Tuesday, April 2, 2024

Damn.

I'm not sure which came first, the General Tso's Chicken or the egg roll, but something is rotten in the state of Denmark, and every other state, business, precinct, relationship or spinning of neutrons around protons or whatever it is such subatomic particles do.

Actually, allow me more digression than usual. 



If you want to see a great movie and a great movie about how today's de-boned and de-human'd Corporatist State is organized, I suggest you rent, buy or download, o's 1967 multiple Oscar-winner "The Battle of Algiers."


There's one scene in particular that captures the absolute dissolution and destruction of accountability, and humanity. Unfortunately, I can't find a clip of it. It's about one-hour into a two-hour movie. In it the French general is describing the structure of the Algerian "resistance." It looks like this. 


No "circle" knows anyone but the one circle he is connected to. So torture and capture cannot unravel the organization. And getting from the red dot bottom right to the CEO at the top takes innumerable steps. No one knows anything but one step, one person, and no one knows how to get from where they are to the top.

That's every "customer-service" phone-tree, bot, AI-assisted enema, government function, HR-department, online application, complaint, or interpersonal frisson.

Use my drawing and think about it in terms of asking a raise. Or, if you're a freelancer, think about it when thinking about Net 90. It's working for the CEO and then, months later, still not paid finding out the following:


And therein lies (and lies) the issue.

We have been so subjected to Corporatism that humanity has been wrung from our corpuscles. No longer are we humans--or creative people--doing work for the people who hire us. As we progress through the circlitude I pasted above, we are reduced to suppliers who "can (not will) see the remittance by Wednesday."

"Hi, Hon! I got remitted today!"

No, that ain't human.

Like most of humanity ain't human.

And we are trained by the entities that run our lives not to treat other humans as humans. We deny each other rather than help each other. We are divided and therefore conquered.

When I worked on IBM, I was very close to a couple of clients. They used to ask me, plaintively, if they were the worst clients ever because the alimentary process of getting something approved--or even getting a meeting, made a colonoscopy seem as simple as falling off a bike while riding on greased icicles.

I'd always reply simply.

"You're great clients. You always said please and thank you."

In other words, despite the bs all around us, you actually remained human.

If better work is really wanted, it starts with human-kindness.

It all reminds me of the world's best Latin joke, written by yours truly when I was working to become the first, and last, Latin-language stand-up comedian. 

CATO: "Why was the Latin scholar a virgin?"

CICERO: "When he was asked to conjugate, he declined."

That's better than a remittance next submitted Wednesday. 

But it doesn't get me paid.

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