contradictions in the trump-musk machine

luka

Well-known member
what i have in mind are things like eg musk in one sense represents transhumanism and the triumph of the machine
(as mapped in eg nick land-circuitry)
but has also yoked his project to a reactionary rump that is militantly anti trans, nationalistic etc

theres a lot of schisms in this coalition we will all map them and predict where the cracks will open up
 

luka

Well-known member
version wats that bit in gr with pynchon talks about ww2 as technologys war and the sides didnt realise exist it was the will of technology imposing itself on the planet and creativng the conditions it needed to burst its crysalis or soemthing?
 

hmg

Victory lap
His dad probably personally firebombed Hamburg and Dresden and he's looking to assuage his guilt by handing it off to non-existent forces.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
The rise of right-wing populism is often explained at least partly as a reaction against technocracy, but looks likely to end up with rule by "tech-bro philosopher-kings" (copyright padraig) replacing democracy, which would be the ultimate form of technocracy.

Albeit one in which legitimacy is conferred solely through extreme wealth, as opposed to knowing what the fuck you're doing when it comes to running a halfway functional government.
 

hmg

Victory lap
Only now, in 2025, are we anywhere near the machines remaking themselves in their own image, according to deeper laws that we can barely grasp. A rudimentary, effectively unguided alloy tube fueled by potato alchohol — it's just pipe and slide rule stuff, no biggie for a German.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
The rise of right-wing populism is often explained at least partly as a reaction against technocracy, but looks likely to end up with rule by "tech-bro philosopher-kings" (copyright padraig) replacing democracy, which would be the ultimate form of technocracy.

Albeit one in which legitimacy is conferred solely through extreme wealth, as opposed to knowing what the fuck you're doing when it comes to running a halfway functional government.

*Eno soundtrack*
*grainy stock footage of Henry Ford*

Adam Curtis said:
"But instead of power being given back to the people, it ended up being more concentrated in the hands of unelected, unaccountable individuals than ever before."
 

okzharp

Well-known member
One obvious schism is the domestic political. He wants a dynasty/legacy, but his children are so rubbish... and in his attempt to mythologise himself as self-made, "a small loan from my father on my 21st birthday", and his obvious endorsement of individualist/hyper-capitalist policies/ideologies he reveals his naked hypocrisy by constantly intervening in their lives, none of them are able to survive, let alone thrive, beyond his orbit. Will be interesting to see what happens when he tries to appoint Ivanka head of some government department. Will that meet DOGE's recruitment/retention criteria of "high impact individuals"? He's already started chatting about his youngest son as having good political instinct, helped him get reelected, etc...
 

ver$hy ver$h

Well-known member
version wats that bit in gr with pynchon talks about ww2 as technologys war and the sides didnt realise exist it was the will of technology imposing itself on the planet and creativng the conditions it needed to burst its crysalis or soemthing?

“It means this War was never political at all, the politics was all theatre, all just to keep the people distracted…secretly, it was being dictated instead by the needs of technology…by a conspiracy between human beings and techniques, by something that needed the energy-burst of war, crying, “Money be damned, the very life of [insert name of Nation] is at stake,” but meaning, most likely, dawn is nearly here, I need my night’s blood, my funding, funding, ahh more, more…The real crises were crises of allocation and priority, not among firms—it was only staged to look that way—but among the different Technologies, Plastics, Electronics, Aircraft, and their needs which are understood only by the ruling elite…
Yes but Technology only responds (how often this argument has been iterated, dogged, humorless as a Gaussian reduction, among the younger Schwarzkommando especially), “All very well to talk about having a monster by the tail, but do you think we’d’ve had the Rocket if someone, some specific somebody with a name and a penis hadn’t wanted to chuck a ton of Amatol 300 miles and blow up a block full of civilians? Go ahead, capitalize the T on technology, deify it if it’ll make you feel less responsible—but it puts you in with the neutered, brother, in with the eunuchs keeping the harem of our stolen Earth for the numb and joyless hardons of human sultans, human elite with no right at all to be where they are—”
We have to look for power sources here, and distribution networks we were never taught, routes of power our teachers never imagined, or were encouraged to avoid…we have to find meters whose scales are unknown in the world, draw our own schematics, getting feedback, making connections, reducing the error, trying to learn the real function…zeroing in on what incalculable plot? Up here, on the surface, coal-tars, hydrogenation, synthesis were always phony, dummy functions to hide the real, the planetary mission yes perhaps centuries in the unrolling…this ruinous plant, waiting for its Kabbalists and new alchemists to discover the Key, teach the mysteries to others…”
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I don't get it. Why would anyone feel anything except intense pride in the knowledge that their dad had bombed Nazi Germany?
 
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