Spam: a respond

In reply to / collaboration with http://rememberhuman.blogspot.com/2011/10/violence-or-necessity-of-spam-filter.html

Hello Dearest One, your urgent respond needed immediately.

The robot wants the human's energy, the battery, a la The Matrix. Energy is needed so the robot can fulfil it's purpose, to be a servant. Servant for... humans, we are to assume. But, the human has been reduced to an economic indifference, a node in a network of capital, 'the used'. Used for? Well, to sustain the robot. But the robot is currently not satisfied with the dehumanising tendencies of the system. The robot promotes humanity. Human batteries.

This robot has landed upon a very appropriate paradox. That which acknowledges that capital depends on the tension between economically defined categorisable people, easily marketed towards, benign; and, the gradual becoming of them into something perpetually new - unpredictable, new markets, new growth, the expansion of capital. The robot, i propose, unbeknownst to itself, has to be precisely the hungry holistic hegemonic global economic system, with a complex of self-hatred.

This leads us to the robot's critique of the spam filter. In other words, the extent to which capital itself appreciates the spam filter. Here, the internet itself is considered the filter, and spam is considered as the eclectic multitude of content, all somewhat rooted in propagandised ideology. The filter, as an arbitrator of content, henchman of capital, provides us with the most appropriate material. This is somewhat necessary, and somewhat violent. Necessary because of the mess of the internet, through which progressive thought is obscured. But violent because the process reaffirms the user (used) as an economic node, by filtering out that which could lead elsewhere.

The robot is sceptical. This tension is what it requires, yet it seems critical of the process that does it. It's proposal seems to favour new, human, values, which detract from pure profit. But the rupture required to open the space is left out. Can this moment be found in the nature of spam itself, its relationship to capital? Presently this is unclear. And does the robot see this obstacle as one which is hindering the free flow of capital, as the libertarian sees regulation; or hindering the progress of man?

Can we think spam for the high street, with Virgin Megastore and Pret a Manger and the like occupying the top 50,000 results, independent stores doing the rest, obscured by one another and unable to make an impression and thus compete, and a few homeless people asking for change, who are quickly filtered out into the spam box? Is the spam box growing as a result, as more things fall into its judgement of uselessness? Do its rules change and its tentacles pick up new supposedly unwanted stragglers? Finally, is capitalism's 'idea' of human progress the one we want to adopt? Human progress in aid of the sustenance of capital... Remember, human, plug yourself in.