Rape, Slavery, and Other Considerations

Following up on this…

From the outside looking in at this institution-cum-“cult,” my regurgitation and therefore implicit condonation of rape and sexual slavery, whether I intended these terms in the literal or simply as useful metaphors for domination, isn’t always clearly conveyed to the reader.

It’s time for me to refine my notions of “rape” and “slavery,” slowly reducing their sauces over a steady flame, tasting my cooking as I go along, and not serving it to my enemies until I’d serve it to myself. I use these words, as I do every other on these pages, with the utmost consideration. So if my cooking tastes like shit to you, it’s not because I fucked up the dish; it’s because you don’t like my cooking. That’s totally fine, not everyone likes sushi either. Does that make Jiro cry himself to fucking sleep? Hardly.

However, I’m feeling quite culinary at the moment, so let’s carpe occasio and see if we can’t, using just these words on this webpage, expand the horizons of your humble literary palette. Let’s see if we can’t make a dish that’s mutually enjoyable using only ingredients from the Contravex archives. So let’s plunge into this 130,000+ word ocean of delights and intrigues…

As to “rape” :

Marketing/propaganda/FUD. It’s really all the same shit. In Canada, this is perhaps nowhere better demonstrated than Stephen Harper’s Canada Action Plan, a lavish $16 mn per year! billboard and TV ad campaign designed to trumpet… itself. This C(R)AP was part of a federal budget of $83 mn in 2010-11 and $64 mn in 2011-12. This is perhaps nothing compared to the billions in bank bail-outs, etc. but the self-referentiality of the marketing is particularly offensive, which precisely brings into question why marketing is legal but rape isn’t. (No, I’m not suggesting we make rape legal, but rather that we make marketing illegal.)i

So marketing is legal and rape isn’t. Unfair, right? But is marketing really rape? Upon reflection, it’s close but not a sufficiently sharp criticism. Marketing includes conceiving, promoting, distributing, and selling a product or service, and it’s hard to make a case for product conception or distribution as rape. Advertising, on the other hand, includes bringing a product or service to the public’s attention through paid commercials or announcements. Based on these definitions certainly, advertising is much more akin to rape, and it’s therefore advertising that should be made illegal.

But that particular consideration aside, what exactly is it about advertising, that polluter of public airwaves,ii that’s akin to forced sex? Well, both are:

1. Unconsenting,
2. Unpleasant for the receiver at the time of the event,iii
3. Of a physical nature,
4. Involving dominance and submission,
5. Involving power,
6. Independent of articulate faculties,iv

That’s it really. The parallels between rape and advertising are clear and several. In fact, the ingredients are so fucking similar that using different terms is more of a cultural idiosyncrasy more than anything else. To keep the culinary references humming, the difference between rape and advertising is not at all unlike that between Croatian ćevapčići and Romanian mititei.

Since these terms are functionally interchangeable, if culturally specific, either may be used by those of the Internetv to refer to anything involving the six items listed above. For those who cherish freedom of speech and have their own platforms for its proper expression,vi it’s therefore more a function of the desired impact that determines if and when the stronger form is invoked. This therefore means that “rape” is a natural part of my vocabulary, even if this almost certainly makes me a mean old troll. Boo!

As to “slavery” :

Ultimately, the Internet is too important to be left in the hands of retards who moan and bitch when shit isn’t free, private, and perfect. They fail to see the equivalence of their derpage with that of gulag prisoners who want fewer lashings. Lashings are exactly what they’ll get until they put in the effort required. No amount of grade inflation will save people from the real world.vii

And also:

4. That any man or any woman who at any point during the previous five years took any action in furtherance of an act of enmity to mankind in degree of outrageous stupidity, or flowing from such an act, whether their own or another’s, are further guilty of enmity to all mankind in degree of willful evil, and must report forthwith to any member of the Bitcoin WoT in good standing, nude and barefoot, to begin a sentence of sexual slavery at that member’s pleasure and at that member’s expense to last no less than one year, upon the completion of which they may with permission from their master rejoin the cattle of the land ;viii

On the Internet, where physicality is but a bug, nothing is simply for the asking. Not anymore – these are Computer Times now. In the digital space, there is much to be earned, much to be won, much to be conquered, and almost nothing to be either given or taken on the grounds of fairness and equality.ix This isn’t your parents’ basement and there isn’t some magical producer of food and warmth to give you everything you want. This is the entire fucking world we’re talking about here and it’s one seriously competitive motherfucker.

While you may currently have a big warm fuzzy state to protect you from all the evil terrorists undercutting your local producers of cars and cheese and whatnot, they can’t adequately protect you on the Internet, no matter how many $millions of your money they repurpose and reappropriate for anti-badpeople firewalls.

As such, if you want to dice it up on the world wide web, just as a blacksmith does with a forged horseshoe, you will need to be beaten into a shape that conforms to the purpose at hand. You will learn to survive in the emerging digital landscape by fire or you won’t learn at all. There are no textbooks of any value on the subject – it’s a process of trial and error in terms of finding both solutions and trusted people to provide said solutions.

This process of education is very much akin to that of a forced labour camp in Siberia, a slave mine in Ghana, or even a completely voluntary subdom arrangement between consenting adults; there’s a teacher and there’s a student. Educationx via this firm-handed approach is pretty much inevitable, even if the process may be the worst, most unimaginably awful, most inhumane torture the student has ever experienced. Then again, the student might perfectly well enjoy it and the teacher might find it a stressful, if necessary, experience. Or perhaps neither minds much when faced with far less desirable alternatives, such as death.xi Either way, the lessons learned will be etched into your soul, never to be forgotten. This is the point.

Whether or not you want this for you and your children based on some notion of “niceness” is entirely besides the point. A no-nonsense education is more a matter of regrettable necessity than the only conceivable choice. Of course there are other choices, just like if you want to live somewhere warmer and more affordable than the Canadian suburbs, you’re more than welcome to move to Honduras. Or Somalia. Right?

The prime consideration being, if you want to learn certain subjects, damned the scarring, and including but not limited to surviving on the Internet, it’s beholden upon you to find trusted teachers who don’t mince words, who don’t fuck around with half-baked “solutions” to problems with sane if unconventional answersxii and who have the independence and autonomy to shepherd you in the right direction.

Ultimately, the meatspace actions that you’ve come to call “rape” and “slavery” aren’t germane to this discussion except to say that they’re composed of certain ingredients that are in no way unique to them.xiii I use these terms as metaphors; as terms of art. Why?

Impact.

Yes it’s visceral, yes it’s brazen, and yes that’s exactly the fucking point. While some things in life are about compromise, not everything is, and certainly not freedom of speech, and certainly not on the Internet.

Chew on that. Let it stew. If you’re brave enough to try it, you never know…

You just might like it.

 

___ ___ ___

 

 

 

  1. via Who Are We? Not Nationals.
  2. It’s not just sound that travels through air, so airwave pollution most certainly includes the visual (as in video billboards along highways), the olfactory (as in terrorising cinnamon bun shops at the mall), the auditory (as in the urinals that start spewing ads while you’re taking a piss), and the tactile (as in …
  3. If not after. We all hate being advertised to, but buying that new Mercedes feels incredible, doesn’t it? So what if you only bought it because they sponsored your favourite golf tournament, your local theatre, and the blasted your ears and eyes with their “sexy new car” as your in-flight entertainment system loaded. That new car smell is worth it!
  4. Such faculties being pillars 1, 2, and 3 of the six necessary for surviving in computer times.
  5. Yes, those of the Internet. While you might not get very far using these terms interchangeably in lunch conversation with a potential client for your legal services in Kelowna BC, shit’s different on the Internet. The Internet is the world and vice versa. While English remains its language, this language is no longer the dominion of the Western World.
  6. Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, etc. obviously don’t count in any way whatsoever. Y’know what they say, if the product is free, you are the product. Buck up for your own hosting and your own domain if you want a voice in this world. Careful though, it’s some straight-to-the-noodle shit.
  7. via The Internet is Everything: How Internet Censorship Only Affects The Poor.
  8. Via This Is The Bitcoin Empire, This Is The New Yasa.
  9. These being undefined and undefinable terms, they are useful political tools for those angling for election or re-election, and they’re of exactly no value for anyone trying to measurably improve the world they live in. What constitutes measurable improvement? Art, for one.
  10. That is, the actual internalisation of information, not just the attendance of classes where this is only in theory possible.
  11. Teachers aren’t always at the top of the food chain and may therefore find themselves educating or “re-educating” when they’d rather be gardening or golfing. Not everyone is cut out to be a teacher, y’know. By a similar token, slaves may prefer indentured servitude to starvation. It’s whatever’s +EV.
  12. Like Adobe e-signatures instead of PGP. Seriously now. Unyoke yo’self.
  13. For the record, I want Gavin Andresen to be literally nude and barefoot in my kitchen like I want to be a contestant on the Bachelorette. And I want him anywhere near my harim like I want optimal stock scotch. If I wouldn’t let him touch a single piece of software, why would I let him anywhere near where I eat? That’s the exact fucking advantage of the digital domain: physicality is externalised.

14 thoughts on “Rape, Slavery, and Other Considerations

  1. […] is also why we don’t joke about rape and slavery. Well, some of us don’t… […]

  2. […] It’s really quite a shame that we can’t open this dialogue, that we can’t discuss the nature and origin of both the helpful and the hurtful, that some topics of conversation are so politically incorrect and so “already solved”iii that even broaching the subject is tantamount to rape. […]

  3. […] Get this: Rachel knew of a better solution to the problem at hand and chose the shinier, prettier, more slickly advertised option. […]

  4. […] R&D-starved product line, could return to profitability by rebranding, marketing and generally raping anyone dumb enough to lease their shoddy wares,v just like GM has since the 1970’s. Maybe you […]

  5. […] makes it accessible, and therefore ambiguous, to damn near everything and anything. In contrast, the power of specific language deliberately tests our own personal depth, searching for each of our breaking points. The greater […]

  6. […] of that narrow family unit, however, the preponderance of advice-givers and their rapacious self-promotion makes it quite simply impossible to differentiate the signal from the noise. Those who are […]

  7. […] sight more valuable than a self-updatingi mobile/web app used specifically and exclusively to rape users and scam advertisers at the same damn […]

  8. […] Glorious Western World this not pooping in water thing is an entirely new idea and one that must be marketed effectively to increase adoption. Because it’s not like the kashrut declaration mapping to the same thing […]

  9. […] the western world today,vii it’s patently ludicrous, castrating, and nothing short of abject enslavement when explored in any detail worth the mention. How very ironic that that which claims to abolish […]

  10. […] the Sun-Maid Canada website lists the exact same product as “Pitted Prunes.” Seems like marketing might be […]

  11. […] around their shit-infested sties, all the while paying themselves handsome salaries and “marketing.” Together, states and aid organisations work to prop up politically convenient despots who […]

  12. […] is really saying something given that “marketing” and “ads” are functionally rape. […]

  13. […] yes, not surprisingly, then as now, the kids who “just wanted to” got raped. That’s just the way of the world innit. […]

  14. […] the choice between getting sweaty for an hour or two and staring at a screen getting eye-raped with ads for iPad games and glue (literally, there were multi-million “dollar” ads for […]

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