Category: Social Theory
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other, earlier modes of living are fully open to us
I was amused and delighted to discover that David Wengrow actually shares certain philosophical territory with none other than Alan Moore.
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“community” as content, and as form
Schismogenesis and mimetic desire are the yin and yang dynamics at the heart of “community”. Stable cultures must presumably therefore have a good balance of the two.
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empty dreams, delivering not posthuman paradise but silicon oblivion
I chose my position on silicon sentience a long time ago, and my choice was not entirely rational, and I am totally at peace with that.
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dead media beat: mass-market paperbacks
Ballard needed the cliches of the genre to push against, but he also needed a medium cheap enough to allow him to take risks in doing so.
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mining our collective childhood for wistful cultural trinkets
Metaphor is a powerful tool, and I’m a big fan of it, but metaphor is also a magickal working; if you keep describing an angry, capricious god, you’ll sure as shit get one.