TheConversation

For several years now I’ve been polishing my General Theory of Interactive Determinants, which pretentious as it sounds, pretty accurately describes the way contemporary fiction (not only literary but also television, cinema, “social” media, MSM news, soi-disant political analysis and so on) bleeds into and shapes what these days passes for reality. I was brooding on this subject when I came across the following paragraph in Iain Banks’ The State of the Art (page 110):
(The good ship Arbitrary to Diziet Sma on some of its reasons -and the other Minds’, presumably- for not contacting Earth)
‘...there would be technical difficulties, given the volatility of the situation. They’re on a cusp; a highly heterogeneous but highly connected -and stressedly connected civilization. I’m not sure that one approach could encompass the needs of their different systems. The particular stage of communication they’re at, combining rapidity and selectivity, usually with something added to the signal and almost always with something missed our, means that what passes for truth often has to travel at the speed of failing memories, changing attitudes and new generations. Even when this form of handicap is recognized all they ever try to do, as a rule, is codify it, manipulate it, tidy it up. Their attempts to filter become part of the noise, and they seem unable to bring any more thought to bear on the matter than that which leads them to try and simplify what can only be understood by coming to terms with its complexity.
So I thought I’d use my own condensed version of this as the text for the little creature's lament in this here doodle, as it expresses neatly and concisely what I’ve been saying all these years.
Stay groovy, clear-headed and fight the Disneyland Construct!