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Saturday, October 22, 2016

Click Bait Part 2 or The Death of Choice

Looking at the previously included videos, you might have noticed a few strange things.

First, that they're all pretty much the same show.
(I used gaming shows since that's what I'm most familiar with)
Second, the titles are click-baitey as fuck.

The thumbnails are also over-the top, controversial, and meant to draw you in.

And when you look over at the suggested video list, nearly every video on there is from the same channel you are currently watching.

It's the last point I want to focus on, because it can't be cheap to make that happen. Normally there are a variety of choices on that list of videos. Yet, when it comes to these channels (which are, more often than not owned by large television companies and like fucking Viacom and shit) most of, if not all of the suggested videos are of a single channel.

That requires money. Lots of it. Large, faceless companies are putting up big bucks and are expecting a substantial return on their investment.

This is destroying the whole purpose of online video sharing platforms in the first place.

With this type of competition, random everyday weirdos don't stand a chance. Not to mention the flood of advertising these fucks brought with them. I watched the change happen in real-time over the course of a year or so.

I used to love binge-watching dumb shit on Youtube. One of the main reasons I loved it was lack of commercials. Ads on Youtube where a rare and slight annoyance. I could watch charming, no-budget nonsense all day and only come across 5 or 6 ads that entire time. 5 OR 6 ADS FOR THE DAY.

Now I'll come across 5 or 6 ads during the course of one 15 minute video showing the other endings of a game I just finished.

But that's not the point here. I usually just scream at the top of my lungs until the ad goes away. Problem solved.

The point I'm trying to make is that the monetization of Youtube brought these people here. They rode a pale horse. It's name was Death, and ads followed in its wake.

Now the amount of agency a user feels while online has virtually vanished. It's a fucking battlefield. We have to fight everyday just to view the content we actually want to see.

It's bad enough that these channels dominate the suggested list, but once you understand the isomorphic connection to the retweet phenomenon, the implications of such a system, is terrifying.

Twitter And Youtube Sociological Conjecture or The Death of Choice

Recently a study was done on the science of retweets. It found that if a tweet isn't retweeted within about 15 minutes, its chances of being retweeted are almost nil.

Now this actually makes sense when you consider the vast amounts of tweets being posted by people every minute of every day and the fact that each individual user will only be able to view the tiniest fraction of the total tweets being posted to the database.

When something is retweeted, its probability of being seen essentially doubles. Now there are two separate conduits in which people may see the the tweet and decide to retweet it themselves, increasing the availability of the original tweet.

With every retweet, the probability of it being seen and tetweeted again rises exponentially.

The content of the tweet isn't a deciding factor, nor even the user who posted it. The true deciding factor is time. If a tweet isn't retweeted quickly, it generally tends to fall to the wayside, forgotten by time and the community at large.

Having more followers increases the chance of posts being shared, but the deciding factor is always on whether or not it was retweeted in a timely manner.

Good, So we're all on the same page now. The tweets that get shared the most are the tweets that were shared the most. Good. Wonderful. Fantastic. Moving on.


Another socially-based web service is Youtube, and it basically functions the same way. Only this time, with the augmentation of an algorithm.

"Suggested videos" are the Youtube equivalent to retweets. Most users tend to prefer clicking on one of those as opposed to searching for something on their own. Chances are high that the videos presented to you are related to whatever you just watched, or what you've already watched a lot of. Besides, come on, who's going to opt to type in a bunch of shit into a search bar when there's a video you'd watch right there, just a click away?

Most people tend to click on of the suggested videos, only searching for something if they're looking for something specific, or the suggested videos are all garbage.

Here is where things get fun. Back in the day, Youtube would suggest videos solely based on content and how often individual users watched both videos.

But of course, money always have a way of fucking up these nice services. Forever warping their innocent natures into greedy, bloodthirsty scams.

Once it became painfully obvious to companies that kids were choosing to binge Youtube videos instead of cable tv, and that channels had fanbases in the millions, they realized there was money to be made and they needed a piece of the action.

This was the point when new channels started popping up rapidly. Professional channels. Channels with obvious financial backing, an entire crew to work with, high production value, and sub-par content. Often it was content similar to what was already popular, but obviously made by a passionless team. They were attempting to rip-off pre-established content as a cash grab. Only, they aped the wrong parts of these shows.

They didn't know why people were interested in the original content. They made shows that were functionally similar and almost interesting. It was clear these creators didn't understand or care about the content they were pushing. Completely unlike the passion-driven channels that paved the way before them with their honest love for video games, horror, movies, or scientific speculation.

Well-made shows were popping up everyday rehashing topics already beaten to death... and they weren't getting the ratings they expected.

Since then, most of these shows hired people who actually did know and care what they were talking about, with mediocre results. The rest were pretty much relegated to click-bait list shows.

Like this one. Or this shit. Or this one that I don't really hate. I should. But honestly it's probably one of the best cash-grab channels to come out at this time. Or this rote garbage Or this complete waste of everything

I'm sure you clicked on at least one of them.

What did you notice?






Continued in Part 2

Sunday, October 9, 2016

Answers


First we begin with axiomatic. Reality being self-evident is pretty well... axiomatic. We dwell upon  Earth, a shitball in the middle of nowhere. The world around you is a fact, knowable as far as any fact. Yet, it is a system. Like a mathematical system, bound by a few simple axioms. We've come to know these as the laws of nature. Things like gravity, the laws of thermodynamics, inertia, momentum, blah blah blah. You know this. And it is by these simple rules that complex forms emerge. Forms such as you yourself


A great example of the phenomenon of simple laws creating complex systems is computer program called The Game of Life.

To break it down even further, all matter is composed of a simple list of substances. They are the elements of the periodic table. Beneath that, a small number of particles. And even lower, a handful of sub-atomic particles that by their interactions create all of existence.



Expressions should be a simple one at this point. It is simply the execution of such a system.

So, Axiomatic expressions are therefor reality in motion. The combination of this sytem of rules in an active state. The self-evidence of the happening around and within us. Double definition, same meaning.

Temporary autonomous understanding is a bit trickier. An impermanent, individual, perspective. Well, wait. Is that actually trickier? What is a short-lived, singular, viewpoint?...

Yourself, of course!

But I chose temporary autonomous understanding for a very specific reason. It is more of a puzzle phrase than the others. "Understanding" most of all.

Firstly, temporary not only refers to our insignificant time on this Earth, but also of the transitive nature of our minds. ie; we change them. With a new influx of ideas, we can rapidly switch our viewpoints at will. Not only are we physically temporary, but so also is our understanding.

Autonomous should be axiomatic at this point. If I'm referring to ourselves and our minds, then obviously I'm speaking of our individual nature. We are forever separated from each other by a slight, yet insurmountable distance. We can never truly understand each other. In fact, it's doubtful any communication at all is even possible. Still, we can't help but try.

There is absolutely no way of honestly knowing whether or not we both see, hear, feel, or experience anything in a similar fashion. We guess. We try, We hope.

The tree I see will always be different from the tree you see. If, at the least, for the fact you are standing in a different place, or the same place at a different time. No conditions can ever be recreated exactly. That exact moment was mine alone, and will never come to pass the same way again, if just for the fact that I cannot experience the same thing for the first time again.

So we are autonomous. We are temporary. We understand. And we have understanding.

Now to combine those 2(?) thoughts. Ready for this one? The axiomatic expressions of temporary autonomous understanding can also be defined as... Life.

Well, as far as we, as sentient mortals, are concerned.

But that isn't all. We've only decoded half of our original phrase.

You might want to take a break now and come back later. If only what flashes through my mind like lightning could be explained just as quickly. (or as easily. My hands are starting to cramp up.)




Okay. Did you grab a drink? Possibly a snack? Drain your bladder? Have a smoke? Because now begins part 2. Buckle up.



Qabalistic. Now this is a tough one. An entirely separate piece (attempting to) define this word would need its own essay. (and already has)

For our purposes, I will not even attempt to give anything but the weakest, smallest, most tenuous of definitions. This is a subject many have devoted their entire lives trying to understand. Its origins date back thousands of years. I will not do it justice. If you want to study qaballah, then go lose yourself for a few days in research. You will hardly scratch the surface. 

The definition I will give it now is "of a system for classifying and organizing complex ideas and concepts." "A language fitted to describe certain classes of phenomena."

Okay, Now that the Thelemites and followers of the Golden Dawn are prepared to hunt me down and brutally murder me for that... let's get to the rest of it.

Cacophony. It's like a symphony of garbage. Remove all pleasure and order from music, and it becomes a cacophony. Imagine being in a room full of hundreds of screaming children, barking dogs, sirens, horns, and screeches. That's a cacophony.

So qabalistic cacophony. What's that?

Things happen to us, and within us, constantly. Every second of everyday we are bombarded by an endless barrage of feelings, sensations, memories, thoughts, distractions, stimuli, words, pictures, sounds, and so on. We are only consciously aware of but the tiniest fraction of what is going on at any point in time.

How many cars did you pass on your way to work today? What models were they? What color?

You don't know, do you? It's superfluous and difficult. Don't worry about it. We are assailed by way too much sensory information to keep track of everything that occurs withing our field of perception. Perception itself is limited by the perception moment. A time lasting one tenth of a second. Anything occurring in a time frame shorter than the perception moment is not even perceived. Life is but a series of frames glued together with imagination. But that is a story for another day. 

On top of all that is happening to us from outside, is all that is occurring within us at all times. Our consciousness is a tangled mess of unintelligible flotsam being broadcast at (literally) the speed of light. Again, we are barely aware of even the slightest bit of what occurs within our own minds. How we function at all is a miracle to me.

Media has popularly depicted inner thoughts to be linear and directed for as long as entertainment existed. Books were notorious for having characters sitting and thinking about things in an unbelievably purposeful fashion. This, as we are all thinking creatures, is complete fucking horseshit.

No one really thinks in such a way.

It wasn't until James Joyce penned Ulysses that the world finally got a (slightly) more accurate glimpse of characters who think more realistically. Characters often when from thinking about the current situation, to thinking about what they ate for breakfast, or when they last clipped their nails, or what the final song from a certain play was. Completely oblivious to how they ended up at that specific thought.

OUR MINDS NEVER FUCKING STOP

Not for one moments do they let up. Even in sleep, they're toiling away, creating their own warped fantasies.

There is a nonstop flood of shit running through our brains from the moment we first begin to think, to the day we die. And guess what? It ain't fucking logical.

Certain odors will triggers bizarre long-forgotten memories. Certain songs drag us back to 10 years ago to when we first made out with that hottie with the cute butt. It makes no goddamn sense. It's chaos. It's a fucking CACOPHONY.

Okay then...

This insane cacophony when named and ordered through our complex internal filing system of concepts is only half of this thought. Pause this, and let's go to the final half of the final half. Easy at this point. One might even say, "axiomatic."

Constipated. And. Concentration.

Constipated. Easy. Shit withheld. Unable to pass. Blocked up. Shit like this endless streaming CACOPHONY mentioned above.

And what's doing the constipating, and is also constipated?

CONCENTRATION.

By focusing on what's prevalent at the moment, we are not only able to maintain a single thought, but we are kept from going totally batshit insane. (A lot of shit in this story. Horse, bull, human, now bat. What next? Cat?)

If we were to entertain every thought and notion that popped into our heads, our minds would deteriorate like we had some crazy catshit sniffing addiction.

By only releasing and acknowledging specific thoughts, we can stay grounded in this semi-real hopefully probably not a mirage or a holographic matrix designed to keep us prisoners as our biological energy is harvested and our minds are used like lab rats in cruel thought experiments world where we probably exist, and can communicate somewhat agreeable states of the world.

This is essential for society to function.

Thusly, all the excess thought never leaves our minds. Is never spoken aloud. Is never passed like a fat cow turd.

NOW we get to combine the two final final halves or whatever.

Qabalistic cacophony of constipated concentration.

Or

Sane sentience.

It's not enough to just say, "thought" or "consciousness."

It's a FUNCTIONING consciousness.

AND FINALLY

Axiomatic expressions of temporary autonomous understanding of the qabalistic cacophony of constipated concentration is....

Functional sentient life.

Or at least as we know it. It's what we all go through. It's something we take for granted. Since our inception, and until our death, we have it. We experience it. Sometimes it seems like it will never end, or it's boring, or it's over. But you are simply looking at it incorrectly. When seen in a new light, or phrased differently, it becomes an entirely new thing.

It's strange. It's all we have; and we barely have it. It comes once and is gone forever.

If you rely on the familiar for too long, it becomes unimportant and lackluster. Sometimes all it takes to see your life differently, is to use a few different words.

Onerous Experiments In Phraseology

Axiomatic expressions of temporary autonomous understanding of qabalistic cacophony of constipated concentration. Or Axiomatically expressing temporary autonomous understanding of a qabalistic cacophony of constipated concentration. Or qabalistic cacophony of constipated concentration tinctured by axiomatic expressions of temporary autonomous understanding. Or Brief ontological perspectivity by extrusive unmelodious dissonance. Or Instancial comprehension of independant theoremhood through an extrusionarily uproarious pandemonium. Or Discordial polyphony in stultified absorption by restrictive instantaneous perspectivity. A bedlam of clamorous miscellany metastasized defectively by yarely instruments.

How is it matter? Fluctuations or rhyme, meter, and exactitude of meaning. (Not to begin to even incorporate strange loops or mirrored reality... vessels filled with water reflecting darkened images of each other and the universe itself...)

What is this exactly when shredded open and examined?

Axiomatic-
1
:  taken for granted :  self-evident <an axiomatic truth>
2
:  based on or involving an axiom or system of axioms <axiomatic set theory>

Expressions-
1
a :  an act, process, or instance of representing in a medium (as words) :  utterance <freedom of expression>
b (1) :  something that manifests, embodies, or symbolizes something else <this gift is an expression of my admiration for you> (2) :  a significant word or phrase (3) :  a mathematical or logical symbol or a meaningful combination of symbols (4) :  the detectable effect of a gene; also :  expressivity 1
2
a :  a mode, means, or use of significant representation or symbolism; especially :  felicitous or vivid indication or depiction of mood or sentiment <read the poem with expression>
b (1) :  the quality or fact of being expressive (2) :  facial aspect or vocal intonation as indicative of feeling
3
:  an act or product of pressing out

Autonomous-
1 is bullshit. A definition containing the word to be defined is redundant and shall not be included here. 
2
a :  having the right or power of self-government

b :  undertaken or carried on without outside control :  self-contained <an autonomous school system>
3
a :  existing or capable of existing independently <an autonomous zooid>
b :  responding, reacting, or developing independently of the whole <an autonomous growth>
4
:  controlled by the autonomic nervous system

Understanding-
1
:  a mental grasp :  comprehension
2
a :  the power of comprehending; especially :  the capacity to apprehend general relations of particulars
b :  the power to make experience intelligible by applying concepts and categories
3
a :  friendly or harmonious relationship
b :  an agreement of opinion or feeling :  adjustment of differences
c :  a mutual agreement not formally entered into but in some degree binding on each side
4
:  explanation, interpretation
5
:  sympathy 3a

Qabalistic -
No definition in Merriam-Webster. See Aleister Crowley's appendix within 777 titled "What is Qabalah?"

Cacophony-
:  harsh or discordant sound :  dissonance 2; specifically :  harshness in the sound of words or phrases These definitions are atrocious, but usable, for our purposes

Constipation-
1
:  abnormally delayed or infrequent passage of usually dry hardened feces
2
:  stultification
Again: awful

Concentration-
All three definitions are crimes severe enough to warrant the hanging of its writer. "Direction of attention to a single object" will have to do. Keeping my own concentration on the menial task of explaining what I already so clearly understand is trying enough. Look the rest up for yourself. Especially yarely. But I'm moving on now.

Better comprehension of these words and their multiple definitions should shed a bit of light on the above statements. I find it most important that when using words steeped in so much meaning, one must be aware of all different uses and definitions of the word. Each differing in literalcy, yet still functional. One sentence; many interpretations. All varied and unified simultaneously.

Exactitude of wording is a must. Like a puzzle, a good sentence can occupy the mind for hours. Constantly being reinvented and reconsidered, unfolding itself before the skilled mind in a flower of artistic excellence.

So is this write? Is this worthy of such a honor?

Possibly.

More likely not.

Yet, it is a step. Each step is important, even if the goal is not achieved thusly. The wielder is one step closer. And the reader is rewarded.

So, now we've come to it. What are the above phrases attempting to express?

Understand each word. Break it down. Combine slowly. Like other systems involving basic rules, the results of simple mechanics can be astounding.

Two meaning-rich words, when combined, rise by orders of magnitude. It's a magic practicable by any and all. Fascinating incantations with the ability to summon forth previously unforeseen concepts of intricate complexity.

Nothing and everything.


I will give you an hour or so to solve this. In the meantime, I will be writing the xplanation.