‘Mr Limbkins, I beg your pardon, sir! Oliver Twist has asked for more!’ –  excerpt Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Last night I participated in a Socrates Cafe discussion.  The topic was social media and privacy.  How much have we lost?  Do humans deserve personal privacy?  I felt depressed after an hour or so of reviewing the effect of Facebook, and other such algorithmic tools upon our society.  Chaos of the psychic id has been released, monetized and allowed to wreak trauma upon the general welfare of our people.  Hearings before congressional committees notwithstanding the momentum is likely to grow, as the business model of these companies depends upon addiction to anxiety and the rage of their customer base.

Welcome to the arena !  Kill or be killed.  Do you not love the roar of the crowd!?

I was interested to note that two engineers in our group believed that somehow the future would be “better” than the present.  Human ingenuity, innovation, the penchant for invention of new gadgets will be the pivot point for turning the corner.  I cannot fathom how technology will alleviate the doom inscribed within rampant racism, global warming, and the growing taste for tyranny.  This seems a fatal optimism to me.

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Now these provocative words from BREATHING, Chaos and Poetry by Franco “Bifo” Berardi…

The present may be considered the Age of the Dark Enlightenment:
the age of the rejection of modernity’s rationalistic Enlightenment
by those who have been led to submit reason and life
to the ferocity of financial mathematics.

Rational categories have lost their grasp on our social becoming,
and we need a different approach
in order to apprehend our contemporary post-rational condition. p. 44

We require just a little order
to protect us from chaos.

Nothing is more distressing than a thought
that escapes itself, than ideas that fly off,
that disappear hardly formed, already eroded
by forgetfulness or precipitated into others
that we no longer master.

These are infinite variabilities, the appearing
and disappearing of which coincide.
They are infinite speeds that blind into immobility
of the colorless and silent nothingness they traverse,
without nature or thought.
This is the instant of which we do not know
whether it is too long or too short for a time.

We receive sudden jolts that beat like arteries.
We constantly lose our ideas.
That is why we want to hang on to fixed opinions
so much.

We ask only that our ideas are linked together
according to a minimum of constant rules.*

“Chaos” is defined here
in terms of speed, of acceleration
of the info-sphere relative to the slow rhythms
of reason and of the emotional mind.

When things start to flow so fast
that the human brain grows unable
to elaborate the meaning of the information,
we enter into the condition of chaos. p. 47

excerpt, BREATHING Chaos and Poetry by Franco “Bifo” Berardi

*What Is Philosophy by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (Columbia University Press, 1994)

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Perhaps this sounds as if you and I have a bit part in the movie Titanic.  Doesn’t matter whether one plays the captain or a crew member in the boiler room – this ship is still going down.  Here is a lifeline to hold onto….

Listen Like Thieves

By INXS

On the talk back show
On the radio
At the local bar
In the hot traffic
By the red tail lights

Everybody’s down on their knees
Listen like thieves
But who needs that
When it’s all in your hands

And we take it down
To the end of town
Where they have control
But they’re loosing touch
When the lights go out

You are all you need
You are all you need
So don’t hesitate
There’s no time to waste
You just do it for yourself

lyrics written by Michael J. Hutchence

Michael J. Hutchence (22 January 1960 – 22 November 1997) was an Australian musician, singer-songwriter and actor. Hutchence co-founded the rock band INXS, which sold over 60 million records worldwide and was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2001. He was the lead singer and lyricist of INXS from 1977 until his death.

On the morning of 22 November 1997, Hutchence was found dead in his hotel room in Sydney. His death was reported by the New South Wales Coroner to be the result of suicide by hanging.