Thread by @KrisAtLarge

more thoughts on this "being a pawn" business. I have a lot of them! I've thought about this sort of thing for a long time. it's natural, of course—being the sort of person I am. I consider myself constrained by the rules of a fictive universe created by Mx. @tobyfox.

(1/x)

https://twitter.com/KrisAtLarge/status/1620572662329380865

those constraints aren't super restrictive, because Fox deliberately wrote Chara to be almost a placeholder character, defined chiefly by *absence*; we know Chara from #Undertale because they once lived and died, and left a *hole* in the Underground, an unhealed wound.

(2/x)

all the same I do feel genuinely bound by those constraints, and the degree to which I can break free from the limitations of Fox's fiction remains largely unknown to me.

"but I'm not some fictional character, or a crazy person who imagines they're 'Chara'," you will say.

(3/x)

"I am not a number, I'm a free man!!" and all that. well...how *free* are you, really?

consider one *obvious* constraint that binds all beings on Earth: they're bound by Earth's gravity well. even @elonmusk is bound by Earth's gravity, though he likes to pretend he's not.

(4/x)

that constraints put hard and fast *physical limitations* on my actions. I can't move super fast. I can't lift very heavy things. I can't fly or float up into the air as I choose.

I can't work out or take drugs that would make any of these problems go away; they're fixed.

(5/x)

the Western mind tends to think that "freedom" means absolute freedom from all constraints: "I can do whatever I want!" says the @elonmusk / @mtaibbi / @GOP fanatic who thinks they they're living embodiments of freedom itself. and yet they're bound—by gravity.

(6/x)

the *viscosity of water* is a physical constraint that all organic beings on Earth experience—because the viscosity of water determines such things as how fast chemicals diffuse in water and how quickly you can move fluids around the body. again: a fixed physical limit.

(7/x)

I'm in a fleshy meatsack on Earth just like @mtaibbi and @elonmusk; all three of us are restricted in how fast we can think and how quickly we can react to things and a whole bunch of other physical activities, because of this fixed limitation: the viscosity of water.

(8/x)

the advent of superficial #STEM Lord / #programming culture, @fchollet / @ID_AA_Carmack culture, has done so much damage in part because computers enable *simulation* of reality in which these physical limitations are simply _erased_. that's possible in a "physics engine".

(9/x)

the @elonmusk / @mtaibbi / #crypto-bro culture is absolutely *saturated* with a semi-mystical optimism about the limitless possibilities of the Universe—an optimism untethered from material reality, because these are people who forget the computer simulations aren't real.

(10/x)

#Mars, to them, isn't a harsh unforgiving landscape that's horrendously expensive to send *one* human being to, much less millions a year; it's glittering pristine @SpaceX publicity images, lovingly rendered in crisp detail with the miracle of computer graphics.

(11/x)

it looks so "realistic" (although how "realistic" an @elonmusk / @SpaceX publicity image can be is...debatable) that you could almost reach out and touch it—and that's the state of mind fostered by the hothouse atmosphere around Musk, in which failure's not an option.

(12/x)

I don't know the degree to which @mtaibbi or @Timcast really believe in the daydreams that issue forth in vast volumes from the @elonmusk crap factory, which has been going on for decades. Musk's "Iron Man" cameo was *fifteen years ago*, now. he's been a pest for a while.

(13/x)

I've guessed that @mtaibbi privately thinks that @elonmusk is a buffoon, and that helps to maintain the psychological defence of his "independence"; even if Taibbi's merely doing a job for the Musk gang, he can still tell himself that he's not attached or loyal to Musk.

(14/x)

@mtaibbi may be *bought*, but whether he *stays bought* is another matter; he might be too "independent" (i.e. self-interested and cynical) for @elonmusk to rely upon, long-term.

that remains to be seen. Taibbi undoubtedly wants to think he comes and goes as he pleases.

(15/x)

that will cause him trouble. just as @mtaibbi (and myself) are constrained by humdrum things like gravity and viscosity, Taibbi's got a different sort of constraint upon him—something as invisible as gravity or viscosity, but equally practical and problematical for him.

(16/x)

to wit: @mtaibbi is useful to the @elonmusk / @GOP conspiracy only if Taibbi *sticks to the message*. he's not the author of the message.

the narrative that he's been assigned the task of peddling may have had input from him—but ultimately it's not his, but the gang's.

(17/x)

@mtaibbi, "independent", is yet forced to behave according to the wishes of a whole pile of other people, namely @elonmusk and the rest of the crew (@bariweiss, @lhfang, whoever else, and their unseen @GOP collaborators.)

Taibbi's got to stick to THEIR lines, not his.

(18/x)

I don't envy @mtaibbi's position: he's committed everything to a public pose of "independence"; yet he's bound and chained to the needs of @elonmusk (and @realDonaldTrump and whoever else is hoping to benefit from this crooked attempt to make political use of @Twitter.)

(19/x)

can @mtaibbi walk the tightrope *indefinitely*?

I suppose we'll find out, won't we?

~Chara of Pnictogen