The delusion of infrastructure

Karen Webster ‏@karenmpd
Regulation can stand in the way of innovation in the interest of protecting consumers. What do entrepreneurs do?

Mircea Popescu ‏@Mircea_Popescu
@karenmpd They move. Consumers don't get a say, that's what the definition of consumer implies : "stfu, swallow the menu, say ty".

Karen probably had a Shrem momentⁱ upon reading that reply, eyes glazed over, dutifully moved right along to the next helping of predigested yet certifiedly safe circlejerk product. Or maybe she had an epiphany, who's to know, I never received a reply.

Meanwhile on the actual ground, devoid of the many blinders and false assurances people use to shackle their lives into nothingness (oh, sweet, safe nothingness!) the situation works pretty much as described :

• Some people make new stuff. Be it art or science, magic or technology, culture or civilisation, written or etched, whether you can bludgeon your mother in law with it over the head or not.
• The herd gathers round the new item. These lifeforms, while bipedal and occasionally quite lovable (for that matter even more often quite fuckable) are not people in any midly rigorous definition of that term. They're the human herd, the reservoir from whence people spring forth now and again.
• The herd proceeds to interact with the new item. This will necessarily have results. All these results cull the herd in one way or another, because that's the nature, purpose and fate of the human herd : to somehow be culled.
• The fallen, which are that sad and despondent subgroup of the herd that is aware of the difference between herd and people but has not the resources to actually make the jump, come forth to "lead" the herd, to create "rules" for "the betterment" of the herd, and for "progress" and all the rest of that completely imaginary jazz that doesn't exist nor can ever exist. Ever met an obnoxious guy who deluded himself into thinking money will get him a girlfriend ? Know any idiots who think diplomas may be the solution ? The fallen.
• Nobody cares, and by nobody I of course reference the people (because literally nobody cares what the herd does or doesn't do). The people continue to make their things exactly as they feel like, or exactly as the things should be (these obviously aren't distinct). The fallen learn to live with their irrelevance in the workings of the world, or torture themselves trying to challenge that immutable fact. The herd moos happily, this way or that, nobody recalls because nobody's really paying any attention. This is all.

Literally, that is all. If the herd becomes too loud or too otherwise noticeable in any one place, the people will just move to another place. Obviously the fallen are in denial about this simple fact, and one of the countless nonsensical "arguments" they bring to bolster their inexistent position is the illusion of infrastructure. They imagine that if you convince the herd that it is "impossible" to leave then you have in fact convinced the people too, and so nobody will leave, and so their "rules" are safe and who knows, maybe even relevant to the world in general.

For instance : when I left the US to go to Mexico well meaning locals (that never left "the country", as most land-bound US citizens don't) warned me to pack toilet paper, and be careful what I eat. Because, obviously, Eastasia is dangerous, destitute, dirty, dangerous and dangerous. Also very dangerous, because dragons live there. As it turns out the average public restroom in Mexico is a lot cleaner and a lot better furnished than the average public restroom in the US, but that has obviously no bearing : the herd doesn't dabble in fact much if it can help it.

It may shock you to find that due to the many creations of the people (which specifically excludes the fallen - no senator, no president, no minister, no policeman has ever contributed anything of value whatsoever at any point and in any case to the welfare of humanity in general, or to its accomplishments however selected) life's pretty much the exact same everywhere. I had Internet in Palenque cca 2005, in the middle of the jungle, there was beer and rum. Anywhere you go there's food that tastes good and food that tastes bad, comfortable armchairs, creature comforts of all kinds.

And girls too, for that matter. The average US guy thinks, deep down and often unexpressed, thinks that he's so bad at talking to girls that if he went somewhere else (where he doesn't speak the language even!) he might as well cut his prick off, as he's never getting laid again. This is incidentally false : he'll do much better in a new place where he doesn't know "the rules" than in the current place where he idiotically believes the rules have some sort of point and should at all be even considered. That sort of stupidity is what painted him in a corner in the first place - it's as always the case : those straws the drowning hang on to with despair are the exact reasons why the drowning are drowning in the first place. Kinda hard to let go, sure.

And so here's the full story : no regulation can stand in the way of innovation, and nothing stands in between the herd and its destruction once the fallen start messing with their betters. Sounds incredible, doesn't it ?

If it's so incredible then why are you drowning ?

1. @Mircea_Popescu that article honestly makes no sense [↩]