Sunday’s Schizophrenization #3
Luigi and Lilly: Two Faces of Self-Destructive Algocapitalism.
Every Sunday morning, a touch of Schizophrenization
SCHIZOHIGHLIGHTS
Semiotic flashes: moments from social networks and personal considerations about stuff.
Luigi and Lilly: Two Faces of Self-Destructive Algocapitalism
The stories that struck me most this week revolve around two very different people: Luigi Mangione and Lilly Phillips. Two stories and two individuals that, at first glance, seem to have nothing in common but, in my view, represent opposite poles of the same context. Or maybe it’s all in my head.
Luigi Mangione is the protagonist behind the murder of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, one of the largest U.S. health insurance corporations. The motivations behind his actions were outlined in his short “manifesto”:
"Frankly, these parasites simply deserved it. A reminder: The United States has the most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank around 42nd in life expectancy.
"United is [unintelligible] the largest company in the U.S. by market capitalization, just behind Apple, Google, and Walmart. It has grown and grown, but has our life expectancy increased?
"No, the reality is these [unintelligible] have simply become too powerful and continue to exploit our country for immense profit because the American public has allowed them to get away with it."
It seems Luigi had terrible experiences with UnitedHealthcare, prompting him to take what he believed was an action to shake society and awaken collective consciousness. Luigi was a fan of Ted Kaczynski, the infamous Unabomber, about whom I’ve often written. He once commented on Kaczynski’s manifesto:
"It’s easy to dismiss this as the ramblings of a madman to avoid confronting the uncomfortable truths it identifies. But it’s simply impossible to ignore how prophetic many of his predictions about modern society have been."
Ted’s manifesto is essentially an essay on the impact of technology on society and individual lives. Technology is what Ted identified as the scapegoat for modern ailments, alongside faceless capitalism born from post-industrial technological phenomena.
Like Ted, Luigi likely recognized the suffocating systems that oppress us, and, like Ted, decided that the only escape—or an attempt to spur others to escape—was through an act of extreme violence.
On the other side, we have Lilly Phillips. Her story is drastically different from Luigi’s. She went viral for organizing a personal challenge: having sex with 100 men in a single day. The challenge is also the subject of a documentary where she recounts her experience with a mix of not entirely positive emotions. Online reactions are polarized: on one side, “poor girl”; on the other, “she brought it on herself.” Both views are ultimately superficial because she achieved exactly what she wanted: virality.
Lilly perfectly exemplifies Ted’s thesis:
"The industrial-technological system may survive or collapse. If it survives, it MAY eventually achieve a low level of physical and psychological suffering, but only after passing through a long and very painful period of adjustment and only at the cost of permanently reducing human beings and many other living organisms to engineered products and mere cogs in the social machine. Moreover, if the system survives, the consequences will be inevitable: there is no way to reform or modify the system to prevent it from depriving people of dignity and autonomy."
Luigi fights the system by trying to unmask and destroy its inhuman face, while Lilly celebrates it, adhering to a logic where fame and financial gain justify any personal sacrifice. He opted for extreme violence toward others to shake consciousness about the depravity of the system, while she committed an act of extreme violence against herself to worship and perpetuate the depraved system.
"Violence" is not solely physical; it is symbolic, social, and, in Lilly’s case, almost memetic. Some radical feminists might argue that she is an empowered woman, and if she wants to have sex with a hundred or a thousand people in a day, she can. Yaas gurl! But in truth, Lilly embodies the cog in the social machine, performing her semiotic function (message propagation) by sacrificing herself (her dignity) to the Algorithmic God, which will soon forget her—just as it will forget Luigi.
These two stories suggest that in a world dominated by the technological-algocapitalist system, every human response, even the most extreme and seemingly “outside the box,” tends to be trapped in dynamics of self-destruction or submission to the system itself.
Perhaps the real breaking point lies in a third path: rejecting the violence/submission dichotomy. Imagining a way of being that is neither destructive rebellion nor system adherence, but a form of creative subtraction.
Remember Pi.
ECHOES
Timeless reflections: philosophical, esoteric, and historical wisdoms that resonate into the present and beyond.
The Corruption of Pleasure and Pain
Where Soul is, there also is Mind; just as where Life is, there also is Soul. But in irrational lives, their soul is life devoid of mind; for Mind is the internal operator of men’s souls for good—He acts upon them for their own good. In irrational lives, He cooperates with the nature of each; but in men’s souls, He acts against them. For every soul, when incarnated, is instantly corrupted by pleasure and pain. For in a composite body, just as juices ferment, so pain and pleasure boil, and in them, the soul, entering, is immersed.
— Corpus Hermeticum, About The Common Mind
RETROWAVE
Visions from the past: excerpts and visions from cypherpunk mailing lists and the writings of the Cybernetics Culture Research Unit. From 1992 to 2003.
From: cypherpunks@MHonArc.venona
Date: Fri, 25 Sep 92 16:27:24 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Pointing out the obvious....
Message-ID: <199209252326.AA19540@well.sf.ca.us>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plainHey, Kidz....
I don't mean to point out the obvious, but when you mention a certain scheme for secure transfer (3 initials, you guess), or a certain organization dedicated to keeping it from the public (3 initals, you guess again),
THEY READ IT.
OK? Did I make my point?
If not, we're going to unsubscribe from this list like a bat out of hell.
Over,
OS Corp.
From: not_root@nowhere.com
Date: Fri, 25 Sep 92 17:27:32 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Hints
Message-ID: <9209260027.AA08573@atdt.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plainMost internet traffic is archived (and later Grep'd) anyway.
If you're really that worried about it, then we should have been speaking in Aramaic all this time, or using encrypted e-mail (and I'm sure traffic which mentions the characters "crypt" draws attention as well, and most of the msgs on this mailing list have already violated that one.) I'm interested to see the PGP addition to the re-mailer.
-- Concerned, yet not overly unrealistic about it.
Every week, Cyber Hermetica takes you deeper into the occult digital realm. This newsletter is 99.9% funded by paying subscribers, whose support allow me to keep digging into the depths of cyberspace. For a few bucks you can get a premium subscription to access all content and support my work!
DIGITAL GRIMOIRE
Digital security tactics: OpSec, Cybersec, OSINT, and AI tools to dominate the Digital Age.
Talk to Your Books
If there’s one thing everyone lacks today, it’s time—especially to read. AI is helpful here, and NotebookLM is a tool developed by Google that optimizes studying books and texts in general. It functions like a regular virtual assistant but hyper-focused on the sources uploaded by the user, reducing hallucinations as well. The great thing about this tool is that it allows you to interact with your books and even compare multiple texts.
Access and configuration:
Access NotebookLM with your Google account.
Upload your documents (PDF, Google Docs, Slides) or link your Google Drive.
Once set up, you can start engaging with your favorite books by:
Summaries: Generate detailed synopses or brief overviews.
Questions: Ask the system to clarify concepts or provide explanations based on your files.
Citations: Receive responses with precise sources and direct references to the document.
NotebookLM also enables audio summaries, allowing you to listen to your documents as if they were being explained in a podcast. The best part? You choose the narrative tone and purpose of the explanation.
Tips to maximize its potential:
Use NotebookLM to quickly summarize large volumes of text.
Combine multiple documents to get an overall view and interconnected responses across various files.
Tools like this are incredibly useful, but let’s not forget that reading is an experience in itself, where the message isn’t the only thing that matters. Still, this is a fantastic brainstorming tool.
SYMBOLS
Memes: visual symbols that decode the schizophrenia of the Digital Age.
SUBNET
Emerging voices: articles and contents handpicked by me to inspire and connect.
Why I am Christian again, by James Taylor Foreman. An article with a compelling narrative that recounts the seven states of human “consciousness” through personal experiences. I resonate with everything he wrote, and while my personal experiences are clearly different, I find my journey aligns with what the author describes. For a long time, I was “stuck” in the “fifth” state of consciousness: objectivity (infatuated with Ayn Rand and the Austrian school). I don’t believe I’m Christian, though I embrace many Christian teachings today. The lesson is: never stop; everything is fluid, everything is a fractal—and most importantly: memes are real metaphors for reality.
Did you read the latest on Cyber Hermetica?
Return next week for another schizotechnic rendezvous.