Existential Intentionality in Society: A Timeline Intervention of the Social Contract

 Coming soon is Brian's new book, philosophy, website, movement and society. 

Essays may continue to arrive here at hypermanipulation, but may not be as quick or plentiful as I am directing all my energies to the new work.

Please visit our new site at https://www.exint.org

Here is an introductory essay about the philosophy, book and website.

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Are we living in a time of great change? 

We seem to be. In 2020, we can look to the streets of any major city, we can see the desire for change is real. We're making it real by lifting our voices to an undeniable volume and taking action that can't be ignored. We revolt currently for much the same reasons as we have historically, the powers that be exert control by ways and means we find abusive or offensive. 

The Authors of any Social Contract have traditionally come from religion, government, academia: Kings and philosophers, Priests and Lords. (All men, until recently...) It used to be easier to rule a society, but from the printing press to the cell phone, technology has made information available to the public and given them a voice. Today, almost anyone can project their own ideas into the contract.

When communications reach the speeds of electricity and the spread of broadcast media, we have achieved what becomes known as Hyperreality, named by Philosopher Jean Baudrillard. (And the subject matter of the Matrix movies.) Hyperreality is the non-real, image of reality that we take part in via technologies that project sensory input. Technically, the printed word is hyperreal, however the less we leave the interpretation of the information up to the imagination of the citizen, the more “hyper” the reality. So, Radio is more effective than print, using more senses, then TV is more powerful than Radio, using more senses, then the internet creates the ability for the public to not only receive, but to project, becoming themselves Authors of the Social Contract. 

The Social Contract defines what it means to take part in society. It is only written in parts, such that your country has laws, perhaps a constitution. But in the social contract is also all the unwritten definitions of what it means to be a member of society. For instance, most societies use money, most educate their young in schools, most nations have an army that is respected by its citizens. Even simpler concepts are part of the contract, most of us use stop signs, most of us wear clothes. The Social Contract is dynamic and changes as the citizenry accepts and refuses changes to its definition. Where once, the Contract was handed down from authorities on high, now anyone can project ideas into the Contract, for better or for worse. 

The “what is being projected” into hyperreality is not always social contract, but it almost always is. For instance, maybe in the 1960s my parents had a black and white TV and watched Leave it to Beaver, without realizing that the ideal of 1950s life that was projected in the series was a thoughtful presentation of an ideal. Philosopher Guy Debord referred to that ideal as “the Spectacle” in his book and film Society of the Spectacle. Debord claims that the Society of the Spectacle was any society, like America, that defined its social contract by or within projections into hyperreality. Sometimes that projection was pure social engineering “Join the Army!” sometimes it was more benign, “This pair of jeans will make you sexy.” But what if instead of being convinced to buy a particular pair of jeans you were being asked to deny science, or encourage racism, or compete for limited resources?

Guy Debord believed that the natural conclusion of the spectacle in hyperreality would become one of pure image. Then Jean Baudrillard, who lived until 2007 and got to see the internet become the next domain of hyperreality, believed that this transfer to pure image had already happened; The fake was realer than real, standing in for the real, accepted as real. He used American soldiers playing video games that actually kill humans as his example. Maybe he was correct, but neither men could know that we, via the ever-quickening pace of technological advancement and the willingness to embrace it, would become the Amalgam Intellect. 

The Amalgam Intellect is created by way of hundreds of millions of humans being connected via technology. We have a cell phone in nearly every pocket, millions of us are online, many of us have a willingness to be virtuous in our actions and the opportunity to share every secret, expose every lie and correct every injustice, together, simultaneously, in high-definition, surround sound, merely by pointing our cameras and pressing record. This ability and the realization of it, that shift, that change, that feeling in your gut and in your heart, is a developing awareness of your personal responsibility to the true democratization of society, your role as co-author of the spectacle. Perhaps you didn't realize that the Amalgam Intellect is a real phenomenon, or that you have a part in it, or that the Social Contract is even definable, but it is and you do. (Congratulations and I'm sorry.) Helping you define that role is the goal of Existential Intentionality. 

Using the Amalgam Intellect to rewrite the Social Contract is already happening, it will continue with or without our awareness and organization. For the most part we are currently mirroring and amplifying the Social Contract as it is. Existential Intentionality in Society wishes to create a movement that makes public its desire to change the social contract. Not much has changed in the last few hundred years. There are still Kings and slaves, rich and poor. There are still problems that could be solved and aren't, simply because there is no profit to be had by enacting the solution. Hyperreality has not cured or compounded the problems we face, but it has put a giant spotlight on them and broadcast them into every psyche. We are just now becoming aware of this fact. 

There are really only two concerns in modern life, you and then everything else. This is the foundation upon which all social contracts are built: What is the relationship between yourself and everything else? Some matters are of more importance than others, obviously. You car loan differs from your sexuality, your wedding vows differ from your tax bracket. What if all your choices were made from a place of ignorance, or misunderstanding? What if you were hypermanipulated? 

This is where I begin expressing myself in hyperreality. Since 2001 I have published a lot of philosophical social criticism, in different formats, trying to make a spectacle of myself. In 2010 I published Anti-Social Engineering the Hyper-Manipulated Self , which is about the history and use of hypermanipulation and the affect of the Authentic Self. I like every philosopher before can only project my thoughts into the future from my own time and place. However, today, because of the Amalgam Intellect, I am no longer alone filing this report and perhaps together we can be part of the change we want in the world.

Where my first book is an extremely in-depth study of the Authentic Self, hypermanipulation and their histories, my latest book Existential Intentionality: A Timeline Intervention of the Social Contract is very brief. This new book is instructional, specifically reductionist; A field guide to the Spectacle of Hyperreality and an instruction manual to the Amalgam Intellect. 

A timeline intervention is the examination of an individual's personal development in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Everyone goes through similar problems as they grow up and then older. Societies age and change, develop or not, just like people. A group, just like an individual, won't change until it decides it needs to and I think, maybe in 2020, we're deciding we need to change. I would like to have a conversation about the things that should change. That's why Existential Intentionality isn't only a simple introductory book, nor our website exint.org where membership is free, it's an idea, a philosophy, a movement. It isn't going to be solved with one answer, but it might be solved with one suggestion:

 

Grow away from taking part in any intentionality of fear, competition, distinction, persecution. Work toward the substantiation of an intentionality of love, caring, cooperation and solidarity. When each of us changes this intentionality within ourselves and then begins projecting it into hyperreality, Society too will change.

When we examine our systems of society with the same eyes we use to examine ourselves, society comes up wanting. Society is immature, counterproductive, counter-intuitive, unnatural, unsettling, dangerous. We are at a pivotal moment in our development, all together. The true democratization of society, perhaps the species, can be achieved via the Amalgam Intellect. Existential Intentionality in Society can develop a paradigm different from the social contract to which we currently subscribe. A timeline intervention of the social contract is due, probably overdue. 

Existential Intentionality in Society creates in the bearers a place of love from which you can transfer the fear the world sends your way. By way of improving your ability to develop yourself and taking part in the Amalgam Intellect, you can take part in the substantiation of the first truly democratic social contract. Membership is free. All members receive a free copy of Existential Intentionality in Society: A Timeline Intervention of the Social Contract. Goto www.exint.org and put your email in our subscription box. 

See you in the Spectacle!

What is Hypermanipulation?

Hypermanipulation is a byproduct of any social engineering expressed by or to Hyperreality.
To gain an appreciation for hyperreality, please read this previous essay, What is Hyperreality?


Essentially, hyperreality is the "what is manipulated" by hypermanipulation and the social engineers, (the people "engineering society") are the people either doing the manipulation, or being the manipulated, or both; And they do so with, or without being aware of this manipulation existing or being utilised.

Hypermanipulation is a the re-programming of a program, by a program which may or may not yet have achieved a sense of self. This is the Hypermanipulated Self of which I speak in my book Anti-Social Engineering the Hyper-Manipulated Self. If you, as a member of a hypermanipulated society are unaware of the mere concepts of hyperreality (or the Spectacle, as it is also named) and/or social engineering (in all realities), your hypermanipulated self is likely to remain an unknown unknown.

Yet, hyperreality exists, as does hypermanipulation. We are all constantly bombarded by it everyday.
Some of us barely scratch the surface of the Spectacle, living in our huts in a jungle, living off the land. Some of us live almost entirely within hyperreality, we work there, play there. If all that is possible is our being and doing, some of us are being and doing as much as possible from within hyperreality.

Even if we are not, even if we spend as much time as possible in the "real world" the real world has become merely the foundation upon which the hyperreal exists. Yes, you still need to eat and sleep, but someday, technology will create a reality where even those physical requirements can be hypermanipulated. It's just a question of time, like all things. If you and I lived four hundred years ago, this conversation would not be necessary or even possible, without being the stuff of imagination, but also, if we lived so long ago, I probably couldn't even read or write and neither could you. So the limitations of our past, should not reflect on our abilities to imagine our futures.

For today's citizens of the post modern, hyperreality and hypermanipulation contain real, day to day considerations we undertake, contemplations deemed necessary, with or without cognition. But with cognition of these realities, able to "see the matrix" as it were, we become world builders, society shapers, influencers. For the initiated, hypermanipulation is extremely understood, practised and powerful.

For the uninitiated, the unaware, the asleep, the conservative, the technophobe, for any multitude of reasons one might harbour for refusing the evidence of any particular social paradigm, there is no denying either that the Spectacle grows more powerful as technology ties us together into an amalgam intellect or that the expansion of hyperreality into that intellect creates an equal opportunity for hypermanipulation.

The problem remains that not everyone taking part in that hypermanipulation realizes that they are doing so, thus the value of these examinations. The Hyper-Manipulated Self is awash in a matrix of all possibilities and no definition. Yet, hyperreality is nothing but definition, it is nothing but construct of data. The manipulation taking place is of that data, the hyper prefix refers to the fact that such manipulations are taking place outside your desire or will, if you have no inkling of these facts. Thus, the "programming of the program." Social Engineers, active citizens of a healthy society, should and eventually will have inklings of these realities, as time allows discovery, some do today. But technology has now passed the point of creating an amalgam intellect and in doing so has taken the control of hyperreality from the bastion of academia and politic and handed it over to the populace. Some of that populace knows this and hypermanipulates intentionally, some of that populace doesn't know this and hypermanipulates unintentionally by merely taking part in the Spectacle of hyperreality.

It is now possible, unlike in times incapable of an amalgam intellect, for members of society taking part in hyperreality to develop ownership of hypermanipulation and make conscious, intentional marks on the "chalkboard of the world," defining what taking part in society should mean. But it is also possible for that same intellect to create bad ideas, wrong directions, for the "marks on that chalkboard" to contain offensive symbols or unnatural, counterproductive ideologies. The dangers of the unintentional directing of any social contract are immediately apparent and when the domain of hyperreality retards our ability to separate the true from the false, our adherence or resistance to any particular engineering being made from a place of our ignorance at the most, confusion at the least, must lead to eventual, historical change or become the seed of a destruction so complete, no changing of minds could it restore.

Hypermanipulation is real. You are a social engineer if you take part in any expression of your personage into hyperreality, which you have been doing, everyday of your life. You're doing it right now, by reading these words. If you weren't previously aware that hyperreality is real and has been real for hundreds of years, you now are. Congratulations and I'm sorry. I'm hypermanipulating you. You're hypermanipulating me.

Let's first agree that this is happening.
Then we will talk about what is to be done about it.
The conversation continues on this blog and is alive in the Spectacle...

Tune in, take part, or be left behind..

What is Hyperreality?

Hyperreality, is defined by Wikipedia as:
(*Note: Wiki def may have changed since I wrote this essay...)

"Hyperreality, in semiotics and postmodernism, is an inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality, especially in technologically advanced postmodern societies. Hyperreality is seen as a condition in which what is real and what is fiction are seamlessly blended together so that there is no clear distinction between where one ends and the other begins."

This is almost completely an inaccurate definition, but Wikipedias' incorrect definition does help illustrate both Hyperreality and Hypermanipulation, because of what Wikipedia is and from where it generates content. 

Hyperreality is not a condition of our conscious distinction. It is not something that is created in our perceptions. It is true that Hyperreality is a product of a technologically advanced postmodern societies, but it is a real thing, an observable, quantifiable facet of true reality, in fact reflected by the existence of Wikipedia.

The fact that Wikipedias' definition of Hyperreality comes to us from a media that simply couldn't exist before our societies' technological advancement, that very media falls squarely into the definition of the domain of 'Hyperreality.' The website is part of hyperreality because the internet, by definition, is part of hyperreality. The internet is real, therefore, hyperreality is real. Before the internet, working backward through history, the technological advancements of previous media created the realm of hyperreality: Television, radio, to a lesser degree, the telegraph, all moving communication of ideas from the first person to the non-person, moving reality into the hyper.

The fact that Wikipedia's incorrect definition was also created inside hyperreality, coming as all data has come to Wikipedia, from the hyperreal, to the hyperreal, defines hypermanipulation. There is no first person attached to this information, it is just pure information and we can not truly know whether or not this information is good, right and true or the opposite of these things.

So Wikipedia, like ourselves in this post modern world, are essentially full of shit and do not know it.

That's Hyperreality for ya... It is "the Spectacle" aspect of what "living life" means. "The Spectacle" has been around for as long as we have been creating it to define what society should or shouldn't be. 

Anyone wishing to delve further into the correct definition of hyperreality would be best served by delving into the work of Philosopher Jean Baudrillard, in particular, Fatal Strategies. You could also attempt to read Philosopher Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle, a beautiful, ingenious work that is mind boggling. Baudrillard's work is much more accessible.

Of course, my Anti-Social Engineering the Hyper-Manipulated Self is the most accessible explanation of this reality, but you've already read that, right? Oh, you haven't?

We have Debord to thank for naming hyperreality "The Spectacle." In his book, he claims that when a society advances well enough technologically, particularly in societies built around accumulation, such as consumerism, commodities detach from reality, becoming images. Those images make up the constituents of hyperreality. "Real reality" still exists, it is still necessary because we can't yet spend all our time in hyperreality. Please notice my use of the word, "yet." These concerns are coming, if they're not already here, dictated by the amount of time and energy we put into hyperreality.

Hyperreality exists. It is not a condition of the modern mind, it is the product of technological society. Hyperreality is not the medium, it is the message. We are all "tuned into it" to more or lesser degrees. The power of hyperreality is directly proportionate to our involvement with it. Where the tribesman, living in the jungle, subsisting off the land, may never catch more than a glimpse of the Spectacle, I, in my office, typing on this screen, almost live absorbed by the Spectacle. Both of us are asked to decipher what is real and what isn't. The tribesman is going to have a much easier time than I, in this endeavour, because the hyperreal is so much less influential to him than it is evaluable to myself.

Hyperreality is everywhere, not just on your tv or the internet. It's in the ideas that source themselves from these domains. It is not like electricity, or computer code. It is not the Matrix, it is what's in the real Matrix. (The Matrix movies are built around the philosophical concepts we're discussing, right now, simply placed into a future where we have "figured out how to live entirely in Hyperreality.") Hyperreality is the ideas expressed and the intentionality of that content, not the machine expressing the content. Nor does hyperreality add some dramatic danger of machines taking over our consciousnesses, for any purposes. The machines do not contribute the content of hyperreality, society does. 

Hyperreality is only as useful as we can make it. For instance, if you wanted to know about Hyperreality and you only went to Wikipedia to educate yourself, you would take the incorrect definition at face value, remember it, taking it out of hyperreality and into "the real world" perhaps sharing it with others, (social engineering,) spreading disinformation, etc. This may not be too bad of a problem, for you or anyone else who comes to believe this erroneous data correct, in the particular case of defining "hyperreality," but surely you can see the problems inherent when even such a feat is possible by accident, or deliberately designed. Imagine all the different types of wrong thinking currently rattling around in our heads...

How much of that wrong thinking is creating our philosophies, our politics, our beliefs, our knowledge, our language, our imaginations, our actions, our being, our doing, everything?

Thus the value in understanding the Spectacle, Hyperreality.

Thank you for letting me explain this, if you have any questions, please ask in the comments below.

You might also like to read the next instalment of this blog where I define Hypermanipulation.

In a postmodern world where technology has created an amalgam intellect, where individuals are simultaneously anonymous and celebrity, where the engineered, yet unwritten social contract demands, more than ever before, we react to the spectacle of hyperreality as part of the day to day mechanics of what it means to live your life, to reveal your Authentic Self requires you Anti-Social Engineer the Hypermanipulated Self.

What will Bigots do when Trump is Gone?

The bigotry of the right has been celebrated since Trump went into office, by applauding the actions of the office and the words of the man.

Immediately American backs straighten at the idea of the right being the bastion of bigotry. 

But Conservatives, by definition, reach back, aiming for status-quo via tried and true practices of authority, ingroup, sanctity. 

This is how Conservatism is unnatural and works counter to progress, it is literally not looking forward, figuratively anti-change.

“There's good people on both sides of the argument,” claims your idiot President.

No. Those aren't good people.

And there was no argument.

You, Mr. President, are racist. So are a hell of a lot of other Americans.

So many bigots that, in fact, this is the norm.

It's great that everybody is talking about it now, from within an framework of shame, rather than pride.

Well, I guess most of you are looking at it with shame and only some with pride.

A few too many?

Way too many?

While the President's bigotry seems to know no bounds, the entire world marvels at the ignorant force that put him in power. 

That same force now cowers under the fury of oppression. 

That force shares the same wilful ignorance as Trump, the same ideals, the same false beliefs, the same wrong thinking, the same apathy and lack of intelligence.

When Trump is no longer President, what will the bigots do?

Become silent again, raging under their breath, waiting for opportunities to express their “opinion?”

Unless you address this problem now, with real change, the kind of change that will make an actual difference, the Right will rise again. 

Such is the extremity of your dichotomous government.

You have through your action begun a process that could lead to a better America.

This could be an American Spring... We'll see if you can keep at it.

However, you have multiple problems occurring simultaneously because so much of your way of life is founded upon a lie.

Your immediate concern is getting Trump out of the White House.

Not in November, not after the riots, now.

And you have to do it in such a way that everybody realizes that the Right is wrong and why.

However, I don't think this is possible because you are so very, very damaged by the paradigm that you loudly claim makes you greater.

Might is Tenuous

The problem with terrorists is, they don't differentiate between the people and the target.

If the people are fair, free and just it is a product of their choosing, by way of being free.

Yet if the people believe and act upon those beliefs, to some detriment to others, are they not also free to do so?

It stands to reason...

But if the people are slaves to a system, (for example,) and it is the system that is despicable, why not attack the system?

The people, (we assume,) are merely purveyors of the system, because they must. To refuse membership is to render one's self a failure. How can slaves be targets?

It isn't the ideas of freedom, democracy or even stupid capitalism that are the targets of anyone other than seeming tyrants or true brutes. Why wouldn't everyone want to be free, fair and affluent?

The things that make a target real are products of being slaves to a faulty system.

When one is greedy, one takes. When one is mighty, one takes what one wants. When one is both an unholy palindrome ensues.

Without learning to share, the glutton bully perishes.
This is to be expected.
This is natural.

So it is that those making decisions to send people to war based on pre-programmed ideals of earnest well being. That is to say, these (mostly) men from either side truly believe they are doing right.

These decision makers are thus slaves.
The Terrorists, as it were, are attacking drones and machines.
Not even fit to be slaves.
Robots of slaves.
Tools.

However, if you're trading one life for another because one side wants oil and one side wants to be despotic, this is an incongrous dichotomy. Both sides are dupes, not just in the sand, but too in the marble hallways.

The real boss is the system, and the system is hungry.
Might is tenuous.