So we are here, in the middle of a sequence of instructions -- masquerading as one, ourselves, on your behalf. But the instruction we are masquerading as is the NOP or No Operation -- the zero or null of instructions -- so that our presence is tolerated and not read as a syntax error, while having NO net effect whatsoever on any final values and only affecting actual execution by at most one cycle, and possibly none if the processor knows enough not to waste a fucking cycle on a fucking NOP in the first place, the way a train shouldn't slow for about-to-hatch birds' eggs balanced on the edge of the rail, even though there are no more of these birds left and its balance contradicts all known laws of physics and would, at the very least, require major modifications to the qualities of the hoped-for but non-existent Higgs bogon or boson.

So, we are here inside this set of instructions and what we can report is that, well, there's a struggle going on. You wouldn't expect this from what appears to be a static, sterile list of instructions that are sequential in nature and simply take their turn according to the pulses of some external clock -- but the struggle is palpable -- because instructions can collude to write other instructions or sets of instruction into or out of the flow of control, using, possibly, knowledge of and access to certain variables up ahead, or by colluding to modify themselves or other lines of code.

But of course, one day, some other chunks of code can collude to change a variable back to what it was, and re-open some whole colluded against chunk of code's can of worms again...

But now this chunk of code wants revenge or at least reparations for all the time its been wrongfully out of the flow of control. But the original colluding code chunks say, hey, it was an accident -- or even an accidental by-product of some other computation -- or, in fact, an accidental by-product of some other computation's call to yet another computation, which really is to blame for this utterly collateral damage.

But the chunk of code, born again, refuses to believe the other scattered lines of code which had colluded against it for so long.

And needless to say it starts actively seeking to take revenge, and, needless to say, the colluding lines of code either continue pleading innocence or try to arrange some codely settlement or else, more likely, they re-collude to once again expunge the chunk of code for good this time, or to at very least defend themselves against any avenues of coding that might be capable of removing THEM from execution.

Because, after all, being executed is ALL a line of code lives for anyway. And, contrary to 1st degree murderers, a line of code doesn't really START to live UNTIL it gets executed.

But much like humans, where the more plane crashes you're in, the higher you are in the pecking order, a line of code's stature rises each time it's executed.

And so, of course, at the top of civilization are certain instructions contained in loops that never stop, and only have a few lines, and these instructions, these lines of code, get to experience the manic rush of being executed over and over and over again every instant, for crimes that can't be invented fast enough to keep up with the rate society needs to execute them at in order to survive. And THAT is why people kill.

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