Editor’s Note: Arrias ran with something about the interesting collusion of Corporate and Government relations yesterday. Folks responded with thoughts about the astonishing flood of cash- some of it yours- that is washing through our institutions and media. It awoke ancient memories in me, a native Detroiter, about one of Henry Ford’s great experiments. Not the assembly line or the Model T. Those were things that worked. The one that didn’t was the creation of an end-to-end social construct in which his skilled workers and their families lived in nice housing provided by the company. He also invested in Germany, which was doing something similar in the 1930s. The end-to-end company experience did not work there, nor here. There is talk that we might be trying it again. One lesson-learned from Henry Ford: “Fasten your seatbelts.”

– Vic

(One of the several designs of Henry Ford housing that remain near Dearborn Michigan. He had a healthcare system, too.)

Author’s Note: For some time, I’ve been erratically scribbling a multi part ersatz dialogue with your house authors. It started off as a tongue in cheek humorous deal with only your authors as its readers. As it evolved it became more serious and bit darker with the part below being edited in reaction to Arrias’ recent submission.

-Marlow

Snakes and Scorpions

“There is always a point at which the terrorist ceases to manipulate the media
gestalt. A point at which the violence may well escalate, but beyond which the terrorist has become symptomatic of the media gestalt itself. Terrorism as we ordinarily understand it is innately media-related. The Panther Moderns differ from other terrorists precisely in their degree of self-consciousness, in their awareness of the extent to which media divorce the act of terrorism from the original sociopolitical intent . . . ”

― William Gibson, Neuromancer 1984

What if, a not inconsiderable while ago, 2020’s media and big tech fused to become a hybrid version of Gibson’s terrorist organization/network out of its own self-interest?

They are launching things at us – that range from ornate sunbursts to amaze us, glittering black leeches to scare us, to shape shifting planes of light to inflame us. There are hundreds of them every day, rising in a whirl. Their movements appear to be random and disconnected as windblown pieces of paper down dawn streets but are algorithmically exact in what they are aiming for in our reactions, beliefs, fears and pleasures. They are perfectly harmonic glitch systems. Features not bugs.

Their biz is a constant subliminal hum, and cancellation is the accepted terms of use punishment for our laziness, carelessness, lack of proper speech, and the failure to heed the demands of their new, daily, ever-changing, intricate protocols. That threat is existentially frightening and controlling.

If we could watch ourselves from high overhead, we’d see peoples’ personalities fragmenting, calving like icebergs, splinters drifting away; and, finally just before our “persons” die, we see our raw need and hungry carcass of addiction.

We daily click yes to its terms of use pop up boxes. It’s nothing if not a consensual hallucination experienced daily by unknowing rubes across the world. We’d be better served if the only news station we could tune to was a dead channel full of snow.

It’s a fad land for the forever young, dumb and restless. Crazes sweep us in the social media sprawl at the speed of light; entire subcultures rise overnight, thrive for ten or eleven weeks, and then vanish.

Power, in this new networked world, means corporate, not government, power.

These big tech zaibatsus, these transnationals that today shape the course of human emotions moment by monied moment have transcended old barriers. Viewed as organisms, they are immortal. You can’t kill these new, ageless invulnerables by assassinating or imprisoning a dozen or so of their key executives; there are plenty of well-spoken and long groomed others waiting to step up the ladder, assume the vacated positions.

They monitor all frequencies. They listen always.

Let us older wilier ones from the early transition times of the APRANET and USENET not swoon as these scrip kiddie techies slowly and faintly snowfall us through life, into a gentle descent towards their last end for us, and upon all the living and the dead.

All I got to say to my contemps — don’t let these little tech f*ckers generation gap us. Treat ‘em like snakes and scorpions. Smash ‘em flat.

If we’re paying attention, their fangs and pincers will come down and miss us by a few inches. But even if we die having brought any light, having exposed any meaningful truth that will help destroy these malignant bastards, then, all of the credit will be due to young ‘uns who will receive and act on these truths. Only the mistakes will have been ours.

For sure, we SH authors are terminal cases, but we can always chuckle at the young ‘uns — we’ve got shoes older than them.

-Marlow

Copyright 2021 My Isle Seat
www.vicsocotra.com

Copyright © 2021 From My Isle Seat

From: jayare303@aol.com
Sent: Monday, February 8, 2021 8:56 AM
To: jayare303@aol.com
Subject: Arrias: Corporate America?