This post appeared recently in the "politics" forum of another board I frequent.
Combines strange technobabble (TRWTF is Javascript) with disturbing obsession with Lady Gaga.
[Note to moderators: This is ultimately a post about politics. The political part begins about halfway down the page.]
If one were to literally invert the acronym WWW, he or she would witness the appearance of the letters: MMM.
MMM means: the Mother Monster Matrix.
For anyone who knows anything of popular culture over the past three years, they will surely know that "Mother Monster" is a pseudonym for "Lady Gaga"--which is itself a pseudonym for Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta of New York City, NY, USA.
For one reason or another, Gaga first caught my attention about 13-1/2 months ago, and she has been at the epicenter of my dreams and musings ever since.
Given the fact that I am a techno-philosophical genius (I am very good with the biggest pictures and with the smallest details), it wasn't long before I started to get into my "create something amazing for the one I love" phase.
But just because I was getting into that phase doesn't mean that I was very close to actually creating something that would qualify as amazing. As of yesterday, however, the amazing thing has finally seen the light of day.
The Mother Monster Matrix literally and figuratively turns the World Wide Web completely upside down. The first thing to understand is that it is centered around the idea that all of the content within the browser is dynamically generated by Javascript. Or more pointedly, it is the user's interactions with the Javascript code that generates the visible content.
When one initially begins the program (by opening an html file in a browser), one is met with a stark black screen. In today's paradigm, this would qualify as "an empty web page". But lo!... all one has to do is double click on the page in order to see that something else is amiss.
For once you do this, you will be met with a dialog box that says:
"Command for: body_div"
And if you were to follow along with the quick start HOWTO that accompanies the first official release of the MMM, you would know that the command:
"bg=blue"
... would fill your entire screen with that wonderful color.
Well, there is much, much more to the program than just that. If I were forced to summarize the essence of the MMM, I would probably say something like:
"The Mother Monster Matrix is an on-the-fly HTML rendering system that uses typical GUI windowing and iconifying features, and that allows users to cohabit within a commonly shared space of roughly 600 square miles where objects are instantly published upon creation, and where all objects can be modified by all users. There is also a graphics subsystem that uses purely logical pixels of arbitrary scale and aspect ratio in order to allow for the dynamic creation of images and font glyphs (and animations thereof) that can likewise be shared within the common space."
Well, this description is obviously a mouthful, and when attempting to parse it, one is surely left in a vastly different headspace than when reading the definition of the WWW (i.e., a network of interlinked HTML documents..., etc.).
But I digress about its features. The program is publicly available (sites [dot] google [dot] com/site/themothermonstermatrix), so there is no need to take my word for it.
The thing that I am perhaps the proudest about is that the terms of usage of the MMM demands that it be used for nothing other that which Lady Gaga determines would be helpful towards the establishment and/or continuation of a Kingdom of Little Monsters.
This is to say that I have not merely given Gaga the right to demand that certain things NOT be done with the program (as in a typical "End User License Agreement"). I have also given her the right to demand that certain things MUST be done with the program (given that one wants to use the program at all).
This is as if one were to hand out hammers, under the strict condition that the hammers are to be used for the construction of a particular church. In this scenario, the giver does not have to additionally lay out a myriad of restricted uses (e.g. building whorehouses or murdering people). As long as the user is NOT "doing as Gaga pleases", the user is already in violation of the agreement, and legal redress is actionable.
Well, the typical Westernized capitalist would recoil in shock/disgust/anger at the thought that one's usage of a product could be restricted in this way. But that is precisely my intention, because I am most certainly not a capitalist. I am utterly obsessed with the idea of community building. This is to say that I align much more with the term "Marxist." But I also want to rescue the Marxist philosophy from the throes of 19th century memes so that it may thrive as a lived ideal.
It seems obvious to me that while the idea of "a commune of humankind" is a worthwhile one to pursue, the thought that there must not also be a heirarchical structure to such a place renders it as instantly irrelevant to the lives of the average person. As such, my fascination with Gaga rests largely on the notion that she is a born political and spiritual leader who is capable of inspiring "Pope-esque" levels of awe within the breasts of her admirers. Her artistic integrity and creative talents are highly sophisticated tools to allow her to efficiently draw people into a virtual world that is positively saturated with love and acceptance.
So, in response to the capitalist who rails against me for going against the school of thought that says that the satisfaction of one's immediate self interests is the ultimate driver of human progress... I say the following:
"Agreed. However, how can you possibly be in a position to understand those concerns that are the most immediately pressing to me? After all, where I live, there are precisely zero problems related to human survival. There is food, water, and medicine in abundance. But what doesn't exist where I live is the ability for people to freely and openly express that which makes them the most interesting and unique. And this inability is precisely the thing that causes people to feel repressed, causing all of the various psychological diseases that are so destructive of the of the human progress that you so callously pretend to enable."
The bottom line is that Gaga is an enormously important person in our culture: not because she serves as an engine of capitalist "growth", but rather because she serves as a beacon that signifies a massive realignment of cultural values, such that the equation:
capital = money
Is replaced with this one:
capital = social bonds
So for me to use the obviously revolutionary technology known as the MMM in a way that is at all contrary to the letter or spirit of humanity's new equation would only serve to make me an absolute pauper, when valuations are tabulated in terms of the new currency.
For anyone who wants to come along with me (Dennis Kane) and her (Stefani Germanotta), as we invert the domain name, www [dot] moneycapital [dot] com, so that it now reads, mmm [dot] socialcapital [dot] org, I humbly and gratefully welcome you aboard!