The 30-Degree Shift: How to Plagiarize Reality
Thank goodness this is one of my favorite topics, because it seems to rule the world. I’m constantly inspired and intimidated by the absurdity I see all over the place. Sometimes I wonder how I could ever compete with reality. Mostly, I end up stealing.
Before I go off the deep end, let’s consider what absurdity even is. I don’t know about you, but I hadn’t given it any real thought. I’d look at something stupid and think “how absurd!” However, when you write things down, you can’t hang your hat on “I know it when I see it,” so we’d better build some scaffolding.
I started with the dictionary (a classic source of word definitions) and found some pretty unsatisfying options:
“having no rational or orderly relationship to human life: meaningless” Obviously not.
“stupid and unreasonable, or silly in a humorous way.” We’re getting closer with this one.
“extremely silly, foolish, or unreasonable: completely ridiculous.” Almost there.
Absurdity can be silly or funny, but it can also be horribly cruel. Unfortunately, that’s the kind I see all over. “Completely ridiculous” is very good, but it needs a modifier, like “and heavily endorsed.” Commitment to the bit. Absurdity is what happens when power doubles down on a narrative that can’t survive inspection.
With my particular brand of neurodivergence, this absurdity can stick out more than clashing colors. That’s not a great simile when you know I’m color blind, but I distinctly remember the cringe on Alexa’s face when I would wear black and navy blue together in high school, so I’m sure it works. I’m not trying to be a downer, so we’ll look at something that’s silly unless you think about it too much (save that for after you read this).
An example that comes to mind often is cryptocurrency and how it’s evolved. I remember when I became aware of the blockchain. Oh, what a wonderful, optimistic time that was. Instead of researching the technical possibilities, I would have been less of a dope to just buy the lie and sell the scam.
Ce la vie…
Instead, I learned about the functionality and potential of blockchain technology. I became enamored with the idea of utility coins that could allow anonymity alongside trust. In a global market (and as an untrusting neurodivergent), this appealed to my sensibilities. It felt like the future. I thought about being able to purchase something online without giving my full credit card, address, social security, semen sample, and three potential business ideas.
Instead, we got a new asset. Another one. Can you feel the deep sigh and an eye roll through your screen? In the grand tradition of fake money, we made something of value out of bits and bytes. How fun. How original. How human.
Can you tell I went to school during the financial crisis?
That would be absurd enough for most, but humanity has a way to upping the ante after inventing poker. Now we have massive facilities which use water and energy to mine this asset which is used to… HODL, which I believe is just an acronym for “commit, [insert gendered insult here].”
Not strictly true. Now there are many institutional funds that hold these various, unpriceable assets and even the good old Federal Government is getting in on the game. It’s fascinating how anarchy can be coopted so easily by institutional power.
More buy-in, means more mining. Let’s back up and take a wholistic look at those facilities. How do you mine cryptocurrency? Basically, you have a bunch of GPUs race to solve a super hard math problem. Here’s where it gets funny. Those GPUs, you know, the ones doing the work to ‘mine’ fake gold? They have real gold in them. The stuff that used to be money.
Humans dug gold and other precious metals out of the earth (poisoning the atmosphere in the process, but we won’t go down that road), shipped them to other humans who designed and manufactured the GPUs, who shipped them to a warehouse (building by humans) in order to solve hard math problems to stack digital coins of dubious value. Now that is commitment to the bit.
Like I said, you can’t make this shit up.
So how do I compete with reality? My favorite way is to shift it 30 degrees to the left. An example of this done well is A Modest Proposal by Dr. Johnathan Swift. If you’re not familiar, trigger warnings ahead for the faint of heart.
It begins with an appeal to pathos, describing the piteous conditions of the Irish people during the potato famine (another rabbit hole we will not be going down today). The second paragraph details the burden of children:
…this prodigious number of children… is in the present… a very great additional grievance; ad therefore whoever could find out a … method of making these children sound and useful members of the common-wealth, would deserve… to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation.
This reads like some upper-crust newsletter, detailing the wholly unfortunate and altogether understandable situation of the poors out in the countryside. Someone reading from that perspective, would likely take the statement at face value, but a reader with a bit more depth-of-living will already feel dubious.
The feeling deepens when the next paragraph promises help for all children, from rich and poor families alike. They’ll “contribute to the feeding... of many thousands.” Wow! “It will prevent … the practice of women murdering their bastard children.” Uh… that’s good.
The only thing in this mess to disturb the otherwise comfortable elite is the implication that their children might need help, but even they have to admit it would be candidly unfair to give to the poor and not to the rich.
The original Swifty then begins his 30 degree shift. If infants and young children are useless in all manor of work, and worthless as commodities, at least they could serve as “a most delicious and nourishing and wholesome food…”
The use of wholesome is particularly delightful. I’ll skip the details on preparation and additional sartorial uses. Suffice it to say, this is textbook absurd.
And so was this famine. History is littered with such manufactured crises. There weren’t ‘rich’ children suffering. The famine was structured by economic doctrine, sustained by indifference, and engineered by ideology (translation – commitment). One wonders if the high and mighty got the joke.
So, how do I compete with reality? I don’t. We’re more like begrudging partners.
