From Humanoid Faults to Manipulated Consensus, 29

As hypnosis requires bypassing, usurping, stealing someone’s control before one can exploit it, then lullabies are composed of distracting first, penetrating second, manipulating third, and these steps take on countless forms, such as the falsely interesting, the relaxing, the boring, the overwhelming repetitive. An example of it are the usual “conditions of use”, those streams of clauses we all know and no one reads before putting one’s signature at the bottom: the crossing is so long, in so thick and deep a quicksand, that no one survives it, and thus surrenders to whatever malicious may be hidden in it.

We’re flammable:

We resemble thoroughbreds that champ at the bit while ploughing at crawl’s pace through jammed tight windy alleys, overeager to hurl at full gallop. Intolerant of the tireless, accurate and systematic pace required to confront every fragment in order to piece the puzzle together, we’re constantly searching for a blunt oversimplification to grab and weave. We start a quest for answers but during the descent into details we give up to a drive to give vent. We’re like time bombs ready to get triggered by either those who do know and exploit this weak spot, or by our own meanest instincts, and as such a very serious liability to our fellows, particularly when one detonation triggers many other in a chain reaction, utterly compromising any way out.

One thing is the right amount of explosive in the right place at the right time to blow the cage door; quite another is a random amount in a random place at a random moment to cave the cage vault in on all of us. Force without intelligence is a curse. And once the fuses are blown, our effects on the situation are those of the stone the disheartened Sisyphus watches rolling downhill.

From Humanoid Faults to Manipulated Consensus