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…
Tag: America
MONDAY LINKS: the Descent on Behalf of the Ascent; Frogs; Collapse
Angels on Amphetamines: “The split between the Christian Right and the Nietzschean Right is partly about whether today’s problems stem from an absence of the restraining force of Christianity’s moral framework, or an absence of the passion and vigor that it seeks to restrain. The unfortunate reality, I think, is that the constraints of morality…
Monday Links: Time; Night; Oz
Alt Economy of Inner Night: “Dream can be understood as the microleakage of the subconscious blackbox through which an insurrectionary consciousness may infiltrate. It is here, wading through a thick confused mess of oneself that the dreamer takes on the role of a lonesome trader who might find automated kiosks in the simulated likeness of…
𝕨𝕖𝕖𝕜𝕖𝕟𝕕 𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕜𝕤: Reduced to the Essence of Their Own Geometries; Metaphorical Sparks; Overwhelming Passion
Austin, TX: “What Austin does have is a lot of smart white people.” Ballard’s Sextet: “…mannequins are human beings from whom all transitional time has been eroded, they have been reduced to the essence of their own geometries.” Batshit Crazy America: ” It is the way of Homo sapiens that moral codes derive generally from the supervision…
▇ █ WEEKEND LINKS █ ▇: Imitative Passion; Debasement; Mob Rule; Wolves
12 Things I Learned from Rene Girard: “By desiring the same thing as our neighbor, we are drawn into inevitable conflict. Mimetic desire turns into mimetic rivalry—in everything from love to war. That’s the reason for the injunction against ‘coveting your neighbor’s wife.’ Girard claims this is emblematic of how mimetic impulses destroy a community….
WEEKEND LINKS: Breaking Points, Nightmares, Lying
Aging is No Blessing: “Twentieth-century science doubled the life expectancy of Homo sapiens, but our health still declines at nearly the same age today as it did in 300 BC. We’ve learned to keep chronically ill adults alive, and made some welcome progress in maintaining health. But in 2024, we’re about as likely to develop the diseases of aging—like cancers—if…
ẅ̴͍é̷̞̲͐e̵̺̊͜ķ̷̥́̃e̸͎̣̼͂n̴̬̄d̸̡̈́ ̴̯̲̠̈́̾ĺ̸̯͎̯̈́i̷̻̼̚n̸̰̲̽̈̍k̴̖͆̊s̴̤̓̄: feral rampage, joyous apocalypticism, Texas
Are People Really Fleeing Texas? “…this story needs spicing up. I’d suggest working in some details about millions of feral hogs on the rampage out west, while hunters strafe them with machine guns from their private helicopters flying overhead. ” Avant Garde at the End of the American Empire: “Miami is itself a kind of symbol…
weekend links: the bone orchard, war as divination, punishing wickedness
Don’t Waste a Good Crisis: “If you want to know what might come next, read the memoir of ‘White’ Russian general Pyotr Wrangel, Always with Honor, about the Russian Civil War. I’m not joking.” Godzilla: “A highlight of Heisei period Godzilla movies is Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah. It’s mostly a highlight for being completely bonkers Japanese nationalism. The…
ẅ̷̷̢̟͇͈̒ę̷̵̧̖̫̗̆̊ę̷̵̧̖̫̗̆̊k̶̸͙̭̹͆͟ę̷̵̧̖̫̗̆̊n̷̶̯͉̊̽̐ͦ͘d̸̡̩͍̔ͥ͜ ḻ̸͈ͧ͑̓̓̀͡i̵͓͙̱͚̎͟n̷̶̯͉̊̽̐ͦ͘k̶̸͙̭̹͆͟s̩͙͖̋͛͟: Hyper-Dimensional Perception, When Duty & Instinct are Incompatible, and the Neo-Medieval World Order
Cancel the Election: “Democracy isn’t pretty; make sure the old whore’s syphilis scars are on full display as she gracelessly expires.” Concrete and Glass: “Do you want to know why [JG] Ballard’s late 1960s and 1970s output is based? Because it’s all about unstoppable civilisational decline, and the chances of thriving, despite everything, in the…
ШЭԐԞЭИD LЇЙҚS: Engines of Wrath, Human Violence, De-Extinction, and the Lost Wilds of Earth
AI Pluralism: “We’ve seen in real life, in both legacy institutions and AI, that institutions tend to be captured by ideologies far more irrational, delusional, misinformed, and power-hungry than the average person. The technical details of AI make it so that it is asymmetrically easy to fight for AI to be open to customization and…
ẅ̷̷̢̟͇͈̒ę̷̵̧̖̫̗̆̊ę̷̵̧̖̫̗̆̊k̶̸͙̭̹͆͟ę̷̵̧̖̫̗̆̊n̷̶̯͉̊̽̐ͦ͘d̸̡̩͍̔ͥ͜ ḻ̸͈ͧ͑̓̓̀͡i̵͓͙̱͚̎͟n̷̶̯͉̊̽̐ͦ͘k̶̸͙̭̹͆͟s̩͙͖̋͛͟
2#: Notes on the Desertification of Signs and Men (Some Private Diagonal) After America, Baudrillard often returns to this theme of banalisation. With his Stateside serenity having vanished, he frames the unstoppable advance of the desert of banality in increasingly bleak terms. He speaks often of loss – of the Westerner having ‘lost his alterity’, or sometimes ‘his…
w̴̫̫̬͎̘̻͍̜͉̥̪͇̃̾̑̅̅ȩ̵͚̝̜̣̖͍͈̞̹̼̭̼̯̟̍̃͋̚ȩ̷̦̦̫͉̃̎͒̉̉̊̎̊͠͝͠k̷̡̛̛̯̲͍͉̤̯̦̪̫̳̪͎̦͒̍̂̍̈́́͌́̇̈́̐̈́͜e̸̲̖̝̝͉͈̽̈́ņ̷͈̻̱͙̱̺̣̘̼̰́͊̀͠ͅd̸̰̲̯̤͙̰̮͔̼̯̈́̊͊̀̋͗͠ ̴̠͉̯̗̀̀̓͗̀̍̃̀̋̍̀̈́͒̏͝l̷̢̡̛̟̱͈̰̼̟̜̝͍̝̫̣͔̒̓͘ǐ̴̧̦̝̤̟̙̘͔̼̙͚͌̐͐̔̀̅̈́̕͝n̴̨̦͍̟̺̲̣̻̱̦̥̺̠̜̑̀͌͗͑͌̌̀̽͑́̚ķ̶̡̲͓̪̱̬͇̯͎͈̎͜s̶̩͙̗̆̾̃̑̔̉̾
All Tomorrows Parties: “…What we are catching glimpses of is what [Jacques] Vallée, and indeed [William S.] Burroughs—the greatest American philosopher since William James—described as Control or the Control System (which, as per Burroughs, needs ‘words,’ ‘time’ and ‘opposition’ to unfold).” Covidian Aesthetics ——— Girard and Digital Technology: “The public mainstreaming of runaway social psychosis may…