Fabricated Happiness:
A smokey delusion of freedom in a nanny state
Urban Commons and Wellness
Supervisor - Dr. Zhang Ye
This thesis is a cautionary tale of the lost freedoms that ensue as state control intensifies. It is a critique on top-down government control, imagining a possible dystopian future where Marijuana is legalized and used as a tool for the state to achieve its goal of order and control, in the name of reinstating social stability. Following which, the design of a live streaming and training facility monopolized by state-owned Mediacorp, is used as a vehicle to illustrate the consequences of such a possible dystopia and the delusion that masks it.
Narrative
Singapore’s one-party top-down governance structure has allowed for the nation to enjoy substantial levels of social stability for the past half decade since its independence from Malaysia in 1965. This could be attributed to their earlier ruthless efforts at enforcing policies and introducing systems in order to regulate and shape society into one of order. However, due to several factors, people are beginning to find fault in the quote ‘elitist government’ and are no longer afraid of expressing their views, eventually causing widespread discontent amongst the people. Currently, the state uses several deterrent measures in order to address this rising unhappiness, which include the Public order act, the defamation act, and the most recent ‘protection from online falsehoods and manipulation bill’. However, such could only serve to further escalate negative sentiments and lead to an eventual revolt and social instability. On the other hand, if control were to be loosened, unpredictability and volatility would result.
Thus, the thesis starts by looking at the government’s possible use of drugs or specifically Marijuana with its inherent properties, as a plausible tool to achieve its goal of order and control, in the name of social stability.
Such properties of Marijuana include its ability to induce happiness through heightening emotions and euphoria (Dolder 2016; Schmid et al. 2015), enable preoccupation because the duration of effects are chemically predetermined (Wacker et al. 2017), heighten one’s suggestibility making them more susceptible and responsive to the induction of thoughts or actions by others (Carhart-Harris 2012), as well as increasing creativity and productivity in the context of work (Carhart Harris 2016; Prochaskova 2018).
In order to explore how this works together in a more specific context to serve the government agenda, the live streaming industry monopolized by state-owned mediacorp is used as a vehicle to do so.
Although this appears to be an effective strategy for the government and hence the plausibility of the nanny state to employ it, social consequences emerge and these will be explored spatially through the design of mediacorp’s live streaming and training facility, ultimately painting a dystopia.
Spatial translation
Based on a report on a joint workshop titled ‘human enhancement and the future of work’ hosted by the Academy of Medical Sciences, the most worrying consequence that results from the use of performance enhancing drugs in the workplace is the normalization of the intensification of work due to increasing expectations and pressure to take the drugs.
This would firstly mean a surge in competition, which the design will seek to manifest spatially.
The delusion
In reality, if the lost freedoms were made so apparent, the state would not be able to have a hold on its people for long. Thus, there is an added layer of delusion. For the streamers, the harder they work the more fame and rewards they get, inducing happiness. This happiness they experience however, is fabricated by mediacorp who deliberately enhanced competition to make them work harder to generate this happiness, making the streamers think that this is what they want, thus unknowingly submitting themselves to mediacorp’s control. As mentioned, they produce more content which is the happy propaganda that is broadcasted to society and thus literally fabricating the happiness. Upon dissemination, society becomes happy watching it but all of this is deliberately planned and intended by the state who can thereafter use marijuana and the fabricated happiness in order to control the people in the name of achieving social stability.
Thus, all these fabricated happiness is the delusion that masks the lost freedoms in this possible dystopia.
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Tags: #adaptivereuse #capitalism #classdistinction #competition #control #delusion #drugs #dystopia #governance #livestreaming #lostfreedom #marijuana #massproduction #massproductionofpeople #mediacorp #nannystate #propaganda #politics #primatower #satire #singapore #smoke #socialissues #surveillance #topdowngovernance #utopia #veil #veiledperception