Maximum Advantage - The Technical Morality (2008 Revision) #4

Altruism is not conducive nor compatible with Maximum Advantage. Its appearance has ulterior motivation. A large corporation may donate large amounts to charities, but will milk it for Maximum Advantage.[12] Big Business supports cancer research, because its pollution is a cause and represents a potential profitable business venture. Issues become entangled and confused. Any debate regarding globalism grinds to a halt in a maze of pros and cons. The larger questions are not even considered. Progress is not viewed as a myth, but rather a definition drawn by little more than sentiment. Value judgements are supplied by propaganda, both pro and con. Most just ignore large-scale concerns and continue with their daily lives. Some things are simply never contemplated by those seeing potential for financial profit. The big picture is far away but the rent is due on the 5th of the month. Immediate concerns supersede all else. The periphery is less tangible and easier to manage. A landscape is constructed where before only a monolith existed to be venerated or assaulted. How could anyone, besides the “obviously” insane, completely question an all-encompassing vista?

[12] And receive a tax break (also to Maximum Advantage).

Maximum Advantage - The Technical Morality (2008 Revision) #3

Though not the cause, the strict positivist mentality pervading industrial societies, while infecting others, produced two World Wars and the Cold War. It then spread across the world, like a cancer, to those societies incompatible with its dictates. These Fall Apart and threaten the stability of the whole as primary loyalties take the place of the state.[9] The human factor has failed to develop at the same pace as its tools and toys. Human cultures appear incapable with ultimately dealing with these rapid pace stresses. The inertia is too great. Mental energy is directed toward progress. Rigid mechanistic doctrines fit the times but not the future. Victory was assured by the dialectic, which proved itself wrong. Nothing is inevitable except death and taxes. Nationalism proved stronger than international worker solidarity. Properly utilized, tribal rivalries are easier to promote and maintain. Xenophobic propaganda does not rely upon reason or rationale. Unrestrained, as in the case of the Cold War, an unstable condition was created thus leading to nuclear brinkmanship that culminated in the Cuban missile crisis. Excessive rhetoric can be exceedingly antagonistic, and required toning down. Propaganda became less inflammatory and over-stated. Employed too readily, blatant propaganda becomes extremely hollow. A softer touch used to Maximum Advantage in All Things was required and developed accordingly. Art was co-opted by both the propaganda and advertising industries.[10] The emerging technological society would not allow itself to be destroyed. Rather, quick destruction could be averted while still enriching the arms industry. The combination was simply the most efficient societal means. The technological system encroached upon all others. The approval of the positivist mind set was met, because its parts may be measured. One cannot quantify emotions. Hence, the qualified has no value except to be exploited for Maximum Advantage in All Things. Manipulation assures concern to be a liability. The mediocre becomes ascendant. Slave and master moralities were quickly absorbed into the technological framework, and synthesized into a common median. The resultant system, developed by exploiting and encouraging conflict, allows justification for increased efficiency essential for technical propagation. Unlike harsher systemic schemes, the minimum effort necessary for maximum gain is the approved standard applied. The resultant mythos created is a hollow mockery. Progress rolling over everything, defining all valuations by drenching the earth in blood if necessary, is perceived as good in a world long past such quaint notions. However, progress does provide some continuity for us drones chained to its capital-controlled economic system. Else all would perceive the drift. A supposed link with past traditions has been a common error during all ages. The current era is no different. The base means are dredged for Maximum Advantage, a value system which attaches parasitically to any available host as a means of least action. Rebellion is subdued by commodification of its products. The elite gain by the stability necessary for maximum technical efficiency. The resultant cultural inertia often produces weak worthless decedents, whom mean absolutely nothing, slowly withering away in stupid angst. Only their money saves their useless existence from being stomped into mulch. The slow mediocre spiral drags all down by subduing natural reactions in favor of anti-natural meaning. Inefficiency is evil, but the walking dead are an abomination. Maximum Advantage is not destined to be long lasting, but will permeate everything of value in a skewed technological society. The hyper-rational must allow outlets for expression, but never enough to upset the established order. Any popular appeal will be bought and sold to a hyper-stimulated populace craving new diversions. Existing pathways are exploited to natural advantage in all things by superceding nature itself. Corruption is a by-product which must be minimized by expending very little, thus little may be corrupted. Hence, decay is evidenced over collapse. While allowing less room for discontent, passivity is always encouraged and valued over submission. Populations do not rebel over boredom.[11]

[9] See the writings of William S. Lind, and John Robb.

[10] Is there a difference?

[11] Except, for a time, as a passage of youth. Church burnings in Scandinavia are an example.

Maximum Advantage - The Technical Morality (2008 Revision) #2

Maximum Advantage is the moral code for the successful wielding of power in the United States.[4] Maximum gain for minimum effort is desired in all things. The forward view is very myopic.[5] Mitigation is attempted through subtle mutation but cooptation is the result. Maximum Advantage in All Things is desired. The unity is all-encompassing. Nothing is perceived beyond its scope. Power must be unrestrained. Hence, economics becomes progressively more abstract. Reinstating the gold standard would be an economic disaster, but its abandonment spawned another. The old verbal worlds has been superseded by the more evolved. Hence, outright coercion has be replaced by less direct methods. Two-million plus fill our national prisons. Yet we are free. Drugs have been exploited to Maximum Advantage in All Things. One might wonder how many proverbial birds are being slain by the stone of the drug war. The technical morality learns from past mistakes. The American public only cares about body bags. Hence, we have bloodless wars where the only military footage allowed is at extreme heights. The Serbian and Iraqi Population bled, but their leaders remained in power.[6] Thus military expenditures and imperialism are justified by digging up not-quite-neutralized threats, or by simply allowing conflict to develop on their own. As long as nobody is drafted, and only elite pilots are put in the line of fire, the population is largely apathetic. In the event of ground actions, soldiers are not vilified, just neglected. Nobody is forced to join the military. In addition, legitimacy is conferred by international coalitions after being rubber stamped by the United Nations Security Council.[7] The population is united by abstractions and myths, like progress and freedom. Loyalty is maintained by statistical prosperity. If the statistics say the nation is prosperous, then it must be healthy. Data and definitions are skewed[8] for Maximum Advantage in maintaining the systemic status quo. Socialization is supplanted by a mass media verbal world. Consumerism is called truth. Rather than just another historical transition, the present is portrayed as eternal, but instead stagnates. However, even the failures may be exploited to Maximum Advantage in All Things. Criminals sell paper and boost ratings. The Judicial Branch is an industry. A niche exists for all. Radical change may be portrayed as inconsequential and nothing be labeled as something, but that does not make either case so. The world moves toward the anti-natural and will pay the price. Bankruptcy only works in court. Emotions may be manipulated. The opportunist is never immune. Dissident elements may be negated without crackdowns. Their message is inconsequential to the present technical moral scheme of Maximum Advantage in All Things. Even while promoting the opposite, the concrete is always valued over the abstract. The system creates itself. Individuals ride the wave. Some fall. Others prosper, including some dissenting voice. Ralph Nadir is a millionaire. All are products. The elite know it.

[4] Neo-conservative are and were too stupid to know otherwise.

[5] And becoming increasingly reactive toward crisis. One can expect nothing more than another mediocre solutions, as nothing else is inherently possible, by those whose power and position rest upon systemic continuity. They will run themselves and everyone else into the ground before any real changes occurs. In other words, the longer it last, the less salvageable.

[6] And in the case of Iraq, later used to justify invasion.

[7] Obviously, failure to do so has its perils.

[8] Or eliminated through finding cuts, such as was the case for the Federal Reserve M3 Statistic, discontinued in 2006, that could officially shown an alarming growth in the money supply. (This statistic is still independently tracked.) Hyperinflation and deflation are not mutually exclusive.

Maximum Advantage - The Technical Morality (2008 Revision) #1

I have been revising a few of my 1990s essays for publication... (This is a re-write of the link above.)

Maximum Advantage—The Higher Morality

Maximum Advantage is not everything; only those things which matter in a technological society. Wholly encompassing, Maximum Advantage may be applied in all situations. Quickly mutable, Maximum Advantage will co-opt or corrupt any rival moral philosophies, belief systems, religions and long lasting traditions. Maximum Advantage is not for cowards nor heroes. As minimum effort expended for maximum gain, Maximum Advantage is the embodiment of mediocrity. Maximum Advantage exploits the mean and mitigates circumstances: the course always follows the path of least resistance. Maximum Advantage is morality applied technically. As is appropriate for machines, the emphasis always concerns efficiency. Maximum Advantage facilitates propaganda through efficient application of advertising, promotion and applied psychology. Encompassing attention spans and finances, Maximum Advantage is brevity. Maximum Advantage is the real 1984. Maximum Advantage is the next highest branch on a genealogical tree[1] of Western morality. A technical morality for a technical age was inevitable. The dead could not walk without it. A product of reductionism, Maximum Advantage has arrived largely unacknowledged but hardly unnoticed. Maximum Advantage is speed. Degeneration is a by-product. Efficiency does not apply to everything. Nadir and zenith rapidly alternate and reverse in a slow downward spiral. Cultural declines occur over the span of a mere generation.[2] Past populations experienced either relatively stable transition, or forced conversion by the sword; Maximum Advantage is neither. A truly positivist morality would have likely produced a world nuclear funeral. The myth of progress was thankfully dulled and diluted just enough by the science it helped spawn. Although extremely destructive, sinister incarnations of deterministic thought produced blatant totalitarian machinations which were thankfully not viable. The liberal democracies prevailed, were contaminated by contact vectors, and became something different even while retaining old trappings and framework. Some continuity is necessary. The ruling elite must support the economic system,[3] a technical field, for it to be a viable concern. Politics became an illusion due to excessive squabbling over scraps as it is superseded by economic primacy. Only technical efficiency was deemed unquestionably good. All else must be justified. A mediocre bastard child was spawned by a union with global capital and approaches maturity. Adolescence ended with the cold war.

[1] Some would say uprooted.

[2] The generational concept is a relatively new concept. It requires rapid change, therefore different age ranges experience vastly different worlds. The resultant conflict inevitably occurs as a clash between Verbal Worlds (see appendix). History is witnessed.

[3] Economics is ideology masquerading as science. (As is if Greenspan, A.K.A. “Mr. Bubble,” and his ilk are scientists.)