Thread by @PnictogenHorses

what is a #matrix, anyway?

there's lots of answers to this question, especially in these dismal days of runaway #capitalism, which uses *everything* for #marketing and #branding, even things like elementary particles and prepositions.

it's a movie franchise, for one.

(1/x)

https://twitter.com/PnictogenHorses/status/1611403677369262080

there's some chat protocol called "Matrix" that we know basically nothing about. "Matrix" is a character in the movie "Commando". Martin Gardner (peace be upon him), who once wrote a popular mathematics column for @sciam, created a fictional "Dr. Matrix", a numerologist.

(2/x)

the matrix is a fundamental mathematical construct, a two-dimensional array of mathematical entities of the same type. one can form matrices of bits, integers, real numbers, complex numbers, functions, many other things. matrices have many uses in mathematics and physics.

(3/x)

"matrix" has a host of different uses in the physical and biological sciences as well. it's hard to generalize about all of these uses of "matrix", but they tend to have the sense of a material that *binds other materials*, or surrounds them, or cements them in place.

(4/x)

the "matrix" of a geological sample, for example, refers to the rock or other solid matter that surrounds the mineral(s) of interest. this photo, for example, shows a deep red almandine garnet in a matrix of schist rock: the garnet was once entirely surrounded by schist.

(5/x)

both mathematical matrices and physical matrices, in other words, tend towards *rigidity*. a mathematical matrix is a rigid container for other mathematical entities, confining them to a certain geometry and dictating that certain operations can be performed upon them.

(6/x)

physical matrices surround other materials, locking them into a rigid place in a solid or condensed structure.

the very *word* #Matrix, in other words, is a word that suggests a strict and unmoving *order* to things. "The Matrix", on screen, connotes _social_ rigidity.

(7/x)

to live life in "The #Matrix" is to have a dreary office job that "Mr. Anderson", i.e. Neo, is always afraid of losing; it means surveillance, threats, and bullying by corporate bosses and faceless cops. it means--as Morpheus says--going to work, church, and paying taxes.

(8/x)

it also means *eternity*. while none of the Agents say it outright, the mechanical intelligences that created and maintain the Matrix expect that it will go on into perpetuity; individual human "cells" in the Matrix come and go, but the Matrix has a machine's immortality.

(9/x)

this is why @elonmusk and @peterthiel and (probably) @ID_AA_Carmack and a whole lot of other elite nerds--both clever nerds like Carmack and inept nerds like #ElonMusk--entertain daydreams about being uploaded into machines: they see machine-life as akin to immortality.

(10/x)

as a machine entity, Agent Smith isn't likely to have the same notion and values about the passage of time that mortal human beings have. but he knows that timelessness has appeal to humans; he praises the Matrix's beauty, as a living snapshot of humanity at its pinnacle.

(11/x)

this is the ultimate allure and false promise of the #Matrix, both the fictional version and its real analogue--the rigid, hierarchical, authoritarian social apparatus created and sustained by #capitalism and its leaders. this *system* promises to be immortal and eternal.

(12/x)

it's the same promise offered by Ingsoc and its agent in the Ministry of Love, O'Brien, to Winston Smith in exchange for orthodoxy: "accept Big Brother and the Party, and you'll be one cell of a vast organism that never dies. you'll be nobody, yet you will be immortal."

(13/x)

in exchange for O'Brien's sort of immortality--in exchange for the sort of immortality promised by @elonmusk and @peterthiel and the #Matrix--all you need to give up is your freedom. all humanity needs to be locked into a rigid lattice for the system to keep running.

(14/x)

even @elonmusk, paradoxically, feels himself to be bound--tied down by this same rigid structure.

why does he keep up the corporate genius act, even though everyone outside the @mtaibbi / @WholeMarsBlog fanclub knows that Musk's a disaster? it's because he's *locked in*.

(15/x)

@elonmusk could try to flee his troubles completely, a la John McAfee; he'd probably be safe enough in semi-hiding. other corporate crooks have done similarly, like the Union Carbide CEO responsible for the Bhopal disaster.

but Musk would lose most of his social status.

(16/x)

all of the guaranteed worldwide press coverage, not to mention the #ElonMusk fanclub, would melt away if @elonmusk skipped town like McAfee or Warren Anderson.

oh, there'd still be some loyalists, but it'd be like Napoleon on St. Helena: Musk would be mostly forgotten.

(17/x)

but that's the price @elonmusk is now paying for being alloted to one of the top slots in the rigid society mantained by #capitalism / the #Matrix.

that society's rigidity gave Musk his pride of place; he could feel like there wasn't any way he'd NOT be a great leader.

(18/x)

but even solid lattices are subject to change. even *diamond* is not a wholly inert, unmoving substance--this is true of all solids and all crystalline materials, by the way.

we think these things are permanent, unchanging, but they still change; they can still *break*.

(19/x)

the immobility and rigidity of the #Matrix, i.e. of #capitalism and its authoritarian social structures, is a direct result of #Christianity and its absorption of the equally rigid, merciless, bureaucratic structures of Roman tyranny--which Western civilization imitates.

(20/x)

Chara has referred to #CSLewis and "The Discarded Image", which was never discarded; to this day, #Christians (and persons who've soaked up the West's ubiquitous Christian values, in various secularized forms) stick by the mediaeval Christian vision of a rigid Cosmos.

(21/x)

the traditionalist sentiment "a place for everyone, and everyone in their place" is an expression of this belief in a fixed, rigidly prescribed and enforced social order--a system in which every person has their *rank* within the system, their superiority or inferiority.

(22/x)

this is the value system of the #Matrix, i.e. the value system of #capitalism. every true believer, @elonmusk and everyone, fancies themselves at the center of the model, or at least *near* the center. and they'll do ANYTHING to protect their privileged spot.

~Mona Drafter

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