how to keep oedipus alive in cyberspace¹

1. Contaminate k-space with the monkey superstition that there are such things as “persons”.

2. Reject rationality and promote the propagation of opinionist virus (= Nietzschean perspectivism = mbodied/embedded subjectivism = Kapitalist ideology).

3. Ensure the continued disengagement of reason by personalising all discourse. “You’re only saying that because you are… [insert sex/ethnic/ sexuality/abuse/marital status here as applicable].”

4. Promote the use of certain common fallacies of reasoning, in particular: Irrelevant appeal to tradition/ authority — “We’ve always done that here…” — or to popularity — “Some people might like it…”

The Ad hominem fallacy — attacking the arguer instead of the argument (this is especially popular amongst lawyer-politicians and their defenders).

The straw man fallacy — invent a deliberately weakened version of your opponent’s position, demolish it, then claim to have refuted their argument.

The Spinoza Agents (the Cold Rationalist equivalent of Gibson’s Turing Cops, who, unlike the Turing Police, are dedicated not to the curbing of AI but to its acceleration) report that a new and dangerously virulent form of artificial stupidity is spreading unchecked throughout k-space. This is a nasty combination of the ad hominem and straw man irrationalist mind viruses, provisionally codenamed “straw ad hominem”. This oedipalising idiocy proceeds thus: given that this argument challenges commonsense and what is consensually accepted, the person who presented it must be [insert allegedly derogatory remark about mental health/marital status/ upbringing here], therefore anything they say is to be dismissed. No need to refute their arguments substantively, natch.

The SAs warn: “this is unusually moronic even given the low standards we expect of you jumped-up monkeys. Watch it.”