#mark pesce

On my frustration with Facebook's inevitable overreach, this from Mark Pesce [1, 2] (albeit before Facebook put out their “fact check” response):

Digging into another article in the Book of Lies, The Disinformation Guide to Magick and the Occult. This time The Executable Dreamtime by Mark Pesce. Squirming a bit as wanting to argue with the author that he really doesn’t get it, when came across this gem which was spot on:

If Warner Bros has done their homework - and studios these days are little more than gigantic marketing engines for ‘tentpole’ releases like Mad Max: Fury Road - this trailer will only be the first of a rising storm of previews, interviews, and revised trailers, each of which will be eagerly consumed - and shared - by an audience whipped into a fever pitch by all these tantalizing tidbits. Then, on the day of release (May 15, 2015), the barrier will slam down. At that point the only way to satisfy the desire built up by these countless acts of audience-driven sharing will be to hand Warner Bros $25 of your hard-earned money (3D is exy) for a cinema ticket. Perfectly happy to flash some skin when it suits them, on release day Warner Bros turns into just another pimp, peddling flash for a price. The audience, meanwhile, has been well trained by Warner Bros. The audience knows how to find and share content. Some of that content is posted by the studio, to amplify their profits. Some of that content is posted by the audience, to satisfy the desires created by the studio. Warner Bros would call that sort of behaviour piracy. In reality, Warner Bros is simply reaping what they’ve sown. Every time a studio creates a digital asset to share with the audience, they sow the wind. When that studio releases a digital asset for sale to that audience, they reap the whirlwind. You don’t get to choose which benefits of sharing culture are yours.

When you find yourself trapped in a seemingly hopeless situation, jam your foot down on the accelerator pedal, take it to the limit, and drive straight on through to the culmination. Imminentize the Eschaton. What if we were to say, fine, bring it on, and accept language for all of its enslaving faults - but, at the same time, keep a consciousness of these faults constantly before us? Where would we find ourselves? Could this lead to freedom, a freedom which is less an escape from imprisonment tan an encompassing awareness that the world, with all of its traps and cages, cannot be separated from the Absolute? In any case, a recognition of the "horror of the situation" - as Gurdjieff stated it - could only put us in a better place to plot our escape. When you find yourself in the belly of the Beast, why not curl up, make yourself comfortable, and conspire?

If power corrupts, and each of us are endowed with inestimable power, we could cast human civilization as a long war of words, a battle to determine what is real. Robert Anton Wilson once quipped, "Reality is the line where rival gangs of shamans fought to a standstill." This statement hides the fact that we're all shamans, and every time we say, "This is this," we reset the parameters of the real. Most of these shamanic battles are relatively innocent, just primate teeth-baring and jockeying for dominance in a given situation. However, in the wrong mouths, words can lead to disaster. Consider Jim Jones or Adolph Hitler, who, by force of their oratory, led hundreds and millions to their deaths.