On Instagram
Sharing some highlights from this excellent essay. All of these pack a punch, IMO. tl;dr: In a saturated digital arena and offline marketplace, the aim of all content and media is the Pursuit of w…
Commentary
64 posts
Law and Order
Came across this Slavoj Zizek article recently (direct link; archived link), some highlights: The author's claim: … violent rebellion is unlikely to end with any kind of progressive settlement f…
Jacobin
Watched this Youtube video (titled “What’s wrong with the left?”) I ended up liking this way more than I thought I would ! Very insightful, sharing a lot of ... well, truths, and despite everything,…
Fraudsters Inc
Watching "Inventing Anna" some time after watching "The Dropout" left a sort of bad taste. It feels like a symptom of something sick that such obvious fraud is treated sympathetic…
Revolting times
I had bought Martin Gurri’s The revolt of the public some time back, but after reading the first few pages, had abandoned it. I recently picked it up and found that it is a book that picks up spectac…
Continuity
Saw this interview of Neil Postman: Observations: * From 1988, so a lot of contrast (three and a half decades have passed) * Mentions discontinuity as an issue * How a big change of the past two…
Foreign policy makes no sense
I found this interview with Jake Sullivan: You may skip the first fifteen minutes. There is also an accompanying transcript: https://www.cfr.org/event/leslie-h-gelb-memorial-event-common-sense-and-s…
Clippings: tech companies, hyper-log-inflation, hobbies
Clippings: Enforcement at work, learning to lose money, and drawing lots to leave
"The Prince of Cringe"
I thought only I had this reaction -- but it's gratifying to know at least one other person feels this way. From an article in The Compact: The real meat of Harry & Meghan is vengeance, and…
Zizek (presciently) on virtual reality
From all the way back in 2004 (!), in “Conversations with Zizek”, between Slavoj Zizek and Glyn Daly: As a result, the taste of reality we get today comes from products, situations, or actions depriv…
On Madness
From an article in the Tablet: Entire nations can go insane. Here’s a way to test if we’re headed that way: Watch five minutes of TikTok—anything related to politics, beauty tips, or social justice.…