Contributions to the destruction of the Real

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Contributions to the destruction of the Real

The contribution that specific actions and rhetoric have had, and continue to have on the ongoing destruction of the real, that Jean Baudrillard believed to be the greatest bane of our time, has been grossly unaddressed in todays society. Thus, this article will be a first step to uncovering exactly what these actions are and how they have furthered us all into a world of over-proliferated self referential simulacra. I am consciously choosing to not delve into the theories of Jean Baudrillard, since that has been covered much in the past by writers such as Douglas Kellner who have done an excellent job in breaking down the axioms that underly this article. The rest of this article will be split up into sections, organized by the specific action or rhetoric that the section will cover. I will most likely think of some more examples in the future that I will probably add.

I.
Actions by Simulacral institutions, such as the United States government. These hulking institutions are nothing more than Simulacra and serve little utility aside from propagating signs, because almost every change made to them or to the laws that they use to control, is based on simulating some ideal other worldview or policy. This is backed up by many examples, such as how the U.S. has been attempting to model the educational systems of many of the Nordic countries, or how the recent police reform done by the Trump administration was just a simulacra of the reforms protestors demanded, or the instance by Western powers that every country must abide by the rules that they themselves already simulated from previous civilizations, such as how the U.S Constitution was mostly just John Locks’ work and the Magna Carta combined. This has multiple implications. First, is that the actions done by these institutions will almost always replicate Signs and Simulacra. Second, is that these changes will almost never succeed because they are just copies of previous models that are unlikely to carry over in any fruitful way because of the other differences prevalent in the societies and institutions that these decisions are implemented on.

II.
Rhetoric of Existential risk. This rhetoric, which has become increasingly popular because of public figures such as Elon Musk, and Nick Bostrom is problematic because it propagates signs and simulacra by simulating former rhetoric, such as the cries of the USSR as an existential threat during the cold war and because its proponents constantly create new signs with constantly evolving catchphrases and new existential risks, like the many Signs created to portray the risks of AI, CRISPR, Warming, and Nuclear War. Apart from contributing to destruction of the real, focusing on future impacts as “existential” risks is a monumental waste of time given these threats almost never materialize, or at least to the level of total extinction. That’s shown with past examples of technologies and other dangers that masses worried would cause extinction, but never did like worries of the internet causing extinction in the early 90s, the fear of a US-Russia Nuclear war during the cold war, or fears that Nuclear detonations during U.S. experiments in the 1930s would cause a reaction that would cause extinction.

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