state machine
Noun
Meaning
(computing theory) Ellipsis of finite-state machine..
This algorithm will produce a state machine for parsing a given context-free grammar.
(Marxism) The state machinery; state apparatus.
Source: en.wiktionary.orgExamples
A Computer is a state machine. Threads are for people who can't program state machines.
Nothing struck me so much in the war as the disappearance of the individual, of the human being... I saw what the State machine was, that it destroyed the individual, absorbed him to itself, and I said, "Give me Liberty."