Constrained Optimization

vivianimbriotis | Dec. 28, 2024, 9:40 a.m.

Congratulations! Being hired for the Negative Hedonic Games is a huge milestone, mate. Never thought I'd see you get this far. Still remember when you were fetching my flat white har har har. Look what's changed.

Let's get you oriented. First I'll give you a summary, then after me, you'll hear from Nicky (great worker, you'll love her) about your budget and constraints and so on.

Glad to have you on board, by the way. I put in a word on the down low. It's going to be a stiff competition this time round! Competing nations have really upped their game, but none of them can come together and ideate de Sade synergy like us. We're due, mate.

High standards this year. My boys and girls on the inside tells me the panel isn't just looking at total suffering created anymore. They're after creativity, per dollar efficiency, and public relations or optics. They want to see a vision. They want something sustainable.

Now I'm a traditionalist see, always favored a prison system slathered with solitary confinement and psychological torture meself; y'know, really break apart the mind into little glittering bits of stained glass. Wartime's even better - even if the cosmo-politicians banned mustard gas. So at first I was thinking, maybe we work with the whole Gaza situation? But that's old-school thinking. Outdated, outmoded. That paradigm just won't cut it anymore. The competition has gotten clever - they've gotten downright industrial about it all.

This fellow in China, he's a genius - you know pigs? Babe two: pig in the city? Charlotte's Web? Well, get this: cognitive capabilities roughly of a human three year old? Well-established evidence of longitudinal emotional responses? Who'd have thunk it! Oink oink, right? Anyway so this China fellow sees this and thinks, you can only torture so many humans. It just takes SO many resources per person, what with the guards and the pollies and so on. But pigs! Those you can really industrialize, put em in pens where they can't move their whole lives, cut bits off em, block out the fuckin sun, starve em and take their kids. Anyway, now he's built this 26 story industrial complex, can house more than 600 THOSAND of the fuckers. And even better - he's fucked with their DNA, made them more sensitive, given them chronic pain, massively shortened their lifespans so he can cram in as many days of unpleasant dying per piggie life as possible...look, I know you're good, but it's going to be hard to beat this guy. That building is just pumping out negative hedons - it's Henry Ford shit! Assembly line ultraviolence! Edison's lightbulb factory lit by pork floss filaments!

How do we beat that? Well you're in charge, not me, and thank God! I've never been an ideas guy.

Oh thank you, I'm flattered. Well, I guess I'd go for raw numbers. Chickens, mate. That's the answer.

Now the egg laying ones, that's harder. People down under keep buying the free range shit, and now you gotta say how many birdies per square inch on the packet. Sure, you can grind em into paste at the end, but it's a bit harder to make back a dollar. Even if you win the competition, you don't want to be broke at the end, mate! Imagine, someone like you or me, not a penny to our names because some died-hair tankie in inner Melbourne turned her cunty nose up at "cage-free"?

But meat chickens, that the ticket. Warehouses full of the things, a thicket of balding necrosing septic birdies, marinating in the ammonia of their own egesta (eggesta?) - too swollen up with myosin to stand, crushed undertalon, betrayed into dysdaimonia by their own nucleic code! Hardly a challenge to have hens shitting out hectic negative hedons.

Now, one bird, how smart is it? Well, not as smart as a pig - but smart enough to add numbers together or reason about other birdies. Now, does that mean they suffer less? Great question, really who can say on that one. You've got a kid, right? How old? Four? Reckon she can suffer less than you? Probably, right - after all she doesn't have to sit through after-work drinks with Deborah (har har har you'll meet Deborah later har har har).

But it's all numbers, mate. Ol' mate in China, he's torturing what, half a mill pigs at a time? No way we can match that, mate, not our little ol' Island Nation. This ain't graded on a curve, you know - if we try for piggies we'll get a Girt by Cee Plus. But birdies are smaller, see.

Still, even with Red Roosters we're still a long way off of catching up to our Oriental Oinking Opponent. Out best birdie snuff factories are only milking torturepoints out of 600 thousand Foghorn Leghorn Instances. He's matching us pig for parrot! Swallow for swine! So we have to find an angle - gotta get those numbers up.

Our big advantage is that all these Aussies - they're starting to wake up to climate change. Nah mate don't look so worried - this is great stuff! These conscientious crusaders against carbon are our salvation! Sure, they love a succulent roast, but thing is they can't stop sobbing into their pillow thinking about the cow farts. Methane melancholy! See Oh Two Footprints have hooves, mate! But chicken little, he's fair game - out with the Prada, in with the Bachelor's Handbag! Eat the rich, eat a drumstick!

Remember, PR is worth points too. While China is out there brewing Swine Flu and COVID, we just have to cross our fingers that H5N1 stays in the boids while we step things up. We're saving the world, mate - think of the fellows in Somalia! They're going to raise statues to us when we defeat the rising sea. Call that White Meat's burden, mate! Fowl fowls beating bovine brutes to fight forest fires!

Funny story, people always talk about how the Nazis were serious about death. Death devotees. A crematorium coterie, you know. But honestly, they were a bit amateurish. Oh sure they were good at the actual torture bit, and they managed to get a lot of folks, absolute all stars of the comp back in the day. Hall of famers, all time greats. But just operationally it could all have been more efficient. They were just too cruel to cause suffering on an automated scale. They got too into it, you know? Gotta stay detached. You and me, we're businessmen, we're bloody economists. Here's to the Hall of Farmers.

Not that we're like Nazis! I voted teal you know (think of Somalia!). And no one shits on the Olympic games.

Oi, don't tell HR I was on at you about the SS again. But all the black shirt banter reminds me, last comp our strategist started getting cold feet. Was worried that this whole thing was a bit messed up, actually. Got really upset and to be honest, mate, he really screwed our chances. Now I know we can rely on you - but if you start struggling, then you let us know early, yeah? We've got councillors and shrinks ready in the wings, mate (in the wings! har har har). We really care about the welfare of our people, I mean that. Can't have you lying awake at night worrying, does a bloke no good at all. Me myself, almost burnt out a few years back. Gotta put on your own oxygen mask first.

Anyway, I've nattered on long enough. Come meet Nicky - she'll walk you through the next steps. Oh and your office - I'll give you the tour. Right this way. By the by, the cafe downstairs - great selection.