The Unbearable Pressure of Kiffany's Collective Altrusism

"I work hard."-- Patricia Idlette

In the third or fourth to last episode of Dead Like Me, S2, the British punker Mason, played by Callum Blue, gets into serious trouble with Kiffany the thickset black waitress, when he attempts to palm the tips at der Waffle House, and before the character is forgiven for his sleazy opportunism, Kiffany gives him a long spiel about rationed, collective distribution among low skilled laborers. This is Vancouver's voice, North Hollywood, letting the Canadian argument for liberal free society socialism hold its sway in virtually ecumenical reverence. How can libertarian ideas possibly push back against this mass pressure, decrying caste and economic inequality? There are no positively drawn capitalists in this Bryan Fuller vehicle, with the exception of the newspaper magnate's heir who deflowered Millie, Georgia's alter ego, in an earlier episode.

The rich, whether business class or blue blood, are satirized mercilessly in this Showtime pork roll concession to the Common Man. Beneath the surface, it is the blue collar stiff and fundamental fairness being elevated, since no one truly knows when they've taken the last step to heaven. Kantian universalism carries through every episode. The importance of regulation and order drilled into our craniums.

A rather strong refutation of Kiffany's point comes from an unlikely source: Google's automated, efficient, metadata model, which, ever so painfully, in gradated steps, created Medium, which is universal, but cannot generate profit, and collaborative models like Niume. The developers who run Niume are probably little wealthier than the pensioners and (some) marginalized account users who post to it, and to its credit, Niume is not pay for play, like Blogger Adsense. But what writer, whatever form is their strongest, cares to pursue excellence in an environment like this? It is as mediocre as the collective median of the online crowd, which some intellects need to shun.

Forget about me. 32 years of taking inner city beat downs have made me an illegal anarchist, and Google is within its rights, as is my internet provider, to suspend me at whim. Given means, method, and opportunity, I've become overzealous, and I'll leave that there-- but the only individuals who can get away with incitement in the name of an agenda are fairly protected power mongers like Milo, or in France, Le Pen. The Silicon Valley, which is Twitter, Facebook, and its derivative models, have already made Huxley's Brave New World a reality. 


It is not even a question of whether Joanne Marinelli stays or goes. I'm likely to vanish simply by getting barred from access to my apartment. And whether or not I'm still writing in three years, mind intact, is one for the devil's bookie. No, what I see is an alarming loss of independence of thought, and increasing difficulty toward incentivizing in this still fragile, digital world. This is why I support libertarian models, however much they contravene primate group dynamics.