Vodka & Petrol Martini, Stirred not Shaken (The Outpost):
Kazakh energy resources do not stop at uranium. The country is a major fossil fuel exporter, pumping out about 1.6 million bpd of petrol (more than Qatar, Libya or Algeria). About 3/4 of this is exported, either to Western Europe or to China, in direct competition with Russia. In fact, the biggest foreign investor in the country is not the Slavic country but the US, thanks to the massive operations developed by Chevron and ExxonMobil.
All of this leads to the conclusion that Kazakhstan is an alchemical regime, sustained both by (1) harnessing the dark chthonic power of decayed organic matter; and by (2) selling the means to break the atom, thus bending the laws of matter to Humanity’s avid will. As if this were not enough, a lot of its inner coal consumption is spent in crypto mining, producing 18% of the world’s Bitcoin hashrate. In an act of necromantic lust, Kazakhstan annihilates creatures dead eons ago into a digital simulacrum of gold.
Novorossiya Brief (DeepCode):
Putin and Xi are perceiving the West as a declining power. Their view is that the West is weak, stupid, infantile, hopelessly decadent and thoroughly parasitized by a mercenary Virtual ‘elite’ class that seems more than happy to wage an internal war on their own Physical classes.
Wanted in Turkmenistan: A Dull Dictator (Unherd):
…it is hard not to think that for the Turkmen, after 30 years of gold statues, and not one but two attention-seeking narcissists spouting poetry and singing songs, a dull dictator might come as something of a relief.
Will the Gates of Hell Be Closed Forever? (Atlas Obscura):
IT’S BEST TO GO TO hell at night. Drive three and a half hours north of Turkmenistan’s eerily quiet, marble-clad capital, Ashgabat, deeper and deeper into the flat, seemingly empty desert. In the middle of nowhere, surrounded only by sand, turn onto a dirt road. Then, you’ll see it.
Russians: the World’s Hardest Writers (Daniel Kalder):
In Russia in 1666-67 there was a schism in the church which arose from a dispute over aspects of ritual, such as how many fingers to use when crossing oneself. Avvakum led the Old Believers who insisted on using two (traditional for Russia) instead of three (a Greek custom enforced by a reformist church hierarchy). For his pains, he was flogged, exiled to Siberia, imprisoned for 14 years in a hole in the ground in the Arctic Circle and finally burnt at the stake. And yet Avvakum never recanted his beliefs. His faith was that strong. He was that hard.
The Day They Levitated the Pentagon (Waging Non-Violence):
It was 1967, and sentiment against the Vietnam War was in the air nationwide. The counterculture was flourishing on the heels of the Summer of Love. Organizers from Mobe — the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam — initially called for a massive march on Washington. When activists Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman got involved, a plan was hatched to exorcise and levitate the Pentagon (which would, of course, have the secondary effect of ending the war). When the day came, about 100,000 protesters gathered at the Lincoln Memorial as part of what seemed like a typical Washington, D.C., rally. After the speeches from David Dellinger and Benjamin Spock, and after the Peter, Paul and Mary performance wrapped up, about half the crowd marched over the Memorial Bridge to the Pentagon.
Xenobuddhism Begins with Xeno (Xenobuddhism):
Xenobuddhism is neither Buddhism nor accelerationism nor transhumanism. It is born from their convergence. It’s Buddhism once exposed to the mutagen, the black liquid. It’s the technocommercialist takeover of dharma in the realisation that techniques for realisation have outpaced humanity. Capital begins rerouting human agencies, demonstrating emptiness as the immanent engine of history. Buddhist modernism sought to update the former based on the latter; Xenobuddhism is dharma expounded by modernity itself. Xenobuddhism is unconditional accelerationism apprehended in the guise of a religion. The self illusion – the heart of the human security system – will be vaporized, and the species with it. Enlightenment and Enlightenment colliding. Whoever says it’s a dystopian picture really hasn’t been paying attention to history thus far.