[FRIAM] On Blankfaces

[thompnickson2 at gmail.com]

OR: "You can say whatever you want, you just can't say what you just said and expect me to understand it."

Nick Thompson
ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ?>$
Sent: Thursday, August 5, 2021 12:17 PM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] On Blankfaces

My fellow Blakkfaces like Ms. Umbridge do not attempt to regularize the entire world according to their doctrine. They are more like feudal lords, attempting to regularize their small fiefdom. Further, most of them only regularize a subspace of all the possible behaviors they might try to control ... like your DMV provider telling you that you don't *have* to fill out the form at all! You just can't fill it out *that* way and expect me to stamp it.

In many ways, Blankfaces are anti-authoritarian. "Choose your battles." By limiting one's freedom in dimensions X..Y, you have more energy to exercise your freedom in dimensions P..Q.

For example, I'm quite happy that I don't have to spend very much time defending my property from thieves and murderers. That frees me up to spend my time arguing on the internet.

On 8/5/21 9:08 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> How is a blankface different from authoritarian? 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ?>$
> Sent: Thursday, August 5, 2021 8:45 AM
> To: FriAM <friam at redfish.com>
> Subject: [FRIAM] On Blankfaces
> 
> 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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