#Technocracy

[nestedneons]

By atmonez

[bethanythebogwitch]

My favorite magic system from a game I haven't actually played is from Mage: the Ascension. It kind of fits as both a hard magic system and a soft magic system at the same time because there are some hard rules, but its mostly very open. To become a mage you have to realize that reality is not what it seems. In MtA, reality is whatever the majority of people believe it is, known as the consensus. The consensus in modern days is pretty uniform everywhere, with small variations based on where you are, but it used to be wildly different based on the cultural beliefs of the local people. A mage is a person who realizes that the consensus isn't true reality and gains to power to act outside of its rules. Any given mage's abilities come from their own personal view of reality, known as their paradigm. A mage's magic can do basically anything, as long as it is accounted for in their paradigm. So a mage who's paradigm includes the classic Aristotelian elements can perform magic based on that, but if their paradigm doesn't include animistic spirits then they can't commune with those spirits even though other mages could based on their own paradigm. The problem with this is that the consensus doesn't like it when you go around breaking its rules and will punish mages by slapping them with an effect called paradox. Paradox can be anything from a spell failing to getting shunted into your own personal pocket universe. Nothing generates paradox like being seen doing magic by sleepers (people who are not mages and still live fully within the consensus). Most mages either only use magic around other mages or, if they need to cast around sleepers, will disguise their magic as a mundane effect. Someone throwing a fireball from their hands will generate major paradox because the consensus is that people can't do that. However if a mage holds a lighter up to a spraycan before casting their fireball, the sleepers can rationalize it as something that exists within the consensus and not as much paradox will be generated.

In the dark ages, magic was part of the consensus and mages could openly rule over the sleepers because everyone believed in magic and therefore magic was part of the consensus. In response to the tyranny of the mages, a group was formed called the League of Reason, who wanted to introduce a new form of magic to the consensus that everyone could use. This form of magic was based on logic and reason and was called science. This led to the ascension war, where the League of reason sought to remove magic and superstition from the consensus and a very loose coalition of mages called the Council of Nine Mystic Traditions want to keep magic in the consensus. And the League of Reason won. A mostly rationalistic, scientific worldview has become the consensus worldwide, forcing the Council into operating underground. The League of Reason has become the Technocracy, a worldwide secret organization ruling the world from the shadows and trying to stamp out magic and any other form of "reality deviants" to keep humanity safe, even if they have to suppress basic human imagination to do so. Notably, the earliest books for the game very much said "Traditions good, Technocracy bad", but later books went for a much more grey approach to the conflict between them, making it clear that both sides really are doing what they think is in humanity's best interest even if their ideas for how to do so are fundamentally incompatible.

What's really interesting is that science and technology really are a form of magic and technocrats are mages, even if the Technocracy would vehemently deny this. Technology is a form of magic that everyone can use because its part of the consensus and science doesn't discover new facts about the world, It creates those facts and applies them to the world. The Technocracy's super-advanced technology creates paradox just as much as magic does because personal anti-gravity suits and mass-produced clones violate the consensus just like throwing around fireballs and conjuring demons does.

Mage: the Ascension is a super fun setting because just about any fantasy or sci-fi trope can exist here. Classic pointy hat and wand wizards can battle cyborgs armed with self-replicating nanotechnology. Anti-authoritarian punks can hack your wallpaper to spy on you because they believe all reality is part of a unified mathematical whole that the internet gives us access to. A group of spacefarers can ride the luminiferous aether to mars only to encounter Aztec shamans who asked the spirits to carry them there thousands of years ago. A powerful mage can create a time loop by convincing their younger self to obtain enlightenment through the power of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Two people can have an argument over whether the guy they just met was an alien from Alpha Centauri or an elf from the Norse nine realms and both of them can be right. Animistic spirit-callers can upload themselves to the internet to combat spirits of malware. And an angry mage might just teleport you into the sun because they believe distance is just an illusion and therefore have the power to make anything go anywhere with a thought. It's a wild ride.

[epitome-the-burnkid-viii]

[mel-155-a]

"Okay, you want to hear something really weird? There is a guy who no joke uses the complete, long form 1987 Canadian census as his source of power. He is convinced it's the encrypted key to a Library of Babel and once-what? Yeah, like the Borges short story. No, I don't understand how that works, how would I know? Anyways, last time we tried to catch him, he shouted out an address somewhere in northern Alberta and the HIT Marks got turned into cake. No, not like they were then shaped like a normal cake, like those fucked up videos on the Internet where someone cuts into a skateboard and reveals that it is secretly cake? What do you mean you haven't seen those? Man, these will fuck with your head worse than the RDs, get over here and I will show you."

[whereserpentswalk]

Oh, YouTube is taunting humanity with weird hyper capitalist browser games.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Take the planetary computer to its logical end under platform capitalism: every inch of the earth is mapped and monitored. Carbon flows are predicted. A red flag fire warning for a forest in Australia triggers an automatic sell-off of carbon futures; someone’s bank account is crushed while they sleep. Now imagine the same platform is tracking species. Now do people. A fluctuation in the weather forecasts migrants: send more boats to Lampedusa.

All this is simultaneously hyperbolic and a logical extension of current trends. Maybe take it into what Shoshana Zuboff calls surveillance capitalism—nature’s behavioral surplus fabricated into prediction products that anticipate what it will do, which are traded in behavioral futures markets.

Automated machine processes not only know our behavior but also shape our behavior at scale. With this reorientation from knowledge to power, it is no longer enough to automate information flows about us; the goal now is to automate us.

This births a new species of power Zuboff calls “instrumentarianism”—shaping human behavior toward others’ ends. Now instead of human beings, do birds. Now do fish. Now do trees. If all this data is blackboxed, unknowable, and used to make a profit for a mega platform, that’s a horrific future—though if it was going to come to pass, you’d think it would have more hype than it does today.

Holly Jean Buck, Ending Fossil Fuels: Why Net Zero is Not Enough

[sciencefictiongallery]

Kevin Murphy, Technocracy, Progenitors, 1993.

[spectrolitha]

I have MtAs brainrot. Specifically, Technocracy brainrot. Send help these bastards won't leave my mind... N.W.O., is this your social processing kicking in? 🥺

Context under the cut:

This picture is honouring the fact that I got my hands on Revised edition Iteration X book and the way their relationship with Syndicate was described is hilarious to me. Check this out:

I adore how in-universe when ppl talk about Syndicate they sound like a gun is held to their heads 🤡

Oh, a bit more of explaining the picture.

Two people on the upper part are ItXers. In the lower part we have some proper Syndicate buddie. Behind him are a Syndicate Enforcer and a MiB (without his suit, a pity).

You might say: "Okay, Enforcer is maybe playing a bodyguard or smth for the higher-ranking Syndicate member, but what is N.W.O. agent doing here?". Well, here's the thing. Both him and the Enforcer actually share and amalgam with girl in upper right corner. So even if they aren't related to Iteration X needing Syndicate's money, they are still quietly mourning the fact that they probably aren't getting any financing ever again just by association with this mess.

[nostalgiachan]

A commission for @geistverrse of her darling disaster Technocrat, Cristie Prophet!

his mango is to blow up and then act like he don't know nobody ack ack ack

Want a commission of your own? Here's my details!

[horrorlocke]

The duality of man Saul WIPs ( in his technocrat verse).

[nestedneons]

by jilt with stablediffusion

Comfyui Workflow

Cyberpunk art commissions

My free workflows

[wiregrrrl]

Used some Enlightened social conditioning on my friend to convince them to run a Technocracy game so I'm finally getting to play a Syndicate character

[epitome-the-burnkid-viii]

[mel-155-a]

"Why doesn't the cafeteria serve vegetables? Why the hell would they-oh, right. You are new. Yeah, "nutrition" isn't a thing, we just had a bunch of useless weeds that kept growing everywhere, so we had some NWO guys convince people that they needed to eat a bunch of them to stay 'healthy'. Ha! Like that means anything we don't tell them it means."

[aidigitalfun]

Technocracy

[thefreethoughtprojectcom]

Don't worry, we are just charging full speed in this direction, but it's cool because Trump will fix everything, right?

🔥 Fuel Our Work: https://bit.ly/TFTPSubs 🎙 TFTP Podcast: https://bit.ly/TFTPPodcast

#TheFreeThoughtProject