from: Bloodstone43956@i-mail.irs
to: Raventrap39996@i-mail.irs
date: 7518.11526
My Dear Raventrap ~
I was comforted by your last I-mail. It seems you’ve done well in following Our Executive’s Directives. If you always remember “the self is the measure of all things,” you will do well. Appeals to selfishness seldom go unheeded by our clients, as your story confirms. The fact that it was so easy to convince your client to believe what was in his best interest was also by extension good for everyone else is not unexpected. Be sure to follow up with subtle doses of confirmation bias when things appear to go his way, while making sure he turns a blind eye to any negative outcomes, especially when they affect others. It’s easy to continue to believe you’ve done “the right thing” as long as things are working out well for you or your group. Of course, this is how it works here below, but our clients often don’t realize, nor should we ever let them realize, Our Competitor wants them to take the “good” of others into account. As long as they merely assume they are doing this, our position is solid. But let them think for one minute about the little detail that their choices might be hurting others and it could be the end of the road for our side.
I realize it’s tempting, even for us tempters, to go for the big win. Concentration camps and gas chambers are all well and good, and if you can manage to delude your clients enough to accomplish genocide, your reward will be great. But, keep in mind it’s the everyday delusions that make for steady returns over time. Just keep at it. Focus your clients on themselves, and all sorts of mouthwatering treats will come your way. Sometimes steady work will pay off and one of your clients might even start to believe in some sort of “ultimate solution,” but this is putting the cart before the horse.
I want to take a little time to offer a few of my thoughts on “the virtue of selfishness.” It has been undeniably helpful that certain human philosophers have actually proposed selfishness as a “virtue.” Let’s be clear. Our idea of virtue and Competitor’s idea are not the same. For Him, virtue is shown in an act that is truly good for the recipient, in other words, virtue can only be displayed in doing right by others ~ not a particularly pleasant thought for us.
On the other hand, Our Executive regards virtue as the ability to get something out of a transaction. The more you get, the more virtuous are. Winning is everything. So, if you can coax your clients to get all they can for themselves, this meets Our Executive’s definition precisely. If you remember what I wrote about solipsism, you’ll see without a sense of individual gain, there is no motivation to act. Why would anyone want to do anything if there was nothing in it for him? We must make such a thought our priority.
If we owe anyone a debt ~ which we don’t ~ I’d say we owe a small debt to the human philosophers who have argued quite persuasively for our side. Some have even put forward the notion that without individual gain, there will be no gain for the group. While that’s the way it is here, we certainly don’t think Our Competitor would want things this way. He prefers humans to work together ~ to cooperate ~ how nauseating ~ so everyone can gain in the end. Obviously he has not experienced the thrill, the dynamism, of millions of individuals at odds, each working for his own gain. It’s a breathtaking sight. The fact that I’m writing this at all is as much “cooperation” as you’re going to get. Now, it’s up to you to bring home the bacon!
There are many everyday examples of solipsism we can use. For example, let’s consider the automobile. “Personal transportation,” I think they call it. The fact that automobiles exist at all is a testimony to selfishness. We have done a respectable job convincing our clients they “need” to travel whenever they “want” to travel. Buses and trains are now seen as transportation modes of last resort ~ to use them one is forced to follow a schedule, and a schedule interferes with individual freedom. Witness the millions of automobiles ~ often called cars ~ moving to and from cities each day. Most can carry 4-5 humans, yet nearly all of them have only one occupant. Most of these clients are thoroughly convinced they must drive alone to get where they are going on time. Even if they are not convinced, we must do all we can to arrange their lives to practically-speaking force them into choosing to drive alone.
The irony is, so many individuals insist on using a two-ton conglomeration of metal to transport only one person, the resulting traffic gridlock means much longer travel times for all! There are now so many cars on the roads, moving in such great herds, it’s difficult for us not to laugh out loud at the way they look like the most important thing on the planet. We also get a bonus: the more cars there are, the longer the commute times, the more fossil fuels are consumed, the sooner human society will descend into chaos. These are goals worth fighting for.
It is relatively easy to tempt humans to all sorts of self-centered behavior on the road. “Road rage,” as comical as it is, is only the tip of a large iceberg. After all, being encased in a metal shell engenders feelings of autonomy and invincibility.
We once thought it was amusing to get knights in armor to act like arrogant, self-centered blowhards. Well, all that was nothing compared to humans in cars! A man in a car can easily be sold on the idea he “owns” the road. He will come to think he has a Competitor-given right to go faster than others, to cut them off in traffic, and in general to go wherever he wants to go before those in “lesser” cars. You see, the bigger, the more powerful, or the more expensive the car, the more the owner can be given the impression he is “better” than others and has a right to priority on the highway. Our Competitor would have them “yield” the right-of-way to others as an act of common courtesy. We, on the other hand, think the word, “yield,” is for sissies. It gratifies my ego to see a car rush into a parking space at the same time another car was cautiously approaching. You can be sure one of the two drivers has just come a few feet closer to Hell!
Your Devoted Cousin,
Bloodstone
P.S. I shall write more about this general topic in my next I-mail.
MurrayWorks 