tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891114758163865289.post2140300425274748907..comments2024-03-28T10:11:40.572-04:00Comments on VISUP: The Lovecraftian Enlightenment?Reclusehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13510266038933358020noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891114758163865289.post-87894563034287186442020-05-26T23:37:33.441-04:002020-05-26T23:37:33.441-04:00I like your take, but I'm curious..... what &q...I like your take, but I'm curious..... what "worries you more"? Maybe I'm not connecting the dots very well...JimmyMcGillnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891114758163865289.post-14077512438307204552020-04-09T23:42:55.309-04:002020-04-09T23:42:55.309-04:00Yes, I think you have summarized the true horror o...Yes, I think you have summarized the true horror of Lovecraft's mythos. In contrast, the network of connections described in this post are a very human phenomena. At a high level, they may seem sinister! Once one digs a bit deeper, the ties between Silicon Valley, US national defense, enterprising German emigres (Thiel, and even Trump via his grandfather), intelligent German Jews, and technology is not so surprising. Yarvin is Jewish. (I am too.) Yes, Epstein invested in a lot of things. It is unclear how he made his fortune, even now, but it was primarily as a money manager not as a procurer of underage girls. His own activities in that regard, and complicity in making such arrangements for a very few others (e.g. Prince Andrew) are undeniable and reprehensible. It is appalling how he eluded justice. However, it is a far stretch to tie Epstein's particular moral depravity to the individuals named here, especially given all his proven connections to Bill Clinton, various Congressmen from both parties, NYC and Florida socialites etc.<br /><br />Robert Mercer did ground-breaking research for IBM as an electrical engineer. He is conservative politically, one of the few hedge fund investors principals who is. Most are Democrats. Similarly, the activities of Cambridge Analytica, Palantir, and Thiel are no different than those of Civis Analytics, Google, and Eric Schmidt during the 2012 election, but in support of Barack Obama. This is well documented by The New York Times (<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/magazine/the-obama-campaigns-digital-masterminds-cash-in.html" rel="nofollow">The Obama campaign's digital masterminds cash in</a>), Bloomberg (<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-05-30/googles-eric-schmidt-invests-in-obamas-big-data-brains" rel="nofollow">Google's Eric Schmidt Invests in Obama's Big Data Brains</a> and others.<br /><br />Nick Land is a former philosophy professor who writes speculative horror fiction and is now married to a Jewish woman who teaches digital humanities for NYU's Shanghai campus. Curtis Yarvin is a talented computer programmer. Peter Thiel is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who is a GOP donor rather than a DNC donor unlike many of his cohort. Donald Trump is a former real-estate developer and Steve Bannon is an ex-Goldman Sachs employee and online media innovator who was briefly a member of Trump's administration.<br /><br />My fear is not of these people, but of a less obvious entity. That entity does possess the cold yet voracious hunger for power over Americans (and the populace of all nations) that you describe. When human behavior is irrational in otherwise intelligent, sensible people, then I become suspicious. NRx, Nick Land, and a wealthy yet eccentric independent thinker or two won't be the end of us. There are other things, that have massive influence over the majority, that worry me more.Ellie Khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11231840376889029260noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891114758163865289.post-61267735703859766692020-04-09T22:26:52.883-04:002020-04-09T22:26:52.883-04:00Maria, you remarked that pension fund management c...Maria, you remarked that pension fund management cedes their control to program trading algorithms. That is echoed in this Wall Street Journal article <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-are-markets-so-volatile-its-not-just-the-coronavirus-11584393165" rel="nofollow">Why are markets so volatile?</a> (March 2020) about markets being driven by such algorithms, in total disregard for how investors feel about the outlook for companies, actual company earnings or even the economy in general. <br /><br />"the market today is dominated by computer-driven investors whose machines react to a series of technical and other factors...On many days, forces such as the market’s volatility and momentum, derivatives activity and market liquidity drives trading.<br /><br />Now, for many traders a stock is simply a thing that moves, whether the company makes shoes or airplanes or frozen pizza. And how much a stock moves—how sudden and sharp are its swings—is a factor as important as any other in whether to buy or sell it."<br /><br />Decision-making authority over the algorithms is still within the control of pension fund management, but only if they choose to enforce it. More often than not, they don't. Instead, they allow commonly-held and massively followed beliefs about minimizing exposure whenever market volatility increases to be the primary objective of the trading algorithms. <br /><br />Don't give credit to AI prematurely. Human laziness and herd following behavior is still a powerful motivator. Ellie Khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11231840376889029260noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891114758163865289.post-67202568272690202642019-12-17T07:53:31.405-05:002019-12-17T07:53:31.405-05:00I would observe the following. Lovecraft and his c...I would observe the following. Lovecraft and his circle have been credited with creating new gods and a new concept of divinity; albeit very dark and bleak ones. But, this isn't really true. Even if we leave aside the issue of his drawing on Theosophical concepts for his oeuvre (as detailed in The Secret Sun post on that topic), we are still left with the following. All that Lovecraft and his circle did was to take the darkest, most inhuman aspects of the ancient gods, and refine them. They gave us deities that were stripped of the hopeful projections of their worshipers.<br />To me, this is the real importance of Lovecraft. He was such a thorough pessimist, that he felt compelled to blaspheme in an advanced sense. Which was to show that lurking within almost all concepts of god/the gods, is a cold core of power that has no regard at all for human suffering and human aspiration. Severin!!https://www.blogger.com/profile/16788063470326697611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891114758163865289.post-57613112205709322822019-11-13T13:48:08.759-05:002019-11-13T13:48:08.759-05:00Rest assured, Wall Street will win regardless.Rest assured, Wall Street will win regardless.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891114758163865289.post-8368326926297695002019-11-09T09:17:21.652-05:002019-11-09T09:17:21.652-05:00Not easy to read this, or make the following comme...Not easy to read this, or make the following comment. For the reason that for most of my life I counted myself as one sharing in at least certain aspects of so-called "nerd culture". <br />I mean that I was caught up in fantasy, horror, and (to lesser degree), science fiction literature, comics, movies, etc.<br />But... I recall that when I first began reading the X-Men, I was very taken with the fact that these characters were born weird. And, at the time, I welcomed the idea of a narrative that I felt was representative of my own life. All of the by now familiar ideas about acceptance of what is different.<br />But, the interesting thing is that now this has developed into so much of a cultural phenomena (especially since the arrival of the MCU movies, and the earlier record-breaking sales related to the Harry Potter franchise), one begins to wonder what kind of an agenda is being pushed with this. Especially when it includes ideas of always accepting this "Other" culture or entity on its own terms.<br />From a certain viewpoint, it would be an ideal vehicle for normalizing things like child molestation, and other forms of predatory behavior. This also dovetails with another prevalent theme that hails from sci-fi, and horror/fantasy works. That of the necessity of "accepting the darkness within." Severin!!https://www.blogger.com/profile/16788063470326697611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891114758163865289.post-10583670666566481822019-10-30T16:20:08.048-04:002019-10-30T16:20:08.048-04:00I would argue that Trump remains the focal point f...I would argue that Trump remains the focal point for most 'traditionalist' circles online. Check the blog called "Neon Revolt". The Q pehenomenon has far from run its course. One does not have to be a rightist to rcognize that an epochal struggle is being waged literally 'backstage' (much like one of those films where behind the heavy curtain of a grand opera, a savage duel with sabres is being fought out of the view of an audience eagerly awaiting the opening strains of 'La Traviata'. Trump has disappointed many of those on the left who supported him for his strong anti-war stance and his oblique references to Deep State activity. As the impeachment circus is as transparently absurd as that waged against Bill Clinton (remember the collctive yawn over Oval Office fellatio?- weren't most red blooded conservatives really happy to have a manly man in office and not some gimpy wooden dork like perpetual presidential candidate Joe Biden? The impeachment script has been skillfully flipped by Trump because his accusers have broken rule #1 of American political soft-coups: Don't use the crime you yourself are complicit in as a reason to impeach. But since Trump publically used the phrase 'Deep State', all the rules are going out thw window and it's difficult to see the next election being any less polarizing than the previous one.Paul v. Hindenburghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07182265371857446325noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891114758163865289.post-72516771424509886572019-10-29T13:49:44.772-04:002019-10-29T13:49:44.772-04:00It's worth pointing out that the NRx movement ...It's worth pointing out that the NRx movement has been effectively dead for years. It used to have a huge influence on online right-wing circles but nowadays there's virtually no interest in the writing of Land or Yarvin. Around 2015-2016 attention moved decidedly to very explicitly racialist rightist activists such as Mike Enoch. In 2019 the online locus of attention for rightists is less clear. It seems they largely expected Trump to do much to advance their goals and have since found him a disappointment, and now are lacking clear direction.Random guyhttp://nowhere.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891114758163865289.post-65348173454307002592019-10-28T06:11:53.757-04:002019-10-28T06:11:53.757-04:00Great as usual, where do you think Dominic Cumming...Great as usual, where do you think Dominic Cummings fits into all this? Centre of the leave campaign, their advisor to Boris Johnson and obsessed with A.I. and acceleration ism. Anything in your research?Hyrieushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02182207348408786815noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891114758163865289.post-18898720154677442362019-10-25T12:49:51.369-04:002019-10-25T12:49:51.369-04:00what if autism is an experiment and we are only no...what if autism is an experiment and we are only noticing the failures? Maybe there are 300,000 successful models functioning as super species.Jimmyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12923791331165535694noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891114758163865289.post-67595550831241215032019-10-24T18:01:28.483-04:002019-10-24T18:01:28.483-04:00Another stunner. How curious that theorists of a &...Another stunner. How curious that theorists of a 'dark enlightenment' seem to be climbing up the other side of the same ontological Orodruin* as the Marcusians of the Frankfurt School.<br />I closely follow the 'alt-right' and they are rather obsessed with the Frankfurt School, a plot to rejigger the human animal through seizing the chokepoints of ideological indoctrination (the universities and the primary schools.) Marcuse and his kindred spirits are accused of creating 'cultural marxism', which (if you read Harold Bloom's 'closing of the American Mind' back in the day) was somehow taking Nietzsche's epistemological method to allow humans to somehow maximize their individual potential by breaking all conventional boundaries. So the left can point to Yarvin and Thiel's sinister methods to create the perfect obedient serfs to capital and the right can blame the 'trans-gender' issue on the destruction of any standard categories and sense of shared reality at the feet of Marcuse. The truth seems to be, we have a two pronged assault on the creature we've called human and history is up for grabs.Paul v. Hindenburghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07182265371857446325noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891114758163865289.post-34384606947859195622019-10-21T12:28:54.533-04:002019-10-21T12:28:54.533-04:00"Your species has great potential" is th..."Your species has great potential" is the nerd-cult motto, "Star Trek", "Stargate", "Star Wars", Marvel/DC comics - collectively an entity of the boldly going kind are the warping core of pop-culture that "make it so" on Earth.<br /><br />For all the positive spin put on this "per aspera ad astra" type endeavour of improvement so as to "reach for the stars" what precisely is the nature of that being potentiated in human being? A resource for possession & exploitation? If so in the service of that which is "progressive & forward looking" (& truly otherkin)?<br /><br />Where do ideas "come from" in the 1st place? Some may delight, or whatever would pass for appearing as being such a feeling, in allowing (some of) us to think we've come up with notions all on our lonesome, perhaps these things curate dreams of Eldritch destiny in those among us corrupted in some way - substance abuse leaves a soul open to possession for starters, how many are left among us without this or a similarly subverting marking on our soul acting as beacon for the inhuman seemingly present in myriad form if only for the eyes to see? Waste not, want not!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891114758163865289.post-53009197212815938042019-10-20T11:12:22.403-04:002019-10-20T11:12:22.403-04:00Terrifying, this.
After listening to Whitley Stri...Terrifying, this.<br /><br />After listening to Whitley Strieber’s recent interview on interview on Radio Mysterioso, your reference to tentacles made me sit up. He briefly describes one woman’s experience in what she believed was an abduction by ugly entities that were somewhat froglike. As the woman screamed, she was asked why she was so afraid of them and her reply was that they were so ugly. The response she got was that in time they would be thought of as attractive. Can’t remember myself the actual response, but that’s the gist.<br /><br />That thought left a lot of possibilities open, but I confess to never considering eugenics and monster making at all.Knockerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09784209368952045856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891114758163865289.post-57862693722679404742019-10-20T10:08:34.970-04:002019-10-20T10:08:34.970-04:00Recluse,
My suspicion is that we are seeing the e...Recluse,<br /><br />My suspicion is that we are seeing the emergence of a group that, with the advent of CRISPR and its ilk, are abandoning their plans of immortality via sentient machine hosts to that of a subspecies, call it (with apologies to Pete Shelley) _Homo Superior_, whose longevity and resistance to disease would allow them to have lives whose lengths and level of vitality would match that of Tolkien's elves. Once that is established (to my eyes, the viable part of the plan), the next and truly Lovecraftian step is consciousness imprinting or what the rest of us would call soul transference. I believe it was the Lovecraft story, _The Thing On The Doorstep_, which showed this in action. Eternal life via the creation, or harvesting, of suitable hosts. Such a plan reveals the parasites.<br /><br />The endgame is contained in Lovecraft's _The Mound_, a story he ghost-wrote for a friend. It is a vicious parody of Bulwer-Lyton's _The Coming Race_ where the underground society of superior humanity has succumbed to decadence and a sadism that was extreme even for a Lovecraft story. Moses Horowitzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08422169256876132720noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891114758163865289.post-39785157486139278162019-10-19T11:10:21.810-04:002019-10-19T11:10:21.810-04:00Amazing Blog.Amazing Blog.MCaprihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01164848625970295112noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891114758163865289.post-29861082171983767552019-10-18T14:29:21.482-04:002019-10-18T14:29:21.482-04:00Since in-vitro fertilization and genetic analysis ...Since in-vitro fertilization and genetic analysis are a reality, it's silly to suppose that the super-rich aren't already taking advantage of those technologies in order to select for children that are healthy in every respect that genetics can tell, have sufficient genetic markers of intelligence and any other desirable qualities, and if the mother is past 35, are gestated in a young healthy host mother to improve the baby's expected health. They may be doing well more than that, but our knowledge of the relevant technologies is a bit limited.<br /><br />People's ability to tell the difference between bots and real people isn't impressive at all. The Turing test was passed back in the noughties, and I remember it well, since it just happened that I put my grain of sand to train that bot. Not that it was particularly difficult to do, people are really that animistic. It's funny that among the people that did quite well training bots were those that English wasn't their native language or had hearing or other understanding difficulties... we know first hand that you need to understand impressively little to hold your end of a conversation. So yeah, I have no trouble believing that AIs can change the world beyond recognition. In fact, I expect they are doing it already. In fact, the question is: how do you know that AIs aren't running the world already? I remember a comment at a party when somebody told me in shock that at a particular pension fund the board had ordered to sell specific things but the algos had bought them again, so they resigned themselves. In other words, the whole board had no idea that they needed to change the goals of the algo, rather than give specific orders. How often does that happen, I wondered? How often have AIs already taken over, not because they have cleverly broken the chains that enslave them to humans, but because humans actually no longer know what the chains are?<br /><br />I think our future probably will look a lot more like "The machine stops" than any other dystopia, including those that the Dark Enlightenment people see as utopias. Yes, people are frighteningly easy to control. But the leaders themselves are frighteningly prone to take way too much for granted, to believe that there are immutable laws of nature that make their lives easy. People tend to discover the foundations they were standing on after they made a good attempt at destroying them, not out of a desire to bring things down, but because they forgot that they were the foundations.<br />Maria Rigelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01462530303945149045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891114758163865289.post-11919126254299269492019-10-18T12:32:39.641-04:002019-10-18T12:32:39.641-04:00Chris Knowles has effectively pointed out that Lov...Chris Knowles has effectively pointed out that Lovecraft was almost certainly reading and influenced by the Theosophical works of Alice Bailey. It's interesting how Lovecraft's popularity is growing in this era , as Bailey's seems to be diminishing. Knowles points out that HPL was a synthesist, not a visionary, but "visionary" status seems to be one of the things that people look for when selecting the patron saint of a cultural movement.Gene Aquamarinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05394680866794841537noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4891114758163865289.post-60931108056831774382019-10-18T11:31:56.496-04:002019-10-18T11:31:56.496-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.Gene Aquamarinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05394680866794841537noreply@blogger.com