Film at 11: Desiring machines have a biological substrate.

The desiring machines in the news want chocolate—but I’m sure there are other desiring machines that desire other things.

From the abstract at the Journal of Proteome Research (PDF)

Human metabolic phenotypes link directly to specific dietary preferences in healthy individuals
Sunil Kochhar and colleagues at the Nestle Research Center (Switzerland) and Imperial College London set out to distinguish the two populations at the molecular level. The team developed a novel approach they call “nutrimetabonomics” to correlate metabolic phenotypes with a behavioral phenotype—namely, an affinity for rich, creamy chocolate.

Upon statistical analysis, the plasma metabolic profiles of those who desired chocolate could be distinguished from those who were indifferent to its charms.

All of these findings point to differences between the two groups in the functionality of gut microflora.

Bacteria that crave chocolate. I wonder if somebody did a study on fast food or soda, what they would find? Anybody remember The Space Merchants?
Pohl and Kornbluth’s plot line has trapped the marketing agency executive, Mitch, in the underclass, where he finds out how the other 99% lives:

I’d been paid again, and my debt had increased by eight dollars. I tormented myself by wondering where the money went, but I knew. I came off shift dehydrated, as they wanted me to be. I got a squirt of Popsie from the fountain by punching my combination —- twenty five cents checked off my payroll. The squirt wasn’t quite enough so I had another —- fifty cents. Dinner was drab as usual; I couldn’t face more than a bite or two of Chicken Little. Later I was hungry and there was the canteen where I got Crunchies on easy credit. The Crunchies kicked off withdrawal symptoms that could be quelled only by another two squirts of Popsie from the fountain. And Popsie kicked off withdrawal symptoms that could only be quelled by smoking Starr Cigarettes, which made you hungry for Crunchies. Had Fowler Schocken [the agency] thought of it in these terms when he organized Starrzelius Verily, the first spherical trust? Popsie to Crunchies to Starrs to Popsie?

And you paid 6 per cent interest on the money advanced you.

Of course desiring machines have a biological substrate. If you don’t believe in nonsense like Gods, what other kind of substrate would they have? Back to the Journal of Proteome Research:

The bottom line [indeed], Kochhar says, is the realization that diet leads to a sort of metabolic “imprinting”. In other words, the body (and its associated microflora) appears to become attuned to a particular diet. This finding can have both positive and negative health consequences—but which also could ultimately open the door to novel dietary regimes.

“Novel dietary regimes…” Yeah, like “Popsie to Crunchies to Starrs to Popsie.”

E. coli is by no means the worst of what’s happening to our food. The corps—in the way of their inhuman personhood—really do regard us as human resources; as owned flesh to be seeded with desiring machines and harvested for profit. How much more profitable, and how much more effective, are desiring machines compared to whips and chains!* As I/we keep saying: “We’re all niggers now.”

NOTE * Except for the sick fucks in the higher echelons of the criminal Bush regime, the 24 fans, who prefer to use our flesh for torture, rather than profit. For them, of course torture “works.” Torture gives them what they desire, does it not? The other’s pain, the other’s screams… Chacun son goût.