# on steve man's cyberpunk assault tech on researcher steve mann's alleged assault in mcdonalds steve's story strongly resonates with current cultural western narratives and concerns about technology and globalism - a contested (/garme) space "physical assault by mcdonald's for wearing digital eye glass" is the name of a post at steve mann's blog shouldn't that title more specifically include 'in mcdonalds' or 'by mcdonald's employees'? a lot of people on this beautiful alien ark-planet consider good ol' mccancers as one of the largest aggressors against good taste human health and earth as a indivisible whole perhaps the title also implies a false david vs. goliath situation which might not necessarily exist a little guy called steve: "here i am just going about my daily business trying to save the world through building better tech(tm)'- when suddenly out of the blue i find myself assaulted by a random fast food hyper-corporation what's odd is the fact steve says ir's concerned with 'helping many people see better' and 'improving the quality of ir lives' - both noble causes on the surface at least - and yet ir's in mcdonalds; ironic blindness at its finest // image here: steve mann: human artificial intelligence consider "mcdonalds" not as some abstract corporate entity but a direct way of un-thinking about earth; a set of social mis-relations and a form of technology - just like the one bonded to steve's dim skull as though 'steve' and 'macdonalds' share the same ontological outlook or ideological basis rather than dislike one and like another perhaps what's important is to be critical and attentive to the mind / society which produces them both - as a form of waste one is reminded of paid murderer and all-round company man / willing patsy deckard busy running around in /seemingly dystopian sci fi movie blade runner: "fast food and military grade augmented reality eyewear are like any other machines. they're either a benefit or a hazard. if they're a benefit it's not my problem" nothing is a problem to the droid who fights on and for the winning side rick wonder to what extent anyone still believes in ancient dead myths of 'the neutrality of technology' - given the fact that even ph7 is a still a definite position on the same cultural scale - and the realities of sweden's dubious neutral past "attached to my skull": the pervasive idea or paradigm of technology as somehow parasitically 'un-attachable' from one's mind or overall thought processes; that 'everything goes better with tech' in which steve's story brings to mind real world farmer jose bove and the fictional protests of the humanity front in deus ex knowing of such contested positions its easier to imagine overworked employees of macs confronting steve for similar sociopolitical reasons: "i might have to suffer the daily wage-slave indignities of this lousy mcjob - but i'll be damned if some freedom fry sucking yank borg is going to stick ir stupid digital eyeball in my face" that is to say perhaps they're somehow being critical about people who enjoy support and embody /western technology uncritically mindlessly and automatically as a comparison: simply check out any nearby mobile phone users; by slavishly using those childish objects they too often act like profoundly inattentive zombies indeed considering the massive environmental destruction such consumer electronics need to exist and cause in ir wake both in ir planned obsolescence and ir inhuman manufacture compare and contrast steve with steve austin - the six million dollar automaton trailer here **+** we have separation.. from one another **+** i've got a blowout.. argg too much techno-hype **+** i can't hold altitude.. steve needs attitude adjustment **+** steve austin.. astronaut.. "a man barely alive" (ie. capable of critical thought) **+** gentlemen we can rebuild ir - (we have ze will-to-tech) **+** in the pilot episode a suit in charge refers to steve as mere expendable "scrap"; this is to be expected "project glass": one day.. google state politely commands "we believe technology should work for you - to be there when you need it and get out of your way when you don't" for me - really? wow! (like the character cole from the movie twelve monkeys: "it's an advertisement mr. cole. you do understand that don't you? it's not really a special message to you") perhaps "[..] to be there when you need it and get out of your way when you don't" means ubiquitous - totally transparent ie. unquestioned - the invisible background and presumed neutral(tm) base from which one is supposed to make one's critical analysis of the vast technological ocean humanity's currently embedded / drowning in "google glass changes the way we will look at computers" - interesting; not only is this a zero oxygen content statement perhaps it's true in that once you wear them your view(point) will instantly become effortlessly positive and happy happy joy-joy someone on youtube replied: "i saw this embedded in someone's website and immediately thought it was a joke. everything in this is vid so ridiculous that it becomes hysterical and must be mocked" indeed to to mock seems essential at this troubled evolutionary juncture 0:00 a fade from black - from life giving nothingness and back down into the big (tech) dream - and we know nothing about this alleged 'person' (but will soon know plenty about ir tiny private world) 0:01 nice well-lit morning apartment - huge television slick laptop - boxes (just moved in) - abstracted human model on coffee table (an unconscious reflection of the state of ir own wooden blankness?) 0:02 our hero stretches alpha-male apexing; life is easy when you're breezy - no doubt ready for more business-as-more-of-the-usual 0:04 yet another filter pops up over the first reality simulation - and then the music starts: "life's go great - i'm great - everybody's just super great." great! 0:06 hooray its the dancing icons - round shapes are so human - so friendly; don't you think 0:08 italian stove top coffee being poured - those things are often made of aluminum careful - also makes you wonder who else is seeing and recording this 0:11 see jess - why is they in on this filthy sideshow too? 0:14 the poster across the street says "live here now" - what is potentially some of the highest buddhistic wisdom is here warped into the ugly parody of a perpetual airless present of nothing but endless consumption - plastic products coffee relationships music art literature 0:21 wanna meet up today - what with a talentless nerd that looks like that? 0:29 one of those 'superstar dj man bags' in effect - gosh i'm so neat and ready and functional for the urban(e) environment 0:33 just another day.. yeah in the #g matrix cyber punk - you think that's air your breathing.. but it's just the dead space of global capital gone viral 0:34 technology as helvetica: "a bastion of the rise of the practice of corporate identity" 0:39 the subway's closed - "oh man really?" first word problems with (what a surprise) patented first world solutions following in ir toxic wake; you can bet the guy who lives over the vents near the subway (not shown) doesn't have quite as many casual options as this drone currently wearing the latest in augmented hyper-corporate reality spectacles 0:49 saying hi to the little guys; ah bless (probably being taken for a walk by some underpaid wage slave) 0:53 no dog sh!t in sight how nice and unbelievable; an airbrushed city for airbrushed citizens of tomorrow - "monsieur gayno" (give me a break) "remind me to buy tickets" "remind me to punch you in the neck with a rising xing-i fist if i ever see you" - just make sure your recording is switched to 'on' so you can replay it back whenever you want considering ir's going to buy an 'uke' don't be surprised if ir's actually just 'monsieur gayno' himself. what a trip 1:04 "where's the music section?" - wonder where the section is in such a skull where non-trivial thoughts take place; this guy doesn't cares to browse even for a second (gotta be places gotta see cool people gotta 'be' someone - anything other than what ey always is ie. utterly shallow) 1:13 "ukulele in a day" - yeah and welcome to babylon rome - a single unstoppable moment of raw consumption where nothing unexpected genuine authentic or spontaneous ever happens brings to mind that dim mockney wanker in the awful action flick with dwane johnson who said they'd "beaten yoga" 1:16 that music is getting on my bloody nerves already - "is paul here yet?" imagine a bunch of tepid space monkeys happily chirping to themselves like this in public; how profoundly annoying - oh wait 1:23 the bro dudes hi-five; alone together again - "paul" is so undilutedly hip your teeth ache; if only someone were to provide ir with a free right cross to complement ir smug dim mug 1:28 "hey just a second" - even a second is rude; imagine a whole day with this guy - "wait a sec.. sorry what were you saying i was busy talking to my imaginary corporate friend in teh cloud" 1:43 "woah cool.." - given the state of the city as a whole ir entire scripted life is 'an expensive holiday through other people's misery' 1:48 "share it to my circles" - grief.. imagine sharing a circle with this 'caz-u-el' store front mannequin - like they'd ever think of painting a picture; "sweet another homeless person on fire.. another one for the online archives" 1:56 "music.. stop" - thank for that - the way ey says it even ir's annoyed at ir uninterrupted plastic lifestyle soundtrack 2:00 jessica wants to talk to you - yes or no deckard accept or reject - where reject never means 'the only winning move is not to play' - false reductionist binary pseudo choices - perhaps its neither about 'benefits vs hazards' nor both; what then 2:05 "you want to see something cool?" - ey whips it out (and ir uke) jumps off the ledge and repeatedly plays the same six lame notes on the way down; ir augmented reality feed (complete with emotionless emotional states and strangely organ-less body data) is at least a bloody 1.5 minute hit among the wirehead junkies downtown which they immediately sell to the fellow 'coffee shop cool' for a dirty virtual dollar a pop (ooh so deliciously cynical) 2:16 those six particular notes of the tune "lover's carvings" by 'bibio' will henceforth ever be directly symbolically indicative of a tiny toilet bubble of polite lite empty-headed hipster nothing; an aggressively happy death-void where only profoundly derivative dull flat watery and generic corporate muzak (ie. 'only ever capable of being licensed for commercial campaigns') exists augmented reality as another apparent utopia - shared with the dulled citizens of logan's run who relinquish freedom for the sake of general (seeming) survival safety and security imagine this scene through steve's cybernetic eyewear: why you'd be able to see every one of the cool vital meta-stats of the bodies of the about-to-be-vaporized while you also joyfully scream "renew! renew my annual lifestyle subscription!" religious cybernetic totalist co-founder and editor of kurzweilai.net whose work includes positions with the fourth largest attack contractor in the world - charming - pipes in bizarrely calling the incident the "first attack on a cyborg" regarding such an attack; in most sci fi it's usually the other way around as flans of robocop and transhumanist wet dream / video garme antihero adam jensen remind us in another misogynistic rap-pop vid note entire garme of "deus ex: human revolution" is tinted in urine gold by adam's weak nuremberg defence: "i never asked for this" yet adam is entirely blind to the fact that everything about ir - ir skin colour ir willing choice of job as head of security for an inherently evil faceless near-future hypercorporation-cliche indeed ir entire existence - is already fully embedded in the violent western technological datascape one wonders at what point anyone will ever be able to see the true deeper real - non-augmented - facts behind steve's case more clearly. in the meantime at least we might consider stopping the cyborgs [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="274"] sinister: google 'glassholes'[/caption] // republic of bob