Bifo ...
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vershy versh
Well-known member
Was Nina 'Infinite Thought' on here or was that someone else?
vershy versh
Well-known member
This is a really obnoxious image.
Didn't know they had Ash Sarkar interview him on the BBC too. Horrible clip. Must be what Eden was referring to when he said all the 'trendy dudes' had moved on from Situationism to the Italian Autonomists a few years ago.
That was her.
yyaldrin
in je ogen waait de wind
a 15 year old girl in wisconsin shot up her highschool teacher and a fellow student, in germany someone drove his car into a christmas market and killed five people, another person did the same in new orleans and killed fifteen people and just yesterday, someone in montenegro shot and killed ten people. all of that happened in the little bit of time i was reading this book. i read a dutch translation that had a completely different title than the english edition; "the lethal embrace of capitalism" (de dodelijke omhelzing van het capitalisme), which i think is a more literal summary of the content.
versions review of the book is great and i have little to add. some other things i found interesting is that he also covered different types of suicides, although some only briefly, such as the mass act of suicide (perang puputan) commited by the people of bali in response to the dutch colonization of their land and lives. or the wave of suicides (at least 35) by employees of the company france telecom after internal restructuring that included degrading working conditions in such a way that people would "voluntarily" quit.
the book is quite bleak and he says so himself at the end, calling it a terrible book and he feels forced to come up with solutions but i'm not sure if i really understood him. the message seems to be that things are inevitable, that it is already too late, and that the only thing you can do, seems to be not to play the game along but i don't know what that means? it hints towards anarchism i guess? or just stay in bed? like the hikikomori of japan? i have to go and look up semiocapitalism as well because even though i think i know what it means, rather intuitively, i am not 100% of its definition. either way this book was quite accessible as i'm usually too thick to enjoy these kind of books.
mixed_biscuits
_________________________
Entire country = "petty tribe".
The Dunbar number is 120 and we have well-functioning countries of 10s of millions.
The important differences between national tribes are to do with culture and interconnectedness of varying kinds.
mixed_biscuits
_________________________
In Communism the dictator is the winner and everyone else is the loser.
yyaldrin
in je ogen waait de wind
Agents of chaos and agents of automaton on the horizon of mutation (translated in english from: https://www.diario.red/articulo/armas-para-pensar/introduccion-siglo-xxi/20250101225440040587.html)
A South African racist named Elon Musk, who newspapers consider the richest man in the world, has recently earned himself another, more interesting epithet: an agent of chaos , The Guardian called him on December 20, echoing a definition that The New York Times had already proposed in 2022. I think this is an imprecise definition, or at least too simple. I do not believe that Musk has the historical function of promoting chaos, unless he does so in an apparent way. His political activity, starting with the purchase of Twitter, is aimed at destroying the State and the public structures built during the modern era. In this sense, Musk's project coincides with that of Steve Bannon and the Trump administration in general
But Musk's multifaceted activity, in addition to this definitive destruction of the modern order, that is, the completion of the work begun by Thatcherite liberalism, includes a constructive part: the construction of a system of total control of the global telecommunications system (Starlink) and the creation of interfaces between the biological and the digital, which will make possible the creation of fully intelligent automata (Neuralink). A few days ago, the South African racist, in a commentary at Welt Am Sonntag , took a position on the upcoming German elections, supporting Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). It is not a Nazi party, Musk said, arguing the following:
The description of AfD as a far-right party is clearly false, given the fact that Alice Weidel, the party's leader, has a same-sex partner who is from Sri Lanka. Do you think this has anything to do with Hitler?
The question deserves further reflection. It is true that individuals like Donald Trump, or parties like the German AfD, seem very different from the Nazionalist Socialist Party. And they really are: first of all, Trumpism has erased all reference to socialism, which Hitler had instead retained not only in the name of his party, but also in some of the social policies implemented by the Third Reich. In addition, the entire imaginary world that formed the background of Hitler's regime (the dark colours of the uniforms, the rigidity of the poses, etc.) has been replaced by the explosion of colour and the carnivalesque excitement of the MAGA crowds. The severe Gothic style of the territorialised and Protestant industrial bourgeoisie is replaced by the dazzling baroque of the mafia-like lumpen-bourgeoisie, which, from Berlusconi to Trump, has re-established power over the spectacular worldview.
So, should we abandon the assimilation of global Trumpism with Hitlerian Nazism, which the left has perhaps used to frighten the electorate, which has gradually become accustomed to not being impressed by the bogeyman of Nazism? Yes and no. No, because in fact the resurgence of the colonialist racial supremacism of the white West is the long-term historical function of the global reactionary movement of which Trump is the symbol and Musk the main instrument. The enemy that Hitler believed had to be exterminated was the Jews, while for contemporary racial supremacists the enemy that must be exterminated is the immense masses of colonized peoples who, although incapable of launching an internationalist political offensive, constitute a danger to Western stability by their mere existence, by their migratory movements and by their demands for the redistribution of global wealth. The Israeli army, and the Israeli people themselves, look very different from Hitler's SS from an aesthetic and political point of view, but they perform the same function as the latter when it comes to exterminating the enemies of Western civilization, which for Hitler were the Jews and for Israel are the colonized peoples, who claim the right to survival and possibly a territory.
The regime that is now unstoppably asserting itself throughout the West is, on the other hand, the consequence and full implementation of the economic liberalism that has been in force since the 1980s, which has been brought about with the very active collaboration of the European left in general. Liberal democracy is now annihilated everywhere, but the fundamental rule of the destruction of rules and their replacement by the absolute rule of maximum profit is confirmed and exalted by those who have made the word freedom their motto, provided it is clear that it is about the freedom of the slave owners. The progressive left has been a dependent function of liberalism during this last phase, when the workers' movement was to be liquidated. This function was performed by the progressive left and the democrats, and for this reason they are and will be the object of eternal contempt. But now the left is disappearing and what is emerging is a regime, which no longer has much to do with the fascism of the past. I decided long ago to adopt the term Nazi -liberalism.
A South African racist named Elon Musk, who newspapers consider the richest man in the world, has recently earned himself another, more interesting epithet: an agent of chaos , The Guardian called him on December 20, echoing a definition that The New York Times had already proposed in 2022. I think this is an imprecise definition, or at least too simple. I do not believe that Musk has the historical function of promoting chaos, unless he does so in an apparent way. His political activity, starting with the purchase of Twitter, is aimed at destroying the State and the public structures built during the modern era. In this sense, Musk's project coincides with that of Steve Bannon and the Trump administration in general
But Musk's multifaceted activity, in addition to this definitive destruction of the modern order, that is, the completion of the work begun by Thatcherite liberalism, includes a constructive part: the construction of a system of total control of the global telecommunications system (Starlink) and the creation of interfaces between the biological and the digital, which will make possible the creation of fully intelligent automata (Neuralink). A few days ago, the South African racist, in a commentary at Welt Am Sonntag , took a position on the upcoming German elections, supporting Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). It is not a Nazi party, Musk said, arguing the following:
The description of AfD as a far-right party is clearly false, given the fact that Alice Weidel, the party's leader, has a same-sex partner who is from Sri Lanka. Do you think this has anything to do with Hitler?
The question deserves further reflection. It is true that individuals like Donald Trump, or parties like the German AfD, seem very different from the Nazionalist Socialist Party. And they really are: first of all, Trumpism has erased all reference to socialism, which Hitler had instead retained not only in the name of his party, but also in some of the social policies implemented by the Third Reich. In addition, the entire imaginary world that formed the background of Hitler's regime (the dark colours of the uniforms, the rigidity of the poses, etc.) has been replaced by the explosion of colour and the carnivalesque excitement of the MAGA crowds. The severe Gothic style of the territorialised and Protestant industrial bourgeoisie is replaced by the dazzling baroque of the mafia-like lumpen-bourgeoisie, which, from Berlusconi to Trump, has re-established power over the spectacular worldview.
So, should we abandon the assimilation of global Trumpism with Hitlerian Nazism, which the left has perhaps used to frighten the electorate, which has gradually become accustomed to not being impressed by the bogeyman of Nazism? Yes and no. No, because in fact the resurgence of the colonialist racial supremacism of the white West is the long-term historical function of the global reactionary movement of which Trump is the symbol and Musk the main instrument. The enemy that Hitler believed had to be exterminated was the Jews, while for contemporary racial supremacists the enemy that must be exterminated is the immense masses of colonized peoples who, although incapable of launching an internationalist political offensive, constitute a danger to Western stability by their mere existence, by their migratory movements and by their demands for the redistribution of global wealth. The Israeli army, and the Israeli people themselves, look very different from Hitler's SS from an aesthetic and political point of view, but they perform the same function as the latter when it comes to exterminating the enemies of Western civilization, which for Hitler were the Jews and for Israel are the colonized peoples, who claim the right to survival and possibly a territory.
The regime that is now unstoppably asserting itself throughout the West is, on the other hand, the consequence and full implementation of the economic liberalism that has been in force since the 1980s, which has been brought about with the very active collaboration of the European left in general. Liberal democracy is now annihilated everywhere, but the fundamental rule of the destruction of rules and their replacement by the absolute rule of maximum profit is confirmed and exalted by those who have made the word freedom their motto, provided it is clear that it is about the freedom of the slave owners. The progressive left has been a dependent function of liberalism during this last phase, when the workers' movement was to be liquidated. This function was performed by the progressive left and the democrats, and for this reason they are and will be the object of eternal contempt. But now the left is disappearing and what is emerging is a regime, which no longer has much to do with the fascism of the past. I decided long ago to adopt the term Nazi -liberalism.
yyaldrin
in je ogen waait de wind
The liberal devastation of the social system is the origin of Trumpist racist nationalism, but also its North Star. The declared intention of the most aggressive Nazi-liberals, such as Javier Milei, or Steve Bannon and Elon Musk, is the definitive demolition of public structures (health, education, transport, etc.) that made social survival possible. This naturally implies social extermination, which is already underway and which we will see accelerate terrifyingly in the coming years. But the social extermination taking place within Western countries is only one part of the global genocide, which is taking place on the border between the north and the south of the world and which has the genocide of the Palestinians as its bloody symbol.
The era we have entered after October 7, 2023 is the era of global genocide, and this era is naturally characterized by the multiplication of points of chaotic precipitation. It is clear that the global reactionary movement of which Musk is an expression is causing chaotic ruptures in an ever-increasing number of points on the planet. But this is only one step in the process unleashed during the last decades, which consists both in the proliferation of chaos and in the creation of a higher order, which is the order of the automaton . The global reactionary movement is today dedicated to the devastation of the human world, which is the world of indeterminacy, approximation, analogy and conjugation. But beyond the chaotic action of the reactionary movement lies a goal of deterministic, digital and connective order: the cognitive automaton is destined to take the place of living chaos. Musk, if you will, is an agent of political chaos, but political chaos has the function of making possible in two logically successive but chronologically contemporaneous movements, the elimination of the human: genocide of the marginal and mutation of the collective mind for its submission to the automaton, thus proceeding to the establishment of the automatic order .
In some programming languages, which borrow a concept from the neo-positivist philosopher Rudolf Carnap, we speak of a “ functor ” as a variable dependent on a mathematical sequence. Beyond the computational metaphor, the functor is an agent that is perfectly compatible and synchronized with the global cognitive automaton. In the first decades of the 21st century, the automaton has formatted and synchronized the individual minds of individuals belonging to the first connective generation. Humans have tended to be subjugated to the digital order, being progressively deprived of the characteristics and drives that are incompatible with the automaton, such as erotic desire, critical capacity and expressive singularity. This mutation cannot occur without enormous suffering, dysphoria and depressive or aggressive psychopathies. But a part of the human race cannot be formatted and synchronized and thus remains outside the production process and the privileged territory. The unformatted- unsynchronized – which a science-fiction writer whose name I will not mention called daisies – will be progressively exterminated with the instruments of war, hunger, submission to rhythms of slave labor impossible for the human organism and other techniques of extermination. This process is the horizon of the 21st century and we already see it clearly outlined in the political lines of Trumpism and the techno-totalitarian action of which Elon Musk is the axis.
A race of functionally superior and emotionally sterilized white males is seizing the levers of technical, economic and military power. No political force can oppose this takeover for the simple reason that it is not a political process, but a techno-cognitive mutation. Cognitive mutation and genocide are the two decisive processes of this transition. Cognitive mutation is carried out by subjecting the human mind to a formatting that aims to synchronize the activity of the mind with the rhythm of the automaton. Inevitably, this process of mutation entails suffering.
Let us consider pathologies such as ADHD, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: it is not a pathology, but an attempt to adapt and synchronize the mind to the ten-thousand-fold accelerated pace of the infosphere. Ethical awareness and erotic sensitivity are remnants of pre-formatted humanity, which are rapidly disappearing in the emerging connective generation. Another emerging characteristic of mutants is the inability to perceive the pain of others, which is an effect of uninterrupted exposure to streams of simulated nervous stimulation, according to which the mind no longer tends to distinguish simulations from living organisms, tending instead to consider suffering bodies as the little green men in the video game, who do not suffer and if they die can always get up again an instant later.
This is the horizon of the 21st century, this is the trend that is unfolding unstoppably. Climate collapse, geopolitical collapse and social collapse provide the ideal environment for this process of mutation, formatting and elimination of the residues of the daisies . But there is also the highly probable possibility that the interweaving of these three collapses will produce the definitive extinction of the human race. In this case everything human would finally be annihilated, which would allow the perfect ideal of the Muskian order to be realized: the unlimited reproduction of the automaton in a territory finally purged of all chaotic and unpredictable elements. That said, we (the defectors) know that the unpredictable has not yet been erased. But what cannot be spoken about is better left silent.
The era we have entered after October 7, 2023 is the era of global genocide, and this era is naturally characterized by the multiplication of points of chaotic precipitation. It is clear that the global reactionary movement of which Musk is an expression is causing chaotic ruptures in an ever-increasing number of points on the planet. But this is only one step in the process unleashed during the last decades, which consists both in the proliferation of chaos and in the creation of a higher order, which is the order of the automaton . The global reactionary movement is today dedicated to the devastation of the human world, which is the world of indeterminacy, approximation, analogy and conjugation. But beyond the chaotic action of the reactionary movement lies a goal of deterministic, digital and connective order: the cognitive automaton is destined to take the place of living chaos. Musk, if you will, is an agent of political chaos, but political chaos has the function of making possible in two logically successive but chronologically contemporaneous movements, the elimination of the human: genocide of the marginal and mutation of the collective mind for its submission to the automaton, thus proceeding to the establishment of the automatic order .
In some programming languages, which borrow a concept from the neo-positivist philosopher Rudolf Carnap, we speak of a “ functor ” as a variable dependent on a mathematical sequence. Beyond the computational metaphor, the functor is an agent that is perfectly compatible and synchronized with the global cognitive automaton. In the first decades of the 21st century, the automaton has formatted and synchronized the individual minds of individuals belonging to the first connective generation. Humans have tended to be subjugated to the digital order, being progressively deprived of the characteristics and drives that are incompatible with the automaton, such as erotic desire, critical capacity and expressive singularity. This mutation cannot occur without enormous suffering, dysphoria and depressive or aggressive psychopathies. But a part of the human race cannot be formatted and synchronized and thus remains outside the production process and the privileged territory. The unformatted- unsynchronized – which a science-fiction writer whose name I will not mention called daisies – will be progressively exterminated with the instruments of war, hunger, submission to rhythms of slave labor impossible for the human organism and other techniques of extermination. This process is the horizon of the 21st century and we already see it clearly outlined in the political lines of Trumpism and the techno-totalitarian action of which Elon Musk is the axis.
A race of functionally superior and emotionally sterilized white males is seizing the levers of technical, economic and military power. No political force can oppose this takeover for the simple reason that it is not a political process, but a techno-cognitive mutation. Cognitive mutation and genocide are the two decisive processes of this transition. Cognitive mutation is carried out by subjecting the human mind to a formatting that aims to synchronize the activity of the mind with the rhythm of the automaton. Inevitably, this process of mutation entails suffering.
Let us consider pathologies such as ADHD, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: it is not a pathology, but an attempt to adapt and synchronize the mind to the ten-thousand-fold accelerated pace of the infosphere. Ethical awareness and erotic sensitivity are remnants of pre-formatted humanity, which are rapidly disappearing in the emerging connective generation. Another emerging characteristic of mutants is the inability to perceive the pain of others, which is an effect of uninterrupted exposure to streams of simulated nervous stimulation, according to which the mind no longer tends to distinguish simulations from living organisms, tending instead to consider suffering bodies as the little green men in the video game, who do not suffer and if they die can always get up again an instant later.
This is the horizon of the 21st century, this is the trend that is unfolding unstoppably. Climate collapse, geopolitical collapse and social collapse provide the ideal environment for this process of mutation, formatting and elimination of the residues of the daisies . But there is also the highly probable possibility that the interweaving of these three collapses will produce the definitive extinction of the human race. In this case everything human would finally be annihilated, which would allow the perfect ideal of the Muskian order to be realized: the unlimited reproduction of the automaton in a territory finally purged of all chaotic and unpredictable elements. That said, we (the defectors) know that the unpredictable has not yet been erased. But what cannot be spoken about is better left silent.
vershy versh
Well-known member
Interesting to read him aligning Musk's project with Bannon's here as Bannon's been going off on him for a few days now claiming Musk, Ramaswamy and co. are attempting to remodel the US into a network of technofeudalist city states and that they hate the American people.
I find he can be a little clunky and prone to these wild, apocalyptic pronouncements, but there's something compelling about his writing too. I've got this one of his to read next:
The Soul at Work — Semiotext(e)
www.semiotexte.com
He has lots of articles on e-flux too.
sufi
lala
who's this then?
sufi
lala
yyaldrin
in je ogen waait de wind
it's a good question, is it from philip k. dick? i can't see william kent's reply. it wouldn't really make sense as he is directly quoting him in his book heroes.
Some Desychronised Daisies
sufi
lala
The science fiction writer who refers to people as "daisies" is Philip K. Dick. In his novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), he uses the term to describe human beings in a rather bleak and existential context. In the story, the concept of empathy and human emotions is a central theme, and the term "daisies" is used to evoke a sense of fragility and superficiality in the way humans are perceived by both humans and androids alike. Dick’s works often explore complex questions about identity, humanity, and reality, and in this case, the "daisy" metaphor serves to underscore the dehumanization of individuals in a dystopian future.
bifo also is a bit of a Dick
william_kent
Well-known member
I deleted my post because I was mistaken! I couldn't find any evidence to back up my claim. Also, there is no mention of daisies in "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep", I've just done a search on the text and it comes up blank. The AI is lying to you.
yyaldrin
in je ogen waait de wind
maybe it's a translation error? this is the original bit of text;
I non-formattati-non-sincronizzati (che uno scrittore di fantascienza di cui non vi dirò il nome chiamava daisies, dall’inglese: de-synchronized) verranno progressivamente sterminati con gli strumenti della guerra, della fame, della sottomissione a ritmi di lavoro schiavistico impossibili per l’organismo umano e con altre tecniche di terminazione…..
I non-formattati-non-sincronizzati (che uno scrittore di fantascienza di cui non vi dirò il nome chiamava daisies, dall’inglese: de-synchronized) verranno progressivamente sterminati con gli strumenti della guerra, della fame, della sottomissione a ritmi di lavoro schiavistico impossibili per l’organismo umano e con altre tecniche di terminazione…..
sufi
lala
CATHERINE BUTLER, author of _Four British Fantasists: Place and Culture
in the Children's Fantasies of Penelope Lively, Alan Garner, Diana Wynne
Jones, and Susan Cooper_ (2006), 'can't recommend ChatGPT for literary
research'. Its eight answers to 'Who wrote _Four British Fantasists_?'
were: R.A. Gilbert in 1979, Roger Lancelyn Green in 1962, R.B. Outhwaite
in 1991, Farah Mendlesohn in 2009, R.J. (Roger) Reilly in 2009, David R.
Haase in 1997, R.L. Firth with no date, and Michael Moorcock in 1969. As
for the four authors in the subtitle, Dunsany, Eddison, C.S. Lewis and
Tolkien were frequently cited; the best reply got two right; others
named M. John Harrison and Dorothy L. Sayers. (Facebook, 9 December)
sufi
lala
The idea of people as daisies, or a similar metaphor, appears in The Sirens of Titan (1959) by Kurt Vonnegut. In the novel, Vonnegut introduces a concept where people on Earth serve a broader purpose that they don't fully understand, much like daisies might exist without knowledge of their role in an ecosystem. This fits with Vonnegut's themes of existentialism, interconnectedness, and the seeming absurdity of life.
If you're referring to a different work or author, let me know, and I can refine the search!
If you're referring to a different work or author, let me know, and I can refine the search!
sufi
lala
Apologies for the earlier inaccuracies. Upon further research, I couldn't find a direct reference in The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut that describes people as daisies. However, the novel does feature a character named Salo who, while waiting on Titan, engages in activities such as growing daisies and observing Earth's inhabitants.
LitCharts
Additionally, there's a short story titled "Daisy, in the Sun" by Connie Willis, which might be relevant to your inquiry.
Goodreads
If you can provide more context or details about the specific story or author you're thinking of, I'd be happy to help further.
sufi
lala
total rubbish from the ai
