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 Politics became an illusion due to excessive squabbling over scraps as it is superseded by economic primacy.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.)