“The logical conclusion of a technofeudal oligarchy combining forces with an authoritarian political movement is compulsory enrollment in the security state’s platform architecture of surveillance, indoctrination, and behavioral modification.”

Just saw this @varnvlog.bsky.social and thought it might be of interest to you. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/n...

Schrodigger’s reactionary view of the lefty

one of my favorite liberal tics is assuming when trump and the GOP talk about "the left" they're not talking about liberals

Coates finds himself in the tricky position of being a liberal who is a serious thinker and an ethical human being while liberals around him are 🤡 🤡

Most of the time the truth is uglier than what the pundits tell you, but the future can also be brighter than what they want to believe as well. It just has a cost.

People in power don’t just give you things unless there is a catch: Ponder that more often.

French, what happens with Gothic, Old Norse, and Frankish speakers learn Latin. English, what happens with Germanic speaking tribes, half of whom used to speak B-gaelic language just a century before anyway, give up on even learning the Germanic-inflicted Latin.

Someone asked how this potato man rarely got identified as from the States when I lived abroad--not that I was ashamed of it--and I replied, "I only smile when I mean it. It's good camouflage against people assuming you are from the States"

There is no right side of history. There is the world you make with the history and material you are given. Instead of hoping that the future remembers you, make the conditions of the future. You don't choose materials-Only want you do with them, and who you do it with.

Noticing a theme

Speculative bubbles often pop slowly over the course of years, and only become obvious once the bubble has long since burst all of the bricks of history, and we miscognize it as happening only right then.

Most people want to believe others (or at least others they identify with) think like them but that ironically is only possible in relative alienation where projection can override rough edges of social tension.

Speculative bubbles often pop slowly over the course of years, and only become obvious once the bubble has long since burst all of the bricks of history, and we miscognize it as happening only right then.

Karl Popper and Martin Heidegger can fist fight in one of the thousand hells.

Many of you need better enemies so you would be better fighters, intellectual and otherwise.

"New world" nationalism is so cringe in aesthetics because the kitsch hasn't had the time to develop a patina to make it seem more serious than it originally was.

My favorite thing about the movie Her is the AI gets really into Alan Watts and just leaves humanity altogether. My other favorite thing is if you haven't seen the movie, it's impossible to know if I am making this up.

Unpopular opinion: while it is truly tragic that a lot of the graduate humanities programs are being cut and gutted, it is a fact that these programs were over accepting students so that tenured professors could maintain small teaching loads. Let’s not ignore that.

Gusts of popular sentiment is not the same as “mass politics” or even “ politics” at all

Our responsibility to advocate for what we believe is never easy, because not only can others be wrong but so can we be wrong ourselves. That is the gambit you take for acting socially and “populism” isn’t a fix for that. /1

Since I have been over-sharing lately, I go from a department meeting to a pre-operation appointments tomorrow.

Humanities majors talking about objects as agents because of a confusion about mechanics and categories has led people who write ad copy to describe anything that has an effect as agentic. Reinventing animism for marketing.

Having a flash back to 20 years ago as a scene writer and bar-fight haver, and listening to Shiner (who are releasing a new album) and I actually discovered Death Machine exploring similar music that is new. Why has no one told me about Death Machine?

I also got re-elected as a Union Rep today despite trying to step down for a while to organize more rank-and-file participation. So that's a podcast, a worker's center rep, a book, and a full-time teaching job. My partner has a lot of patience. That said all that is stalled.

Mental toughness matters as much as physical toughness because the latter does fade before the former, and honestly, to maintain physical toughness, you need a lot of mental discipline. I think a lot of the advice on toughness I see given to men encourages mental brittleness/1

The inability to even deal with equally justified opposing sides of a moral question tells me most of you have been too atomized to even model others' minds or others' concerns. Don't lecture people on solidarity when you can't even begin to model others responses.

Celebrating victims as victims doesn't help them stop being victims.

There have been more societies without formal police than with them before say the 17th century but none of those societies were was that universally non-violent. In many, enforcement of social norms was a universal obligation. Make of that what you will.

Yes you need to care about what people think who don’t share your point of view think, but no, you will never be trusted if you adjust your convictions constantly to tail them.

All subcultures are cringe to those outside of them, and most people belong to several subcultures

The speed in which democratic socialists who are “pragmatic” make the same arguments that centrist democrats make against them is fascinating. This includes many people who I think of as comrades and friends.

At least this speaker is pointing out that “guide on the side”/ “sage on the stage” is a total bullshit dichotomy. One thought killing cliche is finally being undone.

The CIA didn’t exist when Walter Benjamin died, and he was not sponsored by the OSS like more formal members of the Frankfurt School was.