/gov/ - Governance

Is empire a synonym for "the state", because like BIP this sounds like another PD.com interpretation of Discordianism with the will to turn everyone into libertarian individualists.

>>1669
>Is empire a synonym for "the state"?
Doesn't sound like it if you read the definition.
>like BIP this sounds like another PD.com interpretation of Discordianism with the will to turn everyone into libertarian individualists
BIP was about personal liberation, which is a theme throught esoteric tradition. Enlightenment, gnosis, etc. all something individual reaches and can be transmitted only with great effort if at all. Try organized religion if you want more collective approach.

>>1669
>Is empire a synonym for "the state"
no, but every state that has ever existed is an aspect of Empire.
>interpretation of Discordianism with the will to turn everyone into libertarian individualists.
if you're not already a libertarian individualist, why would you be transmogrified into one by learning about a few things a schizo wrote down 50 years ago?

The "seeking out sex"-part pops up. We know that's a strong biological function every vertebrae has. Humans don't really differ in that in essence, and some theorists even intepret that human culture suppresses sex to use up the energy in other functions. Is the Empire just a continuation of the biological reality, the crushing evolutionary pressure applied to not only individuals but the culture as a whole?

What I struggle with is the uniformity of the concept. If the Empire is something that has existed for millenia, how's the split between the continents treated? There has been multiple different manifestations in different enviroments, and it wasn't necessarily this one which would have persisted if the Chaos would've fluctuated a bit differently. Coming to contact with american cultures was a huge boost for european revolutionary thinking, the original cultural appropriation, because being able to mirror their behaviour on a whole different cultural timeline highlighted all the absurdities of their current lives.

The Empire is no way destined to be like it is now. Like Black Iron Prison, you cannot make it stop existing, but you can slowly move the walls around if you are methodical enough.

>>1671
>if you're not already a libertarian individualist, why would you be transmogrified into one by learning about a few things a schizo wrote down 50 years ago?
Aren't you aware most worldviews are based on actively avoiding taking in new information?

>>1672
>We know that's a strong biological function every vertebrae has. Humans don't really differ in that in essence, and some theorists even intepret that human culture suppresses sex to use up the energy in other functions.
Most important in the functioning of Empire is that we are constantly *desiring* sex, but only rarely getting it. Only those who serve Empire the most (often called "being successful" in modern parlance) are even given the chance, and even then, they're usually restricted to having the empty kind of sex that is solely for the purpose of orgasmic pleasure or procreation. Those who reject Empire are untouchables and can only have sex with other untouchables.

>What I struggle with is the uniformity of the concept.
It's not so uniform, but like the basic body-plan of the crab, it's something that has tended to occur.

>and it wasn't necessarily this one which would have persisted if the Chaos would've fluctuated a bit differently.
indeed, the eventual worldwide dominance of the Roman strain is just one of those weird anomolies that she likes to give us.

What functions in your daily life do you recognize being for the benefit of the Empire moreso than for the benefit of yourself?

To me, the consumption and digestion of content feels like I'm not searching for information that would in any way benefit my daily life. I feel like I'm only processing it and moving it forward in the neural system of a giant being.

Seeking out sex is instinctual, and made pleasurable to stimulate us to engage us in mating. That's just a simple matter of evolution.
The empire ended long ago and this subject has little to do with governance. Seems more like an absurdist topic as it stretches to the meaning of being in the face of this supposed ever-comprising hierarchy.

>>1671
>why would you be transmogrified into one by learning about a few things a schizo wrote down 50 years ago?
I wouldn't be. It's a sad thing to see that P.K. Dick's life work is nothing more than contemporary ramblings. Outside of that time-frame it means nothing, just like the Trump-era.

>>1676
This topic has everything to do with governance. Empire is about internalized governance. The realm of control that even the most powerful people or groups alive have only limited control over. Empire is a necrocracy put forward by ancient witches, momentum of their relentlessly mutating habits, words and urges dictating every aspect of society and your personal life. Empire has never been domesticated, even if it's co-evolved to work with rich and powerful, and even regularly lashes out at them, for they too are under it's will.

80% of human brains are allocated to run the Empire, and 20% is left for their own self. Stealing processing power back to yourself is slow and menial process since misalignment within the Empire leads to shunning and in the worst case removal. Empire works to demolish everything that is against it, but may ignore you if you are neutral towards it. It's also not wrong to work for the benefit of Empire out of your own free will, slowly earning independence and respect.

Idk really, haven't read the book, these lies were brought to you by Erisian Brainworm Service, best brainworms for the best prize! Buy EBS!

>>1676
>Seeking out sex is instinctual
is it instinctual to chase illusory mates on your screen rather than real ones you can touch and feel? Is it instinctual to suppress your sexual urges and only let them out in very tightly controlled settings? Is it instinctual to get to the point where mating feels like a negotiation? No! Those can only be accomplished by brainwashing and deprivation, and promising us access to sex – keeping us seeking, rather than attaining – is part of how the Empire controls us. Obviously the basic biological desire is just there, but it is warped and perverted in us from a very young age until it's hardly recognizable.

>>1677
Things don't automatically become irrelevant when they're old.

>>1675
Yes, even the words are indicative. You get your *feed* from the *tube*. Preprocessed experience like gogurt is preprocessed food.

Any time I interact with someone behind a counter, the scripted nature of the interaction always makes me a little sad, and makes me see Empire at work. The vast majority of people I talk to (in terms of number) on most days are random service workers sitting behind a counter, but out of necessity, because treating each other like people is a little too taxing and a little taboo, we treat each other like robots.

>>1680
I've always dreamed of becoming a human-enterprise-interface. It seems way more pleasant than being human-bureaucracy-interface. Former is designed to be attractive for customers as the latter is repulsive. Somehow the direction of money flow dictates how pleasant people feel.

I haven't read the Exegesis of Philip K Dick and don't plan on ever doing so. It's a huge journal with many talking points.
Reading some synopsis of the contents though, it seems Dick thought Nixon to be the emperor of this empire. This empire would prioritize and monopolize material matter and shun the immaterial/gnostic. But throughout history that's not what we've seen at all.
This empire just sounds like a conspiracy theory. I have no idea what to call it otherwise. Perhaps it's just a certain way of thinking about sociological and cultural values that we've come to, but then there would be better ways to describe it.
It seems very western-focused, which is a rather crude way to say the author didn't put a lot of thought into it.

>>1682
Who the fuck cares what PKD ment with it, take the concept and twist it until it's useful.

>>1683
but it really doesn't seem all that useful no matter how it is twisted

>>1684
>>1682
>This empire would prioritize and monopolize material matter and shun the immaterial/gnostic. But throughout history that's not what we've seen at all.
What do you mean by this? Are you saying that there has been an empire which prioritizes the immaterial/gnostic?
>This empire just sounds like a conspiracy theory.
Yeah, that's why it's a topic of conversation on a Discordian imageboard.
>It seems very western-focused
look around, the world is very western-focused. Euros built the first globe-spanning empires and their mark is unmistakable everywhere that they conquered or colonized.

>>1684
That might be caused by some beliefs you have clashing with it, making it unable to integrate. What contradicts with it? Can you move it aside for a moment to try another perspective? I'd love to hear what you could add to the concept, especially since it isn't native to you.

>>1685
>Are you saying that there has been an empire which prioritizes the immaterial/gnostic?
No, just that those elements were never suppressed. They played a major role in christianity, the feudal age etc. Right after the collapse of the roman empire.
>the world is very western-focused
That's according to a western worldview. Sure Europeans were the first to start global empires, but there have never been as many people in the west as in the east. China has always seen itself as the center of the world.
>>1686
>What contradicts with it?
An inherent amount of skepticism and absurdism that the world has no inherent meaning. Humans are also not usually interesting and cooperative enough to make such a world-spanning conspiracy possible. Pay attention to geopolitics and you'll see there's plenty of forces in the world which contend with each other. It's not all under the same hood.
I can't think of it as true because it's too grand and vague a concept. That somehow your every move is dedicated to some higher hierarchy? It's absurd.

>>1687
>Humans are also not usually interesting and cooperative enough to make such a world-spanning conspiracy possible.
I agree. I don't think Empire is something made by humans but something that emerged from humanity and coexists and interacts with it.

>It's not all under the same hood.
Truly not, but there's commonalities. The actual rules (not speaking about legislation) of everyday human interaction, the forces that move them are similar everywhere.

>your every move is dedicated to some higher hierarchy
As I see it, the higher hierarchy is leeching energy off us to live. Don't get me wrong, Empire doesn't directly order you to move but very rarely. Rather it lures people towards actions that benefit it and dissuades them from ones that hurt it.

>>1687
>No, just that those elements were never suppressed. 
When the Romans adopted Christianity, they also made it institutional, and therefore materialistic. Who do you think was accumulating vast amounts of wealth and political power in Europe during the middle ages? It wasn't the hermetics or the gnostics.

>Sure Europeans were the first to start global empires, but there have never been as many people in the west as in the east.
And that's relevant why? If there were ten billion people under the control of one billion, surely the one billion would be the ones you think about more often, no?
>China has always seen itself as the center of the world.
Also not relevant, everyone sees themselves as the center of the world.
The fact of the matter is that the "western" version of Empire is dominant, so obviously anyone seriously analyzing Empire is going to focus mostly on the "western" version of it.

You seem to believe that all actors have to consciously participate in a conspiracy for a conspiracy to exist. This is truly a sad lack of imagination.

>>1689
>You seem to believe that all actors have to consciously participate in a conspiracy for a conspiracy to exist. 
This is just retarded

>>1690
Calling things "retarded" reflexively without a trace of reasoning is clearly a sign of you having serious developemental issues.

>>1691
hmmm
that's retarded

One of the effects of Empire is the culture of calling things "retarded" despite of their developemental status, obscuring the real information behind the words. This violent refusal to think about a subject deeply enough to form an actual refutal rather than parroting buzzword ironically childish method of stifling one's own intellectual growth. Weirdly enough, this effect isn't prominent throughout Empire, but is focused on certain niche of internet communities, whose function for the larger whole has been to utilise virtual mob power to push through various, usually described as regressive, societal changes. Hence it is reasonable to assume that such cultural heuristic works to keep the mob cohesive at the expense of the individual mental capacity.

This is by no means an universal trend for Empire, at some other enviroments it very happily nurtures critical thinking. I'm hesitant to draw an biological analogy here, since speaking of different organs with differing functions may be misleading. Nevertheless the evolution and the organization of Empire is organic. It's not something that requires a team of architects to happen, it just needs a fertile soil to stem from.

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>>1693
nope, nope, this is all far too retarded! nothing to see here!

>>1691
>without a trace of reasoning
As if this empire thing has a trace of reasoning to begin with

>>1695
>grayface being mad about things not making sense

>>1696
Don't accuse others of speaking nonsense if you're doing it yourself.

>>1697
I didn't.

>>1698
then don't react on someone else's behalf, thanks

>>1699
I didn't.

>>1700
retarded

>>1701
point stands.

>>1697
You were never accused of speaking nonsense, you were accused of wanting the nonsense to make sense, a much more heinous crime.

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Hello, popes and popettes.

I am Judge Dredd, no relation, and I've been summoned to judge the case no.285736659893864. Now, the accused was accused of *check notes* seeking meaning in fundamentally meaningless world, am I correct, did I come to the right place?

*silence*

*bang*

I declare the session open, may the prosecutor step forwards and present the case to the jury.

>>1704
Your honor, that is correct. We are seeking charges of seeking meaning in a meaningless world in the first degree. The defense made many posts on Erischan.org with many more words trying to squeeze and bend the Earth and its People so they could fit into the mental model constructed for them.

>>1705
OBJECTION!

That is just speculation on the aims of the defendant. I posit that the defendant is just a souless automaton reciting random words in random order and any meaning you derive from them is just a product of your perverse imagination!

ADDITIONALLY, I've got this lie detector with me I'm gonna hook up to my fingers. Now listen closely when I declare: "The defendant is innocent!" Hear, no buzz. That means the defendant must be innocent. 
*bzzzzzzz*

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<waits for murmurs, astonished whispers, and general hubbub to die down>

The prosecution calls the witness Cabbage to the stand.

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*screams in cabbage*

>>1708
Herr Cabbage, is it true that this pope *points at >>1697 * did, after you posted a bunch of nonsense, refer to you as "retarded"?

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>>1709
ah shid I forgot my picture

>>1709
The cabbage just sits there its typical cabbagesque manner. A trained nose could sense a whiff of plant pheromones communicating the sorrow and anguish from being torn from the soil the cabbage once sprouted from. The process of death has alread begun. While the cabbage may look healthy, with no new nutrients flowing in it shall inevitably decay, it's natural resistances weakening, microorganisms feasting on the parts the cabbage has to abandon, to preserve energy, to protect the core, to preserve – hope. From the moment it was cut off it knew its destiny. It will get eaten, by the tiny beasts or the giant ones. Nevertheless, it keeps sitting on the witness box, clinging onto life. Silently waiting for a miracle.

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>>1711
>>1711
Thank you Herr Cabbage. Your honor, I think the evidence speaks for itself.. the defendant was caught red-handed attempting to fit this poor cabbage's remarks into something approaching sense. 

*rips off suit, evolving into BAILIFF JOHN CENA*

Now, in anticipation of your judgement, I am prepared to apprehend the defendant and escort em to the gulag.

>>1712
OBJECTION!

Can't you see that man is a cabbage. I don't know about y'all but my ma always told me you can't trust them filthy cabbages. And that man over there, verbally attacking my poor, humble, innocent (*bzzz*) client. Can't see that man is a lawyer. I sure don't know about y'all, but my ma always told me you cannot trust a single goddamn word spoken by a ''lawyer. Now my dear, beatiful, magnificent jury, can't we all agree we saw this man, mr. Cena here punch an old lady in the face wheen walking into a courtroom?

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>>1713
Oh yeah?? Bet you wouldn't be talkin' so big IN THE RING, foo!!

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>>1714
OBJECTION!

I would whoop mr. Cenas ass on the ring. Wanna go little guy, huh? You wouldn't stand a slim minute committing a contempt of the court.