Hyper-Real Transgressions

Technology has revolutionized our understanding of human behavior. People faced with conformity no longer need to confront their impulses in the material world; Instead, our debauchery is able to transcend into the hyper-real space of the digital world. While this may seem like a healthy alternative to physical indulgence, it allows the individual to become exposed to its boundless potential in its infinite obscenity, leading people towards transgression, desensitization and radicalization.

Repressed of desire, man fiendishly seeks for an outlet to channel their excess humanity. The ability to express, be angry, be lustful and whatever it is they lack can be excreted through the digital realms illusory freedom that strays not so far from the material. Radical expression becomes merciful, the individual is no longer subjected to controlling himself , let alone confronting his desires. Rather, they're allowed to run rampant, consuming him in the process. Yet the libertine is not alone, he becomes surrounded by the internet's fostering of echo chambers, where instead of confronting their desires they are encouraged and even validated in their extremity. Eventually guiding each other towards a continuous state of seemingly boundless degeneracy.

Modern pornography serves as likely the most prevalent example of this hyperreal debauchery. Due to the lack of sex or alchemizing of sexual desire in the real world, the individual is prompted through the technological algorithm to engage in their impulses through its material of infinite obscenity. At first, this indulgence may seem harmless, however, desire is not static and the concept of exposing oneself to the same material when there is more potential for obscenity is irrational to the reprobate. Eventually the individual builds a tolerant numbness towards his indulgences and seeks greater obscenity to reignite his distinguished desires. This repetitive cycle of indulgence ensnares the man in its spiraling depravity. It becomes especially corrosive when the individual is in a psychological stage of identity crisis where they lack a firm understanding in their views and are easily guided towards ideological extremism. 

Technology gives one the power to transcend physical geographic boundaries that are used to constitute the soul's development, simultaneously allowing oneself to be exposed to ideological communication across the globe. Validation through the medium of communication acts as a crucial guiding cornerstone to the soul's development. If one finds that in the material world their way of impulsivity or debauchery is shamed upon then they refer to the digital world in search of consoling and gratification. Through the algorithm and echo chambers that reverberate this sought after validation, it may slowly lead someone towards often harmful and extremist ideals that can manifest in physical reality. Becoming lost in this endless sea of fragmented information and validation we become ignorant to who we truly are. Our souls, our identity is slowly stripped away into an uncanny amalgamation of internet expectations. This often manifests into spending time curating our physicality through the use of filters or masquerading certain personalities to fit in. While this could be harmless if done periodically and with intention, through the medium of comments, likes and digital validation one may lose touch with who they are and transcend their persona into hyperreality. Social media is often framed as a platform in which people can express who they are but this could be no further from the truth. In the digital, we lose who we are, surrendering our malabale development to the hands of conformity. We learn to imitate; this is suicide. 

Targeted shootings, domestic violence and racism are just some of the extreme outcomes that are produced through the algorithmic guiding towards radicalism. Since it is only rational for the psyche to believe whatever ideologies it is surrounded with and to reject engaging in any abstracted thinking to oppose what seems natural, one becomes vulnerable through the technological indoctrinating algorithm. It is comparative to how cultural morals in history often seem so bizarre such as human sacrifice or racism. Yet they all have some remnant yet usually ungraspable reasoning when understanding their contextualization. So what is it exactly that validates their animosity? The echo chamber of approval is what halts a man’s differentiation between good and evil. Empathy, guilt and regrets guiding principle in the development of the moral compass is forbidden from manifesting when its ticking is drowned out by the sirens sounds of validation. From an observational standpoint, the volunteering of oneself to get killed in a war for a country they only understand through the conduit of media or journalism is absolutely absurd for it is not their own. Yet throughout history men and women are continuously propagated into getting shot in the head with a smile plastered on their upright corpse. 

(Keep in mind I am absolutely not criticizing the people who have died in the name of both mine and my peers freedom, I'd give a thousand thanks to righteous soldiers and that would still not be enough to express my gratitude. However, I am criticizing the propaganda that influences them to engage in dangerous acts of violence so they may serve to fuel an agenda that doesn’t truly benefit the soldiers themselves and is only guised as beneficial through its glamorization and false portrayal.)

This form of propaganda functions in the same way as the digital algorithm. First an ideological seed is harmlessly planted through the simulacra of a video, then through the algorithms rabbit hole they slowly guide the individual towards the ideology and guises its fallacious propaganda by littering it with kernels of ‘truth’. It's like the root system of a tree. Water is first exposed to its bark and slowly descends through the niche tunnel community where they are eventually consumed through ideological ostracization. Suddenly they are misunderstood by anyone but the community that fosters their validation and are forced to rely on their gratification. Slowly, they betray themselves for a simulation of a personality, running away from any confrontation with the soul and into the arms of radical extremism. Ruminating in their degeneracy, hazed in the hollow fulfillment of what they lack and blinded by the validation of their peers, they see no need to question their repulsive bliss. Every nudge that emerges out of the desperate and enervated psyche is simply dissipated through their developed ignorance. Leaving it to fester further under the psyches shadow. Who do we become when we get to this point of decayed identity? Will we be able to differentiate between who we really are and who we've become? The digital space is meant to consume you, distinguishing the divine spark within your soul with its hungry and coarse tongue. It swallows the individual whole, swishing them around in its saliva of standards and spitting him out indoctrinated and anew. Yet we humans betray ourselves for such meaningless validation. We cut ourselves, letting our soul leak out and metamorphosing into an uncanny amalgamation of digitized standards. We humans are ‘rational’ enough to trade the confrontation of our suffering for the gratifying pleasure of the digital. 

What will become of beauty and art? Will our expression of humanity also become blurred in standards and made beautiful through validation? Who or what will we live for? If technology advances enough and is able to merge with a biological consciousness then what will make religion divine? What will become of our prophets? In who or what will we find our religion? How could we differentiate between God’s image and our own?  How different is feeding strings of information and code to artificial intelligence to our human development? How can one differentiate between the A.I. and the indoctrinated man who harbors prejudice in his every wake? What separates man from man and man from A.I., is the ability to reconstruct their belief and alchemize the rebirth of their soul. That is what will lead to a fulfillment that neither the indoctrinated nor A.I. could comprehend. The enlightened dances to a music unheard of over the echoes of moaning libertines. Constellating a soul that is not an amalgamation of historical social structures is what humanity fears, even more so than the inspidity of spiraling pleasure and its descent towards retrogressive extremity.