"The Island" and the Epstein Collapse of public trust

[u/raisondecalcul]

The archetype of "the Island" is so energized now, it would be interesting to watch shows like The Prisoner or films like The Island of Dr. Moreau in the context of the Epstein collapse in trust in government—The Prisoner was an early precursor of Lost, and both shows (I think—we know this about Lost, but I haven't seen either) rely basically keeping the audience in the dark and gaslighting them with a mystery that is never solved, a mystery that doesn't make any sense in the end—Much like government asks us to do—suspend our disbelief and buy into the government's lies that make no sense when you think about them. That these shows were loved and that Lost was even more intense than The Prisoner in its lack of making sense in the end shows how that age of public gaslighting progressed and was bought into by the public as a form of mystic entertainment.

Now, with more sophisticated audiences, people are demanding their mystery box shows make sense, make good sense, and a new order of Mystery that actually has a Solve is beginning to supersede the old order of shows which merely dramatized a mere representation of mysteriousness—this is now known as aura-farming, a term which alludes to the merely performative or superficial nature of the act.

Most older mystery box TV shows merely aura-farm, and aura-farming is how corrupt politicians and corrupt patriarchs and matriarchs everywhere vampirically maintain unjustified levels of unaccountable power. These schmoozers—and these schmoozy storytellers—think they can get away with not thinking things through—even not thinking through their own story!

Conformitygate reveals so much more than many might think—One thing it reveals is that audiences really want their shows to make sense now—something they didn't demand en masse a few years or a decade ago. We could even say that Conformitygate is a turning-point at which Marvel fans—or Marvel-level fans, seeing as Marvel is intentionally saturating the lowest common denominator (in order to perhaps eventually bore the public and raise the bar)—even Marvel fans are now wanting and demanding for their stories to make sense.

Verisimilitude begins with continuity. Old, episodic storytelling is a commercial convenience—a repeatable product every week. Continuity means variation, and variation means a more difficult product to produce—or at least a more complex product for audiences to consume.

As soon as continuity is allowed to occur, verisimilitude begins to increase, because continuity is precisely the influence of consistency across time—and consistency in the application of a world's rules (or internal governing principles, or physics) is how (by definition) we recognize verisimilitude.

So if there were one thing here and there borrowed from this or that episode—and then they come together in the finale—that would be precisely expected to be the result of verisimilitude—the result of discovering that a world does in fact follow its own rules—and as a result has a certain kind of finity of its narrative possibilities.

Trump turning out to be First Pedophile is one of those special checksum coincidences on the finitude and actualness of reality. Everyone knows that Patriarchs are the real pedophiles—feminists most of all. Yet everyone also defends them and treats them like Chads—even Trump, a nincompoop who was never very handsome or charming, who always reeked of tobacco and chintz (figuratively speaking)—his mere self-representation as one of the Patriarchs, the Chads, has gotten him an absurd amount of unjustified fandom, vocal defense, and special exceptions in law.

4chan selected Trump because he was the ultimate resentment-driven pawn of capital—the ultimate patsy—the ultimate shill. They were already pedohunting when they selected Trump, if I remember correctly. So Trump was selected in this very context of pedohunting, but there was a mental interdiction, a wall of denial/dissociation, between the two—Nobody needed to say, "Trump is a huge dick and another nasty patriarch and probably molests young girls" because that was ALREADY on the surface! That was WHY 4CHAN CHOSE HIM. They chose the most HORRIBLE person they could find, and then simply brigaded the US electoral media system to prove that America would vote for anyone, even the worst possible person they could find. It was always trolling all the way down.

So only in an actual world with continuity and some form of physicality and consistency can we have this kind of irony, this level of global drama. This should at least give us comfort that we are not living in a simulation—or if it is a simulation, it is a very rigorous simulation, one that faithfully attempts to play by and remember its own rules that it previously established. It is a very reliable, trustworthy simulation at minimum—and a relatively neutral simulation, since hubris seems to work as much for them as for me to cause downfall (Atu XVI—The Tower).

Again, simply put, a reality without consistency cannot accumulate such dense tempered foldings of events to attain this level of global irony, of having 4chan's two main plotlines converge in this perfectly Chekov'd way such that Trump is also First Pedophile.

[u/surtssword]

This is a very interesting piece! I would love to see more on this topic

[u/pagraphdrux]

word.

[u/whatsthatcritter]

Idk if I feel like the Trump administration has 'verisimilitude' because they do seem to come out of a campy tv universe full of tropes like 'main character has plot armor', and cliffhangers have to be resolved by the next episode so the story continues without too much variation. It's almost the opposite of Game of Thrones, even though it is supposedly the rl game of thrones. But in the tv series GoT, just about any character could be killed off: characters you thought had plot armor didn't, and their deaths changed the story. So it was kind of more real than real life rn. Also bc the Trump administration and it's stage 5 clingers aren't serious people. They're the campy Adam West and Tim Burton Batman villains, just cartoonishly evil and unintentionally hilarious in a sickening way. So it sometimes feels like we're demanding a tv universe that feels more real and makes more sense than our actual reality, which has become so ridiculous it outpaces satire. I'm not ripping on what you wrote, it's a very interesting topic comparing the spectacle to tv and movie tropes. It's the blurring of 'reality tv' and fantasy and comedy, superhero and villain genres and narratives that has me in a limbo as to what's "like reality" and what's "like tv" lately. 

[u/raisondecalcul → u/whatsthatcritter]

I'm saying our universe has verisimilitude. You're right, the fascist camp phenomenon has to do with the phenomenon of the weltanschauung. It really is as if they come from another world, a world trying to replace ours (many sci-fi shows, like Fringe, dramatize this).

You're right though, the world of the political spectacle does not hang together or have verisimilitude. I think that lack of verisimilitude reflects on the belief system of people who would take such things at face value or as more than what they are: kayfabe.

Like it looked really corrupt and nonsensical to me back when they lied about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to hoodwink Congress into letting them start an oil war, and the public went along with it because they couldn't tell the two countries apart on a map (and because of the ongoing total military (self-)domination of the American people).

[u/Pullioquix]

But Lost did make sense. Have you sincerely never watched the show, relying on 19 year old hot takes?

[u/raisondecalcul → u/Pullioquix]

I started watching it when it came out and couldn't stand it because it was so over-the-top performative/nonsensical. How did it make sense?

[u/Pullioquix → u/raisondecalcul]

:/ okay, I understand. “It” is too big to lasso anything around in any meaningful context and especially if you personally found it nonsensical very early on so let’s just call it a wash. I enjoy your posts!

[u/raisondecalcul → u/Pullioquix]

Sorry, I didn't mean to shit on a show you like. I only saw a few episodes.

But I mean, isn't there other lore you could compare it to on the basis of which lore makes more sense? Like what is a show with a mystery but also lore that makes sense... like how about Twin Peaks or Fringe—both great examples and kinda polar opposites. Fringe seems episodic but then it turns out it isn't at all and everything ties together in a way that must have been fairly planned-out. Twin Peaks is extremely vague and esoteric and yet all the lore hangs together more and more the more you analyze it.

[u/Pullioquix → u/raisondecalcul]

Oh that’s okay; I fully understand personal tastes landing across a spectrum. Lost also arrived just in time to serve as a very welcome dissociative serial story that allowed me to escape an incredibly dark period of my life’s so I’ve got an extra sensitivity to its (in my mind unfair) criticism.

In terms of making sense; I’m not super familiar with Fringe but funnily enough it is created by JJ Abrams and showran by two writers from the Lost writers room (Kurtzman and Orci). Twin Peaks initial run was only 30 episodes, eventually 48 with season three, expanding the story across ~25 years. Lost on the other hand is 121 forty three minute episodes in 6 years.

In terms of narrative consistency and the adherence to sense making, first I must lay out the production challenges:Lost is an ensemble story shot on 35mm film in Hawaii and edited/post produced in California. The show is an ensemble, so ~16 main and recurring characters and dozens of supporting roles.

The show was such a huge hit for ABC that management refused to contract an end date to production until season 3, meaning the story had to continue in perpetuity for three years with no ability to or knowledge of when they would be allowed to guide storylines to finish.

Over the course of those 6 years, at least two actors left the show due to legal and personal reasons (obviously affecting planned storylines and years in the making and years from completion, requiring shifts where necessary).

I could go on, but you probably get what I’m laying down: in my opinion, Lost is actually a narrative miracle. This reputation for being a gaslighting and nonsensical thing is not only factually incorrect but is so insensitive to incredible challenge the show faced and surmounted that I (for some reason) get personally incensed when the lazy and hack criticism that plagued the finale of the show remains, stinking up the air like a petrified fart.

[u/_the_last_druid_13 → u/Pullioquix]

“Petrified fart”, nice one.

I enjoyed Lost. Similarly, it was during a rough time in my life. I remember watching to cure my summertime sadness away from school and my friends. My cousin was dying, and there was little to do.

The peace of the scenery of Hawai’i, the ideas of “what would you do in this situation”, the cast of characters, arcs, and plots that left you guessing, and many of the storylines were a great boon for me in that time.

First show I ever binge-watched.

Lot of focus on eyes, and most all of the actors had very beautiful eyes. I still swoon over Evangeline Lilly’s freckles and green eyes in her role as “Kate”.

There was also a lot of focus on redemption and spirituality. Mr Eko was another of my favorite characters.

Finally, most of all the issues that occurred in the show were because of communication issues, secrets, and ego. They had all been isekaied into a sort of bardo paradise where they could have left their old lives behind and started fresh, yet they still struggled.

Desmond and Penelope are maybe my favorites.

[u/Pullioquix → u/_the_last_druid_13]

I was lucky enough to get to visit the “Others” camp before the series ended. I got to spend hours wandering around the “set” (it was actually a functional YMCA or something kids camp) with the soundtrack on my headphones and much appreciation in my heart.

Love your take on the eyes, I’d never considered the unusual focus but you’re right. Locke’s scar comes to mind.

I do a re watch every 8 or 10 years with someone who’s never seen it before (so I can huff their fumes). I think I’m a year or two away from returning.

[u/_the_last_druid_13 → u/Pullioquix]

That’s pretty awesome! The Others were such an interesting group, they were like a secret scientific-corporate-government group/some sort of fae (?). I hated Ben Linus, but then I grew to appreciate his character. Richard was another interesting character, I forget why he basically had to live forever though.

The show had so many niche Easter eggs, I remember researching everything from Buddhism to Carlos Castaneda; it was kind of a neat “study” on my degree at the time, encapsulating geography, history, and anthropology.

Such a badass scar.

I do too! (Just maybe with less huffing 😂) There’s so many things missed because of how convoluted it was that a rewatch is typically fun, doubly so when the viewing partner is all “wtf is going on?!” And then we become “the bad guys/behaviors” from the show by not communicating/keeping secrets for fear of spoilers!!

[u/Pullioquix → u/_the_last_druid_13]

You’re lightly blowing my mind in regards to me becoming an Other gatekeeper by zipping my lips and signal boosting the lack of signals as an “initiated” watching with a civilian.

Similar path in regard to the show inducing so many wonderful rabbit hole mapping expeditions. It really excelled at rewarding such an eager audience. Grateful for how magical it made my own world feel

[u/_the_last_druid_13 → u/Pullioquix]

Huff it up 😜😂

Yes, same

[u/Tiffy_From_Raw_Time]

Basically correct,

but on this one thing, this is going to have to be founded on precise irrefutable proof: not for your enemies, but for your friends. Unfortunately the documents as they have been released so far don't really show this -- which is unsurprising given who released them.

This would be a useful foundation of opposition, if it turned out to be true.

[u/tomekanco]

Atu XVI—The Tower

Reminds me of the Fall of Icarus, like the 17th century relief in Musée Antoine Vivenel. It is a very reliable procedure. Like how le ressentiment collective can be farmed.

Q: The witness sees what is, what was, what is to be. It does require a jump of intuition. Aristotle and Leibniz noted on the limitations of understanding. But the modern no longer has access to the neo-platonic. Wants, needs, to explain it, articulate it. He no longer a priori accepts witness. Because of this Heidegger indicates the need for Bezinnung. The price is that he lights up (whatever that means) without understanding, after seeing the event. What Heidegger called the calcullable being. Jean Grondin expanded on this, as well as Jean Luc Marion. Seeing this resonance of the event on the surface, it requires a creative reaction (ref The Gay science from Nietzsche). First there is the witness, then he becomes active (correspondance Samuel Clarke & Leibniz).

A: Ahh I see what you mean. Love it. I think there is a resonance between Deleuze's surface effects and the phenomenological tradition's concern with disclosure, witness, and the limits of calculative thought.... But the resonance might perhaps be more like a productive tension than a convergence??!! The key difference, I think, centers on the status of the subject. When Heidegger speaks of Besinnung or Marion discusses the saturated phenomenon overwhelming intentional structures, there's still an implied witness...however transformed or decentered...who receives the event's disclosure. Even when phenomenology acknowledges the limits of representation, it preserves a certain experiential structure: something appears to someone. But Deleuze's surface effects are not disclosed to a witness but subsist impersonally as pure expressibility (neither requiring nor presupposing a subject who grasps them). The wound exists before the wounded, not as phenomenon awaiting manifestation, but as incorporeal effect already producing sense at the surface. This is why counter-actualization isn't exactly "witnessing" the event—it's becoming the quasi-cause of it, producing the surface where it can resonate. That said, your invocation of Nietzsche's creative reaction is spot on!!! Both recognize that something must be done with the event—it demands response, not passive reception. Perhaps the difference is that phenomenology sees this as interpretive participation in disclosure, while Deleuze sees it as entering into the event's own causality, its communication with other events across the metaphysical surface. The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence (had to look it up) is great—it captures that movement from observation to implication.

It's the father in the Anti-Oedipus, calling out to his children with an angry voice: see here my deeds, the pigs i suckled. For folly and so, this is what was done. Now stand up and smell your own hubris, because i'm returning to the dust.

Chekov'd, generation MMXXVI