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STANDALONE_COMPLEX
July 31, 2011
Task at hand: pretend that the concept
of "the standalone complex" actually LITHIUM_FLOWER
means something.
SUBS
My first suspicion is that there's nothing
really all that heavy there, it's just
another label for some rather familiar
(trite and/or classic) ideas along the
"individual-in-society" line.
Going by what we're shown:
The main characters-- essentially
police detectives-- are in the
business of looking for causes
and trying to determine guilt.
As they try to get to the bottom of
things, they keep discovering that the
situation is more complex than expected: (Oct 28, 2016)
it's a mess of spontaneous copy-cats, and There's a joke in "Decoy"
conspiracies pretending to be copy-cats, (the second in the Laughing Man
and when they finally get to the original arc): they do the bit where
guy ("The Laughing Man"), they find that there are people on television
even he isn't really the original prime spewing a bunch of crazy
mover, he was following up on something theories-- but all of them
started by someone else, and he has no arguably turn out to be true.
idea who that was.
"-- maybe there never really
He also repeatedly makes the was a Laughing Man at all!"
point that he's *never* called
himself "The Laughing Man"-- in
many ways the identity that
others were imitating is itself The suggestion is that this "standalone
an odd social construct that complex" is a *new* phenomena, a result
has little to do with him. of an increasingly tightly connected
networked world.
So one way to take the idea:
Strange complexities
There isn't always a linear that aren't
chain of causation that can "coincidence" or
be traced back: you can find "synchronicity", but
examples of self-reinforcing rather some sort of new
behavior, little knots of emergent phenomena.
looped causality that
effectively "stand alone".
Ala Heinlien's
"All You Zombies"
Central to the "Ghost in the Shell" series is
the mind/body dichotomy and questions of
individuality... in the original films, it
leads up to Major Motoko merging with an
intelligence out of the net, and then
effectively ascending into the net,
becoming an entirely non-corporeal entity.
This television show,
"Stand-alone Complex" has the
Major acting in a subtle way
like someone at loose ends: "Stand-alone complex" seems
she's struggling along without like a prequel at first glance,
the ascension that she's really though there's an "alternate
looking for. The Laughing Man universe" premise to prevent
suggests that she's someone who any nerdy bickering about
would really like to die for a continuity problems.
cause, however much she might
deny it. That premise ("an alternate
universe where the Major never
This sort of thing adds another met the puppeteer") is actually
set of meanings to the title stated very quietly: I've only
phrase. An individual like seen it in one place, a
The Major "stands alone", few coming-attraction "trailer".
get really close to her. She, It's something the casual
however, exists in a tightly viewer is unlikely to notice,
networked world, the mode of her though they made it prominent
existence depends on an alliance enough that every fan's
with a government agency quibbles can be answered with it.
("Section 9"), her very body is
a piece of expensive government One "continuity problem":
hardware that needs frequent why weren't there any
maintenance. tachikomas-- or anything
like them-- in the film?
The major herself is complex,
and is part of a larger Tachikoma are intelligent,
complex... and may become autonomous tanks in the
part of a still larger one. shape of blue spiders--
in some translations, these
are called "think tanks".
They've got very cute mannerisms:
They go prancing around talking
like excited little girls. They
need to be seen to be believed.
They're the most brilliant
(C3PO done feature of this incarnation of
right.) "Ghost in the Shell".
That, and the Yoko
Kanno soundtrack.
So, to take the notion seriously:
The idea that events in the realm of
human affairs always have discrete, For example, I submit that
identifiable causes has always been no one really understands
dubious. why "World War I" happened.
If the "Stand-alone Complex" has Another example: Tostoy
any meaning: we can expect this argued it makes no
problem to get even worse in the sense to debate which
near future: side set fire to Moscow
after Napoleon invaded.
Conditions were right,
so it happened.
o Bizarre political
movements breaking
on the scene like The Arab Spring?
flash mobs. Occupy Wallstreet?
o Rapid shifts in
entertainment fads bittorrent, youtube,
that give Hollywood netflicks, porntube...
a nervous breakdown. smellofvision.com
o New cults in diet and
"alternative medicine"
insisting that they all Electro-acupuncture
have the answer. with depleted uranium rods
and homeopathic doses of
Lady Gaga's urine.
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