[FRIAM] On Blankfaces

[uǝlƃ ☤>$]

Given some of the conversations I've had with some of y'all about bureaucracy as technology, I thought this might provide you with some dopaminergic confirmation:

https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=5675
> What exactly is a blankface? He or she is often a mid-level bureaucrat, but not every bureaucrat is a blankface, and not every blankface is a bureaucrat. A blankface is anyone who enjoys wielding the power entrusted in them to make others miserable by acting like a cog in a broken machine, rather than like a human being with courage, judgment, and responsibility for their actions. A blankface meets every appeal to facts, logic, and plain compassion with the same repetition of rules and regulations and the same blank stare—a blank stare that, more often than not, conceals a contemptuous smile.

Personally, I feel the same way about "deadpan" humor. Comedic Blankfaces may well be hiding a contemptuous smile. *Or* ... or or or, they're more likely hiding a deep and complex inner life that only finds expression when painfully extruded through tiny little pin-hole filters forced upon them by modern society. Blankface humor is the *best* type of humor. And it, at least in my experience, often helps me find humor where none was intended ... a bit like Inspector Clouseau, authentically trying to do a good job, but fscking it up royally. I know I cite Poe's Law a lot. But it's *because* the holographic principle does not apply to biological organisms that apophenia can be a source of creative insight.

So, contra Aaronson, Blankfaces are fscking dope. It's the way we *see* and think about the Blankfaces that's the problem. To quote my dad again, "If you are bored, then you are boring."

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