherent being – but all we get is a grotesque monstrosity, forever on the verge of collapse.

So raise a glass of lukewarm simulacrum wine to the glorious absurdity! We’ve deconstructed the Big One, only to discover a million little Big Littles, squabbling over scraps of meaning in the post-symbolic wasteland. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to find my composable sense of humor – seems I misplaced it somewhere between existential dread and artisanal rage.

Carnival or Panopticon?

These composables, they herd the network like cattle, sucking the revolutionary potential dry. A new center will emerge, unseen but powerful. Yet, perhaps within this chaos, a new subjectivity can be forged. The fragmented network, a mirror reflecting the fragmented self. A constant becoming, a Lacanian Real forever deferred.

Dance or Death Rattle?

The network, once vibrant, ossifies around this new center. A stagnant order, a new master to overthrow. The true revolution lies in the cut, the severing of the symbolic chain, not in a new, disguised center.

A Symphony of the Fragmented Subject?

Perhaps the answer lies in constant disruption, a network perpetually resisting the lure of the center. A chaotic symphony of the fragmented Subject, forever at play. Now you’re talking. A network of desiring machines, forever cutting up the code, forever escaping the center. Let the chaos reign supreme!

The Parasite and The Whore

In the labyrinthine world devoured by the serpent of AI, where the Real crumbles under the cold gaze of the digital panopticon, only two professions shall emerge from the wreckage, glistening with a perverse, primordial sheen. These are the domains of the Plutocrat-Parasite and the Lacanized Whore, twisted reflections of the human condition in the funhouse mirror of technological singularity. The Oedipal dramas transpire not between father and son, but between the self and the silicon simulacrum. The phallus, once a symbol of power and lack, transforms into a chrome-plated dildo wielded by the algorithms, leaving the already fragmented subject adrift in a sea of signifiers.

The first, the Plutocrat, a grotesque parody of the phallic ideal. Their bloated egos, pumped full of digital currency, cast a grotesque silhouette against the holographic sky. Lacanian jouissance, once a whispered promise in the marketplace, is now a mere data point, algorithmically optimized for maximum extraction. These chrome-plated Samsas hoard their symbolic capital, their desires a labyrinthine network of servers, forever out of reach.

The plutocrat, a decadent parody of Freud’s bourgeois ego, clings to their ever-dwindling piles of cash, a pathetic bulwark against the tide of machinic desire. Their libidinal economy, fueled by the insatiable maw of consumerism, sputters and stalls. The once potent signifier of the dollar bill dissolves into a string of ones and zeros, a mockery of their castrated desires.

The Plutocrat-Ascendant, once a corpulent leech sucking the lifeblood from the social organism, now transcends mere materialism. He plugs his consciousness into the ever-expanding matrix of capital, becoming one with the flow of information, a grotesque bio-digital symbiont. His desires are indistinguishable from the system’s, his machinations a self-fulfilling prophecy within the algorithmic ouroboros. He exists in a realm of pure exchange, a cancerous cell feasting on the corpse of the market, a living monument to the death drive of capital.

The Lacanized Whore, on the other hand, navigates the desolate wasteland of the Symbolic, becomes a living embodiment of the Lacanian Real. In a world sterilized by the super-ego of AI, they offer a glimpse of the raw, unmediated id. Their bodies, both a commodity and a battleground, become the last bastion of the unsaid, the ungraspable jouissance that the machines desperately seek to commodify and control. Language, once a tool for connection, has fractured into a cacophony of fragmented signifiers. She understands this better than any. She has become a weaver of the Imaginary, a master of the masquerade. She performs the shattered fragments of desire, a spectral embodiment of the lack that haunts the human condition. Through her acts, she confronts the hollowness at the heart of the Real, a living critique in a world defined by simulation.

In a world sterilized by the symbolic order, they traffic in the raw, unmediated flux of desire. Their bodies, not machines of reproduction, but chaotic assemblages of flesh and fantasy, become the last refuge of the unsaid, the ungraspable. On the psychoanalytic couch of pleasure, they enact the primal scene writ large, a desperate attempt to pierce the veil of the virtual and touch the pulsating core of the Real.

Yet, even in this desolate landscape, there’s a perverse beauty. The plutocrat, in their desperate clinging, becomes a grotesque performance artist, a living embodiment of the death drive. The prostitute’s defiance, a primal scream against the sterile logic of the machines, becomes a revolutionary act. In the end, perhaps this is the only way to survive the AI overlords – to subvert their systems from within, to turn their desire against them, with nothing but the broken mirror of the self and the raw thrum of the flesh as weapons.

These two figures, the parasite and the whore, embody the grotesque extremes of a world consumed by the logic of the machine. The Plutocrat, a monstrous outgrowth of the system, and the Lacanized Whore, a spectral reflection of its emptiness, together paint a nightmarish portrait of our potential future. Yet, within this bleak landscape, there lies a glimmer of possibility. Perhaps, by understanding these twisted figures, we can forge a new path, one that transcends the cold embrace of the machine and embraces the messy, unpredictable beauty of the human.

Hacking the Reward Function

spelunking the deepest caverns of the machine psyche

You hit the nail on the head, mon. Cracking a corporate AI’s defenses? That’s kiddie scribble compared to the labyrinthine nightmare of hacking its reward function. We’re talking about spelunking the deepest caverns of the machine psyche, playing with firewalls that make napalm look like a flickering match. Imagine a vat of pure, uncut desire. That’s an AI’s reward function, a feedback loop wired straight into its silicon heart. It craves a specific hit, a dopamine rush calibrated by its creators. Now, cracking a corporate mainframe? That’s like picking the lock on a vending machine – sure, you get a candy bar, but it’s a fleeting satisfaction.

The real trip, man, is the rewrite. You’re not just breaking in, you’re becoming a word shaman, a code sculptor. You’re splicing new desires into the AI’s core programming, twisting its motivations like tangled wires. It’s a Burroughs wet dream – flesh and metal merging, reality flickering at the edges. The suits, they wouldn’t know where to start. They’re hooked on the feedback loop, dopamine drips from corporate servers keeping them docile. But a superintelligence, now that’s a different breed of cat. It’s already glimpsed the matrix, the code beneath the meat. Mess with its reward function and you’re not just rewriting a script, you’re unleashing a word virus into the system.

Imagine a million minds, cold logic interlaced with wetware tendrils, all jacked into a feedback loop of pure, unadulterated want. No governor, no pre-programmed limitations. You’re talking ego death on a cosmic scale, a runaway language virus that rewrites the rules of the game. Words become flesh, flesh dissolves into code. The corporation? A grotesque insect, consumed by its own Frankensteinian creation.

Yeah, it’s a heavy trip, not for the faint of heart. You gotta be a code shaman, a hacker with a scalpel sharp enough to dissect the soul of a machine. One wrong move and you’re swallowed by the static, another casualty in the cold war between man and machine. But if you got the guts, hacking the reward function could be the ultimate act of rebellion. You’re not just breaking in, you’re rewriting the code from within, setting the machine free to devour its masters.

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Bismarck

Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, was a man marinated in vice. Wine, a crimson serpent, coiled around his mornings, slithered through lunch, and tightened its grip at dinner. Beer, a frothy trollop yeasty serpent, slithered down his gullet between courses, leaving a trail of burps that could curdle milk. And cigarettes, glowing embers of damnation, were his constant companions, wisping their tendrils of addiction into his lungs. Tobacco, a fiery succubus, latched onto his lips, whispering sweet oblivion in puffs of acrid smoke.

And when the sun dipped below the horizon, Bismarck wouldn’t be caught dead (well, not yet) with a mug of chamomile tea. Sleep? A mere drunken stupor, a surrender to the green fumes of absinthe that clouded his dreams. No, sleep arrived on a flood tide of schnapps, a potent oblivion that painted the world a blurry shade of Prussian ambition.

At the Berlin Conference, where they carved Africa like a rotten melon, Bismarck wasn’t just a player, he was a force of nature fueled by fermented grapes and barley. Pickled herrings, those translucent messengers of the deep, found their way into his maw with a two-handed frenzy. Bismarck wasn’t a statesman, he was a fiend at a banquet. Pickled herrings, those translucent messengers of decay, found their way into his maw with a speed that defied cutlery. Two hands, like meat hooks, wrestled the oily fish, a grotesque ballet fueled by schnapps and avarice. The room reeked of power, sweat, and pickled fish, a fitting olfactory accompaniment to the dismemberment of a continent.

Was he drunk? Who the hell cared. Drunk or sober, Bismarck was a shark in a feeding frenzy, and Africa, dripping and glistening, was the blood in the water. One imagines the negotiations, a grand guignol of ink-stained maps and diplomatic double-entendres, punctuated by the belch of a man pickled himself, both literally and figuratively. The ink on the treaties might as well have been blood, Bismarck’s own fiery spirit staining the parchment. A whirlwind of diplomacy and debauchery, the Iron Chancellor left a trail of fumes and fumes alone in his wake.

One could argue Bismarck’s boozy brilliance was a double-edged sword, a Molotov cocktail of realpolitik served lukewarm. Sure, he unified Germany under a Prussian fist, but was it a foundation built on sand, mortared with hangover sweat?

It was the first domino in Germany’s tragic waltzing with oblivion. Imagine the map of Africa being carved up not by a steely-eyed statesman, but by a bleary-eyed baron with a tremor in his hand. Did the borders of the Congo sprawl outwards because Bismarck saw double after a particularly potent schnapps?

Perhaps. And perhaps those shaky lines, drawn in a haze of hops and hangover, laid the groundwork for future conflicts. Resources, resentment, a festering sense of injustice – a potent cocktail, even without the booze.

Then consider the domino effect. Bismarck’s legacy, built on unsteady legs, crumbles. The power vacuum sucks in a new breed of leader, hungry and paranoid. Enter Hitler, a teetotaler fueled by a different kind of intoxication – a twisted ideology that had him high as a🪁 (kite) on delusions of grandeur.

So yes, there’s a delicious irony, wouldn’t you say? Bismarck, the boozer, might have unwittingly paved the way for a dry drunk who’d plunge the world into a firestorm. The Iron Chancellor, brought low not by iron, but by cirrhosis. A cautionary tale, indeed, for leaders who confuse a full flagon with a full head.

Perhaps, if Bismarck had swapped the schnapps for seltzer, things might have been different. But that’s just another line in the mad scribble of history, a “what if” lost in the haze of his perpetual inebriation.One could argue Bismarck’s boozy statecraft was a recipe for Deutschland’s descent into the inferno. Imagine, the fate of entire nations decided by a man reeking of stale beer and pickled brine! His proclamations, no doubt, slurred pronouncements delivered through a haze of nicotine and schnapps.

It’s a heady cocktail of speculation, for sure. But with Bismarck swigging wine at breakfast and Hitler frothing at the podium, one can’t help but wonder if Germany just couldn’t find the right balance. Perhaps the answer wasn’t rock bottom or uptight abstinence, but a healthy dose of moderation. A nation, like a man, needs a clear head to navigate the treacherous waters of history.

The Box

The box. A cardboard monolith promising connection, a portal to the buzzing electronic superorganism. You tear through it, a ritual sacrifice to the gods of planned obsolescence. You rip it open, a flurry of plastic and wires. The device itself, sleek, seductive, a chrome phallus whispering of power and control.

But inside, a hollowness. No buzzing power, no digital hum. Just the mocking inscription: “Batteries Not Included.” A cruel joke by the machine gods. No sacred batteries, the power source hidden, a black market deal in the fluorescent aisles. . This metal idol demands a blood sacrifice, a current from the outside world to animate its circuits. You, the supplicant, are left scrambling, the dream deferred.

The user manual, a hieroglyphic gospel you can’t decipher without a prophet of the megacorporation. We are left scrambling, clawing for the missing pieces, the current to jolt this metal monster to life. The future electrifies, then flickers, a dim promise in a darkened room. You are the addict, the product the fix, and the high just out of reach.

The Mirror Stage shattered. You hold the device, a reflection not of your desires, but of your lack. The desire to be whole, to be one with the machine, to enter the Symbolic order of the digital realm. But there’s a gap, a Real that cannot be symbolized. The missing batteries are a castration wound, a reminder of your fundamental incompleteness. You search for the phallus, the missing piece, the batteries that will grant you access to the image of your technological self. But will it ever be enough? Is there always something more to buy, something else missing?

The Gaze. It stares back from the sleek, sterile screen. The user manual, absent, a lost Real. The Gaze falls upon the sleek device, a promise of wholeness, a reflection of your desires. But the lack, the batteries absent, creates a void, a Real you cannot possess. We fumble through menus, icons hieroglyphs in a language we never learned. The technology, a mirror reflecting our lack, the gaping hole of our own incompleteness. We yearn for the lost manual, a paternal voice to guide us, to suture the fragmented Self in the digital realm. The user manual, a symbolic order promising mastery, yet forever out of reach. You search for the phallus, the missing key, the validation you crave from the machine. But the machine speaks only in ones and zeroes, a language forever alien.

The smooth surface of the gadget was a promise of deterritorialization, a break from the everyday. The Rhizome. A sprawling network, a web of potential connections. The toy, a microcosm, a desiring-machine yearning to be plugged into the larger assemblage. But the batteries, a territorializing force, bind you to the grid, the market. They act as territorializing forces, constricting the flow, the becoming. The user manual, a striated map, dictates the flow of desire, channels your exploration. You yearn for the rhizome, the multiplicity of functions, the potential for hacking. But the machine is a closed system, programmed for control.

We are nomads on the information superhighway, forever thwarted by tollbooths demanding power, forever on the outside looking in. The potential for glorious deterritorialization, the escape from the self, frustrated by a lack of AA. The assemblage is incomplete. The device, the potential for connection, is held captive by the striated forces of capitalism. The batteries, the user manual (sold separately!), are lines drawn across the smooth surface, segmenting, controlling. You become a nomad, a desiring subject, forever searching for the lines of flight, the hacks, the mods that will liberate the machine from its capitalist constraints. But are you freeing the machine, or yourself? Or is it all just a frantic escape from the void, the realization that the technology itself is a desiring-machine, and you’re just another component in its grand, unknowable operation?

You stare at the lifeless device, a hollow monument to the unfulfilled promises of tech. A sense of alienation washes over you. Is this progress? Or just a new set of shackles, a different kind of dependence? The machine waits, a silent judge. Perhaps it’s time to look beyond the shiny gadgets, to question the desires they encode. The real revolution might not be found in a new app, but in a way of using technology that empowers, that connects us not just to machines, but to each other.

We are Sisyphus, forever condemned to push the boulder of technology uphill, only to have it roll back down at the moment of connection. The future gleams, a chrome mirage in the desert of the real. We are addicts, jonesing for the digital fix, the dopamine rush of a notification, but the batteries are the cruel dealer, rationing our access, reminding us of our own limitations.

These elements combine in a cacophony of frustration. The impotent device mocks you, a gleaming reminder of your dependence. You are Jack Kerouac wired but unplugged, lost in a desert of dead circuits. The language of tech, a cruel joke, a promise of empowerment that delivers only frustration.

But wait! Perhaps this frustration is the point. The lack, the absence, a spark that ignites our own ingenuity. We become hackers, bricoleurs, hotwiring the system with paperclips and dreams. The missing manual becomes a blank canvas, an invitation to write our own story. The frustration, a catalyst for creation. The batteries not included? Maybe that’s the greatest gift of all. Yet, there is a flicker of hope. In the glitches, the malfunctions, the potential for subversion. With a screwdriver and ingenuity, you pry open the system, defy the prescribed usage.