Celluloid Caesar: “So, is Megalopolis a miraculous comeback to Coppola’s 1970s quality? No. Of course not. It’s absolutely as horrible as everybody says it is.” Make California Red Again: “The future is still invented in California and its influence on global culture remains critically important. California remains one of the most naturally beautiful places on Earth,…
MONDAY LINKS: Reformation; Blessings of Providence; and the Multiplication of Man’s Ends
A More Perfect Disunion: “Trump’s running mate in 2016 was Mike Pence, an Evangelical Neocon. His current partner is JD Vance, 40, a Catholic equally at home with reactionary rightism and technological futurism. Vance represents the beginning of a new sort of establishment, less comprehensive, more regional and eclectic, and archaeo-traditional in outlook: a faith…
A Cosmos Without God
Daniel Miller recently posted a piece on IM-1776 that’s deserving of high praise. It’s a provocative assessment of how the decades-long aftermath of World War II resulted in the gradual transformation of the West into something increasingly sinister. This transformation annihilates any posturing about the West (and perhaps America specifically) being an “anti-fascist” prototype. The…
Everywhere, Nowhere, and Now Here
Excerpted from Second Power Last month I attended the Nowhere Summit in Ecuador with several friends, old and new. Alex Petkas provides a good description of the event here: Technological, political, and societal change are happening at an alarming rate. There are huge, asymmetric opportunities for network-institution builders that simply did not exist 5 years…
MONDAY LINKS: California, Texas, Strangers
Always in the Arena: “Watergate turned the 37th president into a toxic symbol, and we are only just beginning to recover.” Atlas International: “When you have to rush to the hospital at 3AM, whose door will you knock on? Who will you ask to go into your house and get your kids and keep them…
Security in the Void
Recently I started looking deeper into Ernst Jünger, per the writings and discussions of some IRL friends, one of whom characterized Jünger as the rare breed of author who could write without subterfuge. And from another friend’s Instragram post this summer as he visited Junger’s home in Germany: Jünger was a strong candidate for most…
MONDAY LINKS: Seraphim; Harmonic Interludes; and Aloneness
And Suddenly Things Change: “Everything that can break is breaking: stock markets, bond markets, the galaxy of derivatives — bets on this and that, which will never be honored. Banks are next. Gold and silver are hanging in there for dear life just now, because they’re actually worth something.” Biblically Accurate Angels — Christianity’s Undisputed…
TUESDAY LINKS: Windswept Drama; a World on Fire; the Sound of God; Death on the Installment Plan
Frontier Cities: “Like many other moments in American history, we find ourselves at the advent of a technological innovation era that has the potential to significantly increase human freedom. We must grasp it. America must, as it has for centuries, set out toward that goal. We don’t need to colonize Mars, we don’t need new…
TUESDAY LINKS: Horticulture of the Heavens; the Wallpaper in Your Mind; the Consequences of Desire
Apologetics for Philosophy: “…getting in touch with this archive of greatness will put you in touch with practices and insights that in turn put you back in touch with reality, with being, in new, old, and timeless ways. And they do so in a way that lets us glean what reality is in a deeper sense.”…
Money, Ever-Living Fire, and the Way of Angels
cross-posted here Maverick has a great piece at Man’s World Online examining cryptocurrency’s role in the evolution of money and its potential to concretize abstract ideas about freedom and truth. He looks at the work of classicist Richard Seaford along with Costin Alamariu to map the links between coinage and philosophy. “The pre-Socratics and the Socratics inherited a thoroughly…
The Dharma of Aquatic Speed
cross-posted here The rush of going fast on water is a celebration of the pure joy and freedom of living boldly — Unknown Faster, faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death — HST Speed is the ultimate modern experience — Ballard The world of speed is the world of the absolute,…
TUESDAY LINKS: Gladiators and Slaves; Synchromysticism; Hell or High Water
All the World is a Myth: “We are still living in the Roman Empire…There is still a Colosseum and a Circus Maximus. There are still gladiators and slaves, there are still heroes and tyrants, and how exactly are we to know the difference?” Approach That Which Could Destroy You: “You have to approach that which…