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ACiM is a natural extension of cybernetic theory
This is the fourth installment in a ten-part series. At the core of cybernetics is the idea of agents—synthetic and organic, human and machine and animal—as servomechanisms, or “servos.” Servos are machines which use feedback to correct their actions, using some sort of sensory system and built-in encoder to monitor their environment, and ensure their…
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All Communication is Behavioral Manipulation
This is the second installment in a ten-part series. I want to establish, from the get-go, the uncontroversial, borderline tautological aspect of what I mean when I say “All communication is manipulation.” As a recap on what I mean by “manipulation,” I define the word as “the alteration of an agent’s behavior.” When we sum…
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All Communication is Manipulation
This essay is the first in a ten-installment series, but can be read as a standalone introduction: All communication is manipulation. Some manipulation is mutually advantageous. Alternatively phrased, the purpose of communication, broadly, is the alteration of others’ actions. Or, Communication is defined by its interest in altering the receiver’s actions. Actions, expressions, and speech…
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Linguistic fit
Previously, on communication as manipulation: “Is strategic interaction Machiavellian?” and “Economics Thinking.” When I say “All communication is manipulation,” it is sometimes protested that many utterances are advanced without a clear goal in mind. The first issue here is that one need not hold a desired outcome consciously in mind in order for one’s behavior…
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On the vibe shift pt 2: Nameless / Faceless
“The key contribution of angelicism01 is not artistic anonymity but artistic anonymity as a delivery system for extinction qua extinction into the cultural algorithm.” Angelicism01 The Prince cried out for joy: ‘Good friend, I’ll giveWhat you will ask: guide me to where I live.’The man pulled back his hood: he had no face—Where it should…
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On the vibe shift, pt 1: Worldbuilding
See Part 2: Nameless, Faceless. Chatting with a friend last week, I mentioned I was writing a party report on the Lisbon ETH conferences for Spike. She said she was surprised. That there was a narcissism to the genre she’d expect to turn me off. A reasonable criticism—the format’s short history is ≈ synonymous with…
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Zoom Call #1
And I said, I said, ‘a simple point that people forget to explain to outsiders about the consumption of random/plain/goofy/noisy artifacts is that it’s not the random/plain/goofy/noisy artifact that is doing the work but the 3000 years long acummulation of techniques for attentively scrutizing objects (which developed as a corollary of 3000 years of creating…
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All Is Well E17: Acculturation as Brainwashing
It’s great how Mingyu (or the CC translator) chose “brainwashed” here, because that’s what piety is, a cultural expectation that gets drilled into you while your brain is in a formative state, that’s enforced through social pressure and shame. “Brainwashing” as we think of it is just rapid re-acculturation—to a new hierarchy, a new set…
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210931
I wonder if anyone’s done a good treatment of “space” or “breathing room” as high-level, abstract patterns or metaphors—in the sense of lacking density/airiness, freedom of movement, reconfigurability. Perhaps starting from the level of physics—gas vs. liquid vs. solid—then moving up to organisms, psychology, sociology. Open spaces and evpsych. Claustrophobia. Start-ups vs. ossified bureaucracy, toeing…
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Barry Lyndon, pt 2: The Duel
Last time: It is selection games and debt, all the way down. Nora has been “flinging” herself as an option to “every man” in the area, but none have selected her. Barry owes his uncle a great deal, and his uncle owes the bank a great deal in turn, which puts both into obligation. This…
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Games of Strategy are Games of Reading and Writing
1. Schelling defines games of strategy as any situation in which each player’s best choice of action depends on the actions (he expects) the other player will take (and vice-versa, reflexively). This is in contrast to games of skill and games of chance. “Strategy,” then, is the study of conflicting parties’ behaviors as they are premised on…
A D Jameson all communication is manipulation Alva Nöe ambiguity chords compression Erving Goffman fitness games generalized reading hermeneutic circle institutional theory Interpretation Jürgen Schmidhuber Karl Friston language games linguistics literary theory literature Maggie Nelson maps meaning modernism music music criticism New Sincerity nostalgia opticratics Peli Grietzer Pierre Bourdieu pop music poptimism pragmatism predictive hermeneutics predictive model predictive processing Sarah Perry selection games signaling strategic interaction surrogation the inexact sciences Thomas Schelling vibe theory visual art
Suspended Reason 