The Teaching Machine.

[luka]

the major conversations on dissensus at the moment are about social media etc as a kind of teaching machine

How we are tweaked and pinched and pulled and shaped by the responses we receive and by the responses we anticipate receiving. Locked into these teaching machines, something within us very, very alert to praise and scolding

eg You really get the sense of the 'culture' pulling people's bodies and faces into new shapes. Gym. High protein diet calorific surplus. Creatine.
fashion increasingly becoming as much about the body as about the clothes we wear


"what is this collective nervous system and where is it leading us? this matrix. stan's algorithmic god. vimothy think's it's blind. luka wants to seize the controls"

i think awareness of the process as it's happening is the important thing as opposed to submission to the process, so acheiving a meta perpespective on it, this is hard to do in any sustained way as our consciousness level dips below the necessary threshold constantly

this is why i said maybe music was a deconditioning program in the same way you can look at this stuff as a deconditioning program. does that make sense?

in the way that every conditioning machine pushed to its extreme becomes a deconditioning machine. beacuse you eventually see how it is operating.

as if there was a tipping point at which you have enough information to achieve the meta position.

Dissensus actually embodies this in some sense, you can get at it, in that the feedback you get can push and pull you in varying directions. If you picture yourself as the central pillar on the kabbalistic tree of life and receiving tugs and shoves from its various nodes, and those nodes taking the form of specific comments and reactions.

 

[luka]

shiels said:


The facebook self made me uncomfortable, the twitter template tone even moreso . But tiktok videos take pre packaged expression and fame hunger a bit further again. the machine does a lot more of the thinking for you with tik tok and everyone is playing for huge international audiences rather than friends or peers - so international craic. it is fun and addictive to flick through but also sinister and should be banned definitely

Oooh I see what you mean. The platform incentivises behaviour, channels energy in a particular way, so the youth are all brainless soulless zombies. That's a more interesting point.

 

[luka]

"Earlier, you see, the Symbolists had discovered that the work of art is a programmed teaching machine. It’s a mechanism for shaping sensibility. Well, Lewis simply extended this private art activity into the corporate activity of the whole society in making environments that basically were artifacts or works of art and that acted as teaching machines upon the whole population."

Mcluhan. (the Lewis being Wyndham)

 

[luka]

i remember the first ever time i done acid me and my friend were sitting up on some balconies overlooking Auckland University quad and there was a lad down below singing and he hit this note that energised people and made the crowd go woooo! and you could see him swell up and realise, oh, ive found something there so he done it again but leaned into it a bit heavy, and so soon after the first one the effect was diminished so you the woo was very half hearted but you could see/hear the feedback learning relationship in real time

 

[shiels]

Feedback from large audiences is potent stuff, addictive, transformative, seduces you away from your family and friends. rewires your brain, changes your personality. Watch youtuber videos, see how they're all kind of the same person.

 

[luka]

well we are in no danger of receiving feedback from large audiences, we're safe on that score

 

[woops]

upwards of 10 people on your zoom last night

 

[shiels]

this is partly a discussion about the psychology of fame, which maybe needs to be rethunk as a concept in the age of dematerialisation. more of us are playing in this arena, the trappings of fame, bit its a richer ecosystem with more nuanced and more niche more intimate hierarchies and reward systems

 

[sufi]

the stakes are higher
I'm in the middle of another whole cluster of multi-human zooms about how to prevent the internet from destroying the planet

 

[luka]

this is partly a discussion about the psychology of fame, which maybe needs to be rethunk as a concept in the age of dematerialisation. more of us are playing in this arena, the trappings of fame, bit its a richer ecosystem with more nuanced and more niche more intimate hierarchies and reward systems

I want to keep it focusessd on ourselves primarily to avoid the mistake of thinking of these issues as someone else's problem, not applicable to us and not operating on us. Do you know what I mean?

 

[shiels]

very much including us here, and anyone with a social media account

 

[shiels]

What’s the shorthand for this ‘we’ position you’re a big proponent of . Speaking from your own experience, as someone vulnerable, amongst many, subject to the same forces and flaws?

 

[luka]

The I

 

[luka]

Recognising universal forces operating on us and through us. Not speaking of them as something we observe in other people but never in ourselves

 

[sufi]

the stakes are higher
I'm in the middle of another whole cluster of multi-human zooms about how to prevent the internet from destroying the planet

starting with social relations, but moving on to the environment

 

[shiels]

Yes but we need something more distinct. Something like heidegger does with dasein. Talk about This specific type of shared consciousness or awareness of it in a way that’s distinct from other definitions

 

[luka]

Yes but we need something more distinct. Something like heidegger does with dasein. Talk about This specific type of shared consciousness or awareness of it in a way that’s distinct from other definitions

Ok. Let me think about it. What have you got so far?

 

[shiels]

I know it’s not a new idea but that doesn’t matter. We need a word for it something cool and vague for students to get confused about in twenty years

 

[sufi]

I had an interesting discussion about the K-poppers who mashed up Trump's rally
being online gives a mass movement a lot of power if the target is accessible online with minimal effort (booking free tickets for the rally)
so the mass of k-poppers only needed a superficial level of commitment to make an effective action, with no direct planning or direction
drive by click thru mass consciousness on the move

 

[luka]

Morph? The plasticine self? 🐬😀🙌👯