yo! don’t touch that button!1 min read

it is a well known fact that the ‘close the door’ button in most elevators is a totally disfunctional placebo, which is placed there just to give the individuals the impression, that they are somehow participating, contributing to the speed of the elevator journey. when we push this button, the door closes in exactly the same time as when we just pressed the desired floor button without ‘speeding up’ the the process
[…]
this extreme and clear case of fake participation is an appropriate metaphor of the participation of individuals in our ‘postmodern’ political process.
[…]
according to malbranche we are all the time pressing such buttons and it is god’s incessant activity which coordinates between them and the event that follows, while we think the event results from our pushing the button.

for that reason, it is crucial to maintain open the radical ambiguity of how cyberspace will affect our lives: this does not depend on technology as such but on the mode of its social inscription.

slavoj zizek in mute