Re: Josh Hall: Blockchain could reshape our world – and the far right is one step ahead (Guardian)

[Morlock Elloi]

Interesting point of view!

Non-blockchain technologies are badder (because they are far more 
efficient and actually work) for implementing dystopia, so blockchain's 
dismal inappropriateness and inefficiency are counter-measures against 
the dystopia. It's a poison pill.


Finally I get it.

Blockchain everywhere!


On the other hand, the bad thing about the Blockchain-based dystopian
visions is that everything bad that you could conceivably do with a
Blockchain you could do better and much more efficiently with an
ordinary database.

So there are definitely reasons to worry about the future surveillance
nightmare, but Blockchain is not one of those reasons, because it won't
ever make much of a difference in the technological sense.


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Re: Josh Hall: Blockchain could reshape our world – and the far right is one step ahead (Guardian)

[Carsten Agger]

On 03/02/2018 09:17 PM, Morlock Elloi wrote:
That article is technical nonsense. 'Blockchain' that has PoW 
consisting of 1.6 second of handset CPU is trivial to fake. And where 
is the consensus? Car does the same? Or is car running 500KW GPU 
cluster doing hash verified by ... who? Cheap PoW ("Proof of Work") is 
contradiction in terms.


This is actually a good illustration of utter bullshit that passes for 
'technology'.


We need blockchain powered nettime! BLOCKTIME!

The good thing about the Blockchain-based dystopian visions is that they 
won't ever actually come to pass. Blockchain is impractical and useless 
from a technical point of view. It's pure hype and nothing more.


On the other hand, the bad thing about the Blockchain-based dystopian 
visions is that everything bad that you could conceivably do with a 
Blockchain you could do better and much more efficiently with an 
ordinary database.


So there are definitely reasons to worry about the future surveillance 
nightmare, but Blockchain is not one of those reasons, because it won't 
ever make much of a difference in the technological sense. Its hype 
might, but Blockchain itself is useless outside the realm of 
cryptocurrencies. I say that as someone whose background is in 
technology, specifically computer science.


Best
Carsten
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Re: Josh Hall: Blockchain could reshape our world – and the far right is one step ahead (Guardian)

[Morlock Elloi]

That article is technical nonsense. 'Blockchain' that has PoW consisting 
of 1.6 second of handset CPU is trivial to fake. And where is the 
consensus? Car does the same? Or is car running 500KW GPU cluster doing 
hash verified by ... who? Cheap PoW ("Proof of Work") is contradiction 
in terms.


This is actually a good illustration of utter bullshit that passes for 
'technology'.


We need blockchain powered nettime! BLOCKTIME!


see for instance Porsche's one blockchain per car:


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Re: 1994, Visions Of Heaven and Hell

[Nina Temporär]

Richard,

Thanks a lot for the links! 

I am not asking for your opinion from `95/`98, though - that’s indeed a great 
epochal text, but a position which is meanwhile common knowledge.

So I had actually hoped you might have an updated opinion on that from a more 
present-day perspective, with not only ongoing debates  
On net culture & activism, identity politics and artistic research, but 
actually even more the  e f f e c t s  of these debates  - which have entered 
The meatspace through academia [sic] - giving the opportunity to refine such an 
approach?

See, I agree with almost everything you write there. The hippie equivalence of 
Nietzsche’s superhuman: That’s of course what I meant when 
Mentioning Foucault’s Nietzscheanism - a connection that has been thoroughly 
researched meanwhile also by other scholars. 

Where that approach is flawed, though, is, that you can’t mix up art & 
intellectualism in the way you do. You can indeed say that intellectuals
Foster a certain project  l i k e  an art project. But speaking of D/G and the 
theory of schizo-politics as „right wing" fails to see that „art“ - and a schizo
Reality - is not just  a „project" for artists, but a cognitive and thus 
physical reality, just like being poor is. So, despite of all valid criticism 
of the holy fool 
As a rogue position at the edge of society being very pro-capitalist etc., you 
cannot reduce it to just that. That totally lacks to see the value D/G’s 
research 
Has for artists and fails to take the value of artistic thinking and actual 
daily (academic) life experiences of artists into consideration. 

I am not saying that because I am high on identity politics - on the contrary - 
but because just as much as there is a certain elitist agenda behind 
Promoting identity politics in the curricula of art academies while neglecting 
basically  a n y  debate about classist struggles, there also is a certain 
Theory-friendly elitism behind devaluating D/G simply with the pro-capitalist 
anti-intellectualism reproach. 

Classim is not the only classism in the world, there are many versions of it, 
and non-visual thinking is an elitism still highly lacking any self-criticism - 
for obvious reasons. (How can those speak up against this for whom it’s hard to 
speak?)

We „artist-engineers" are so bored to be told what we „must“ do by 
intellectuals - no matter what side they are from.

From our perspective any social theory within the art field is a fake + empty 
blob blablabla’ed into the realm of the aesthetics, where the least real life 
effect
Is demanded, just to build up careers. 

So to us, the „theoretical“ is just as evil as the „virtual“ (or as little), 
and D/G are sure not the most alarming among the villains.

Best
N



> Am 02.03.2018 um 17:16 schrieb Richard Barbrook 
> :
> 
> Hiya,
> 
>>> We did warn you that Deleuze and Guattari were
>>> the class enemy! 
> 
>> But could you elaborate on this one please?
> 
> This is the wall poster which me and Andy Cameron wrote
> to provoke the Deleuzoguattarians at Nick Land's Virtual
> Futures '95 conference:
> http://www.imaginaryfutures.net/2007/04/15/basic-banalities-by-richard-barbrook-and-andy-cameron/
> 
> Here's my 1998 diatribe against the anti-proletarian po-mo 
> philosophers:
> http://www.imaginaryfutures.net/2007/04/14/the-holy-fools/
> http://www.imaginaryfutures.net/2007/04/13/the-holy-fools-long-mix-by-richard-barbrook/
> 
> Richard
> 
> ===
> 
> Dr. Richard Barbrook
> Dept of Politics and IR,
> University of Westminster
> 32-38 Wells Street
> LONDON W1T 3UW
> England
> 
> +44 (0)7879 441873
> 
> Skype: richard.barbrook
> Facebook: Richard Barbrook
> Twitter: @richardbarbrook
> 
> http://www.gamesforthemany.org
> http://www.cybersalon.org
> http://www.classwargames.net
> http://www.politicsandmediafreedom.net
> http://www.imaginaryfutures.net
> http://www.imaginaryfutures.net/other-works
> 
> 'Clause 5: That as the laws ought to be equal, so 
> they must be good, and not evidently destructive 
> to the safety and well-being of the people.' 
> 
> The Levellers, The 1647 Agreement of the People 
> for a Firm and Present Peace Upon Grounds of 
> Common Right.
> 

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Re: 1994, Visions Of Heaven and Hell

[C.Robbins]

Some of us realized this at the time 


On Mar 2, 2018, at 10:04 AM, carlo von lynX wrote:

> On Fri, Mar 02, 2018 at 02:06:55PM +0100, Menno Grootveld wrote:
>> The URL is wrong. The correct one is
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwt-Jrmd5Ns
> 
> Sorry folks, this is indeed the URL I intended to post.
> 
> I find the documentary quite thrilling with these
> rapid alternations of the fallacious optimistic clichees
> that are still afloat today and the profound and pensive
> words of warning that didn't fit the mood and so got
> conveniently forgotten.
> 
> Nick Land is among those who said something optimistic
> about inevitable decentralisation, which has turned out
> to be totally wrong: the Internet has produced the
> greatest degree of centralisation in human history.
> 
> Other clichées that we now know to be wrong:
> - "Technology is completely neutral."
> - "The Internet treats censorship as damage and routes
>   around it."
> - "The net is like a new country."
> - "It spreads the power to the people."
> 
> And here some of the forgotten wisdoms:
> 
> "It knows no moral code. It will serve any master."
> "It ignores all borders. Has no sense of tradition.
> Obeys no rules."
> "Technology will manipulate you."
> "If we don't take the tools and use it, it's gonna be
> done for us." - "And we're not gonna like it."
> "People are just talking to themselves in a cyber-bubble."
> "It's more anarchy than democracy,
> and it isn't necessarily good."
> Technology gives "the freedom of the jungle."
> "It's also the power to bypass everything."
> "It is a cyber-marketplace, with all that it entails."
> "We are building the future on shifting sand, and when
> the edifice first begins to move, we will think it is
> the stirring, the exciting of the new."
> 
> "What people don't realize is what difference this technology
> is going to make to all the old power structures and authority
> systems in our society. [...]
> In some ways, that's wonderful. But in some ways, it's very
> frightening. What is going to hold society together?"
> 
> "We don't need to build homes in space [...]
> to awake one morning and find society made anew.
> Technology just needs to change our daily routine."
> 
> "The future is already in the marketplace, where it
> can flourish and destroy. And the market has a way
> of changing things without waiting to count the costs."
> 
> "Of course it allows for people to work in quite different ways.
> Of course it allows people to have much more information and
> much more choice. But it also means that everybody is competing
> with everybody else in the world. That puts tremendous pressure
> on all sorts of organisations and governments. You can't get
> away being dozy anymore. [...] Nobody can escape from all these
> changes that technology makes possible but which economics make
> absolutely essential.
> 
> "At 7 in the morning she's already at work in her
> apartment, but she has never really started work,
> because she never really stopped. In the global
> economy day and night are interchangeable." 
> "They are always on-line and never off-duty.
> Totally free to fly and totally free to fall."
> 
> "The wealthy and the fortunate have always lived above
> the rest, but now they have the means to be still more
> remote. With a computer and a telephone, and an income
> which most can only dream, they can build a little
> paradise where technology sets them free."
> 
> [to be continued]
> 
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Re: 1994, Visions Of Heaven and Hell

[carlo von lynX]

On Fri, Mar 02, 2018 at 02:06:55PM +0100, Menno Grootveld wrote:
> The URL is wrong. The correct one is
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwt-Jrmd5Ns

Sorry folks, this is indeed the URL I intended to post.

I find the documentary quite thrilling with these
rapid alternations of the fallacious optimistic clichees
that are still afloat today and the profound and pensive
words of warning that didn't fit the mood and so got
conveniently forgotten.

Nick Land is among those who said something optimistic
about inevitable decentralisation, which has turned out
to be totally wrong: the Internet has produced the
greatest degree of centralisation in human history.

Other clichées that we now know to be wrong:
- "Technology is completely neutral."
- "The Internet treats censorship as damage and routes
   around it."
- "The net is like a new country."
- "It spreads the power to the people."

And here some of the forgotten wisdoms:

"It knows no moral code. It will serve any master."
"It ignores all borders. Has no sense of tradition.
 Obeys no rules."
"Technology will manipulate you."
"If we don't take the tools and use it, it's gonna be
 done for us." - "And we're not gonna like it."
"People are just talking to themselves in a cyber-bubble."
"It's more anarchy than democracy,
 and it isn't necessarily good."
Technology gives "the freedom of the jungle."
"It's also the power to bypass everything."
"It is a cyber-marketplace, with all that it entails."
"We are building the future on shifting sand, and when
 the edifice first begins to move, we will think it is
 the stirring, the exciting of the new."

"What people don't realize is what difference this technology
 is going to make to all the old power structures and authority
 systems in our society. [...]
 In some ways, that's wonderful. But in some ways, it's very
 frightening. What is going to hold society together?"

"We don't need to build homes in space [...]
 to awake one morning and find society made anew.
 Technology just needs to change our daily routine."

"The future is already in the marketplace, where it
 can flourish and destroy. And the market has a way
 of changing things without waiting to count the costs."

"Of course it allows for people to work in quite different ways.
 Of course it allows people to have much more information and
 much more choice. But it also means that everybody is competing
 with everybody else in the world. That puts tremendous pressure
 on all sorts of organisations and governments. You can't get
 away being dozy anymore. [...] Nobody can escape from all these
 changes that technology makes possible but which economics make
 absolutely essential.

"At 7 in the morning she's already at work in her
 apartment, but she has never really started work,
 because she never really stopped. In the global
 economy day and night are interchangeable." 
"They are always on-line and never off-duty.
 Totally free to fly and totally free to fall."

"The wealthy and the fortunate have always lived above
 the rest, but now they have the means to be still more
 remote. With a computer and a telephone, and an income
 which most can only dream, they can build a little
 paradise where technology sets them free."

[to be continued]

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Re: Josh Hall: Blockchain could reshape our world – and the far right is one step ahead (Guardian)

[oli]

Hi,

On 01.03.2018 04:32, Morlock Elloi wrote:
> I have hard time understanding how is blockchain special, unique, and
> apart from other technologies, relative to dystopian outlook in the
> article.
> 

Yeah, it is rather dystopian. There is this logical expansion for
commodified societies inherent to blockchain technologies that is the
focus of the article.

> The only difference between blockchain and prior technologies (public
> cryptography, including signatures and certificates, databases, etc.) is
> the verifiable permanence of the previously unknown commitment: once
> something is put there, it is hard to modify later. I want to be very
> specific here: if someone has committed something to blockchain in the
> past, and the verifier knew nothing about that commitment until the
> present, the verifier can verify the commitment once it gets interested
> in it.
> 
> This is the *only* difference. There is nothing else.
> 
> Blockchain is specifically redundant if:
> 
> a - the verifier knew about the commitment at the time of committing
> (just keep the hash);
> 
> b - the verifier wants to check authenticity of the commitment
> transported over untrusted channel, from a trusted authenticated
> committer (use committer's public key);
> 
> There are more, but these two are relevant.
> 
> While the article elaborates on real issues when computing machines
> start to mediate the totality of human interactions, these issues have
> nothing to do with blockchain, that's bs. Using popularity of the
> 'blockchain' meme to prop them up is misleading and will fire back.

the difference is that blockchains are automated verifiers and reference
for verification. i agree that much of the projected ideas around
blockchains may be solved with common techniques. and that blockchains
still need some further development. but once the proof is cheap and the
transactions are fast, it scales well enough. and there will be thousand
blockchains. see for instance Porsche's one blockchain per car:

https://newsroom.porsche.com/en/themes/porsche-digital/porsche-blockchain-panamera-xain-technology-app-bitcoin-ethereum-data-smart-contracts-porsche-innovation-contest-14906.html

Or Lenovo's Patent for paper verification:

http://pdfaiw.uspto.gov/.aiw?PageNum=0&docid=20180046889&IDKey=4E2C6B937301&HomeUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fappft.uspto.gov%2Fnetacgi%2Fnph-Parser%3FSect1%3DPTO2%2526Sect2%3DHITOFF%2526u%3D%25252Fnetahtml%25252FPTO%25252Fsearch-adv.html%2526r%3D1%2526p%3D1%2526f%3DG%2526l%3D50%2526d%3DPG01%2526S1%3D20180046889.PGNR.%2526OS%3Ddn%2F20180046889%2526RS%3DDN%2F20180046889

Of course, this is still R&D.

> 
> Every single of the enumerated mechanisms can be better executed without
> blockchain. Immutability of previously unknown commitments is not a
> factor in any of them. In each of them either (a), (b), or both, hold true.
> 
> This includes smart contracts, which are programs ran on distributed VM
> where the majority of identical results wins. The results mean
> something, but who cares? The only things the results affect are inside
> the VM itself (like transfer of funds of blockchain-based currency
> between accounts.) For anything outside VM we are back to (a) and (b).

There is this automated link between value administration and 'contract'
execution. Imho there has nothing been like this before. And it is scary.

> 
> For example, the smart contract stipulates that you must have sex with
> person X if account Z transfers specific amount to account Y. This
> happens, but you don't feel like it. So X sends the police to force you.
> This is much easier achieved by registering the contract on the sex
> police computer.

Enforcement of contracts is subject to the regime's inherent power's. Of
course. This will never change.



> 
> And so on.
> 
> 
> 
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Re: 1994, Visions Of Heaven and Hell

[Alexander Bard]

Correct!
Which is why you can't read Nietzsche without Marx and Marx is best read
with Nietzsche.
Or you can't read Deleuze &Guattari without ploughing through Freud and
Lacan first.
So we are now split between two extremes: ultraglobalism and ultralocalism.
Isn't Nick Land just the perfect example of the latter? In which a true
globalist must respond, what?
Best
Alexander

2018-03-02 16:03 GMT+01:00 Richard Barbrook :

> Hiya,
>
> > Where is Nick Land now? What is he up to? Can he be brought back to
> > philosophy and critical theory?
>
> Nick Land is now a booster for the racist alt-right:
> http://www.thedarkenlightenment.com/the-dark-enlightenment-by-nick-land/
>
> We did warn you that Deleuze and Guattari were the class enemy!
>
> Richard
>
> ===
>
> Dr. Richard Barbrook
> Dept of Politics and IR,
> University of Westminster
> 32-38 Wells Street
> LONDON W1T 3UW
> England
>
> +44 (0)7879 441873
>
> Skype: richard.barbrook
> Facebook: Richard Barbrook
> Twitter: @richardbarbrook
>
> http://www.gamesforthemany.org
> http://www.cybersalon.org
> http://www.classwargames.net
> http://www.politicsandmediafreedom.net
> http://www.imaginaryfutures.net
> http://www.imaginaryfutures.net/other-works
>
> 'Clause 5: That as the laws ought to be equal, so
> they must be good, and not evidently destructive
> to the safety and well-being of the people.'
>
> The Levellers, The 1647 Agreement of the People
> for a Firm and Present Peace Upon Grounds of
> Common Right.
>
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Re: 1994, Visions Of Heaven and Hell

[Nina Temporär]

> Am 02.03.2018 um 16:49 schrieb Callum Copley :
> 
> Hi all, first replying via nettime, hope this works.
> 
> I too have found some of his thinking very interesting at times but upon 
> learning the extent of his political views I refuse to engage with his work
> 
> See below:
> 
> "Nick Land advocates for racially based absolutist micro-states, where 
> unregulated capitalism combines with genetic separation between global elites 
> and the ‘refuse’ (his term) of the rest. It’s a eugenic philosophy of 
> ‘hyper-racism’, as he describes it on the racist blog Alternative Right, or 
> ‘Human Biodiversity’ (HBD). Here, class dominance and inequality are mapped 
> onto, explained, and justified by tendencies for the elite to mate with each 
> other and spawn a new species with an expanding IQ. Yes, this ‘hyper-racism’ 
> is that daft – and would be laughed off as the fantasy of a neoliberal Dr 
> Strangelove if it didn’t have leverage in this miserable climate of the 
> ascendant far right. Regarding the other side, the domain of the ‘refuse’, 
> Land uses euphemism to stand in for the white nationalist notion of a coming 
> ‘white genocide’: ‘demographic engineering as an explicit policy objective’, 
> ‘steady progress of population replacement’, is the racial threat he 
> describes on the bleak webpages of The Daily Caller. " 
> 
> https://conversations.e-flux.com/t/why-is-nick-land-still-embraced-by-segments-of-the-british-art-and-theory-scenes/6329
>  
> 

Hi Callum,

I was in no way speaking of Nick Land, just D/G. ...



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Re: 1994, Visions Of Heaven and Hell

[Richard Barbrook]

Hiya,

> > We did warn you that Deleuze and Guattari were
> > the class enemy! 

> But could you elaborate on this one please?

This is the wall poster which me and Andy Cameron wrote
to provoke the Deleuzoguattarians at Nick Land's Virtual
Futures '95 conference:
http://www.imaginaryfutures.net/2007/04/15/basic-banalities-by-richard-barbrook-and-andy-cameron/

Here's my 1998 diatribe against the anti-proletarian po-mo 
philosophers:
http://www.imaginaryfutures.net/2007/04/14/the-holy-fools/
http://www.imaginaryfutures.net/2007/04/13/the-holy-fools-long-mix-by-richard-barbrook/

Richard

===

Dr. Richard Barbrook
Dept of Politics and IR,
University of Westminster
32-38 Wells Street
LONDON W1T 3UW
England

+44 (0)7879 441873

Skype: richard.barbrook
Facebook: Richard Barbrook
Twitter: @richardbarbrook

http://www.gamesforthemany.org
http://www.cybersalon.org
http://www.classwargames.net
http://www.politicsandmediafreedom.net
http://www.imaginaryfutures.net
http://www.imaginaryfutures.net/other-works

'Clause 5: That as the laws ought to be equal, so 
they must be good, and not evidently destructive 
to the safety and well-being of the people.' 

The Levellers, The 1647 Agreement of the People 
for a Firm and Present Peace Upon Grounds of 
Common Right.

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Re: 1994, Visions Of Heaven and Hell

[Alexander Bard]

Dear Callum & Co

Point taken and full understanding.
Personally though I happily lunch with people with or without embrace. The
former does not require the latter.
And when digging into the human mind, Nick Land sees further and deeper
than almost anybody. It is what he sees and not how he values it (if he
really does at all, accelerationism at least started as a truly ironic
politico-philocophical movement) that interests me. It is by reading your
opponent in detail, not by imitating your idols, that you become a better
thinker. And I am a Hegelian more than anything else.
Or your opponent convinces you that you're wrong, then so be it. That is of
course the whole point with discourse.
Again, thanks for the links and connections. I will be happy to update
myself, and whoever else here who is interested, on the status of
accelerationism into the 2020s.

Warmest greetings
Alexander Bard

2018-03-02 16:49 GMT+01:00 Callum Copley :

> Hi all, first replying via nettime, hope this works.
>
> I too have found some of his thinking very interesting at times but upon
> learning the extent of his political views I refuse to engage with his work
>
> See below:
>
> *"Nick Land advocates for racially based absolutist micro-states, where
> unregulated capitalism combines with genetic separation between global
> elites and the ‘refuse’ (his term) of the rest. It’s a eugenic philosophy
> of ‘hyper-racism’, as he describes it on the racist blog Alternative Right,
> or ‘Human Biodiversity’ (HBD). Here, class dominance and inequality are
> mapped onto, explained, and justified by tendencies for the elite to mate
> with each other and spawn a new species with an expanding IQ. Yes, this
> ‘hyper-racism’ is that daft – and would be laughed off as the fantasy of a
> neoliberal Dr Strangelove if it didn’t have leverage in this miserable
> climate of the ascendant far right. Regarding the other side, the domain of
> the ‘refuse’, Land uses euphemism to stand in for the white nationalist
> notion of a coming ‘white genocide’: ‘demographic engineering as an
> explicit policy objective’, ‘steady progress of population replacement’, is
> the racial threat he describes on the bleak webpages of The Daily Caller. "*
>
> https://conversations.e-flux.com/t/why-is-nick-land-still-em
> braced-by-segments-of-the-british-art-and-theory-scenes/6329
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 2, 2018 at 4:35 PM, Nina Temporär  wrote:
>
>>
>> > Am 02.03.2018 um 16:03 schrieb Richard Barbrook <
>> rich...@imaginaryfutures.net>:
>> >
>> >
>> > We did warn you that Deleuze and Guattari were the class enemy!
>> >
>> > Richard
>>
>> Hi Richard,
>>
>> Whoa, bold one-line-claims thrown into the silence of a snowy Friday
>> afternoon!  Nice attitude :) But….
>>
>> It’s no big deal to know how Foucault kickstarted postmodern
>> Left-Nietzscheanism, and that Gudrun Ensslin initially run a little Nazi
>> publishing house.
>>
>> But could you elaborate on this one please?
>> (And don’t tell me you believe in 'the other side of reason' =
>> anti-intellectualism = right-wing. That formula is so uninformed and
>> ableist…
>> I want to hear better arguments.)
>>
>> Cheers N
>>
>> >
>> > ===
>> >
>> > Dr. Richard Barbrook
>> > Dept of Politics and IR,
>> > University of Westminster
>> > 32-38 Wells Street
>> > LONDON W1T 3UW
>> > England
>> >
>> > +44 (0)7879 441873
>> >
>> > Skype: richard.barbrook
>> > Facebook: Richard Barbrook
>> > Twitter: @richardbarbrook
>> >
>> > http://www.gamesforthemany.org
>> > http://www.cybersalon.org
>> > http://www.classwargames.net
>> > http://www.politicsandmediafreedom.net
>> > http://www.imaginaryfutures.net
>> > http://www.imaginaryfutures.net/other-works
>> >
>> > 'Clause 5: That as the laws ought to be equal, so
>> > they must be good, and not evidently destructive
>> > to the safety and well-being of the people.'
>> >
>> > The Levellers, The 1647 Agreement of the People
>> > for a Firm and Present Peace Upon Grounds of
>> > Common Right.
>> > #  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
>> > #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
>> > #  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
>> > #  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
>> > #  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
>> > #  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
>>
>> #  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
>> #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
>> #  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
>> #  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
>> #  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
>> #  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
>>
>
>
> #  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
> #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
> #  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
> #  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman

Re: 1994, Visions Of Heaven and Hell

[Callum Copley]

Hi all, first replying via nettime, hope this works.

I too have found some of his thinking very interesting at times but upon
learning the extent of his political views I refuse to engage with his work

See below:

*"Nick Land advocates for racially based absolutist micro-states, where
unregulated capitalism combines with genetic separation between global
elites and the ‘refuse’ (his term) of the rest. It’s a eugenic philosophy
of ‘hyper-racism’, as he describes it on the racist blog Alternative Right,
or ‘Human Biodiversity’ (HBD). Here, class dominance and inequality are
mapped onto, explained, and justified by tendencies for the elite to mate
with each other and spawn a new species with an expanding IQ. Yes, this
‘hyper-racism’ is that daft – and would be laughed off as the fantasy of a
neoliberal Dr Strangelove if it didn’t have leverage in this miserable
climate of the ascendant far right. Regarding the other side, the domain of
the ‘refuse’, Land uses euphemism to stand in for the white nationalist
notion of a coming ‘white genocide’: ‘demographic engineering as an
explicit policy objective’, ‘steady progress of population replacement’, is
the racial threat he describes on the bleak webpages of The Daily Caller. "*

https://conversations.e-flux.com/t/why-is-nick-land-still-
embraced-by-segments-of-the-british-art-and-theory-scenes/6329


On Fri, Mar 2, 2018 at 4:35 PM, Nina Temporär  wrote:

>
> > Am 02.03.2018 um 16:03 schrieb Richard Barbrook <
> rich...@imaginaryfutures.net>:
> >
> >
> > We did warn you that Deleuze and Guattari were the class enemy!
> >
> > Richard
>
> Hi Richard,
>
> Whoa, bold one-line-claims thrown into the silence of a snowy Friday
> afternoon!  Nice attitude :) But….
>
> It’s no big deal to know how Foucault kickstarted postmodern
> Left-Nietzscheanism, and that Gudrun Ensslin initially run a little Nazi
> publishing house.
>
> But could you elaborate on this one please?
> (And don’t tell me you believe in 'the other side of reason' =
> anti-intellectualism = right-wing. That formula is so uninformed and
> ableist…
> I want to hear better arguments.)
>
> Cheers N
>
> >
> > ===
> >
> > Dr. Richard Barbrook
> > Dept of Politics and IR,
> > University of Westminster
> > 32-38 Wells Street
> > LONDON W1T 3UW
> > England
> >
> > +44 (0)7879 441873
> >
> > Skype: richard.barbrook
> > Facebook: Richard Barbrook
> > Twitter: @richardbarbrook
> >
> > http://www.gamesforthemany.org
> > http://www.cybersalon.org
> > http://www.classwargames.net
> > http://www.politicsandmediafreedom.net
> > http://www.imaginaryfutures.net
> > http://www.imaginaryfutures.net/other-works
> >
> > 'Clause 5: That as the laws ought to be equal, so
> > they must be good, and not evidently destructive
> > to the safety and well-being of the people.'
> >
> > The Levellers, The 1647 Agreement of the People
> > for a Firm and Present Peace Upon Grounds of
> > Common Right.
> > #  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
> > #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
> > #  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
> > #  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
> > #  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
> > #  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
>
> #  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
> #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
> #  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
> #  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
> #  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
> #  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
>
#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
#is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:

Re: 1994, Visions Of Heaven and Hell

[Nina Temporär]

> Am 02.03.2018 um 16:03 schrieb Richard Barbrook 
> :
> 
> 
> We did warn you that Deleuze and Guattari were the class enemy!
> 
> Richard

Hi Richard,

Whoa, bold one-line-claims thrown into the silence of a snowy Friday afternoon! 
 Nice attitude :) But….

It’s no big deal to know how Foucault kickstarted postmodern 
Left-Nietzscheanism, and that Gudrun Ensslin initially run a little Nazi 
publishing house.

But could you elaborate on this one please?
(And don’t tell me you believe in 'the other side of reason' = 
anti-intellectualism = right-wing. That formula is so uninformed and ableist…
I want to hear better arguments.)

Cheers N

> 
> ===
> 
> Dr. Richard Barbrook
> Dept of Politics and IR,
> University of Westminster
> 32-38 Wells Street
> LONDON W1T 3UW
> England
> 
> +44 (0)7879 441873
> 
> Skype: richard.barbrook
> Facebook: Richard Barbrook
> Twitter: @richardbarbrook
> 
> http://www.gamesforthemany.org
> http://www.cybersalon.org
> http://www.classwargames.net
> http://www.politicsandmediafreedom.net
> http://www.imaginaryfutures.net
> http://www.imaginaryfutures.net/other-works
> 
> 'Clause 5: That as the laws ought to be equal, so 
> they must be good, and not evidently destructive 
> to the safety and well-being of the people.' 
> 
> The Levellers, The 1647 Agreement of the People 
> for a Firm and Present Peace Upon Grounds of 
> Common Right.
> #  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
> #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
> #  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
> #  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
> #  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
> #  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:

#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
#is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:

Re: 1994, Visions Of Heaven and Hell

[Richard Barbrook]

Hiya,

> Where is Nick Land now? What is he up to? Can he be brought back to
> philosophy and critical theory? 

Nick Land is now a booster for the racist alt-right:
http://www.thedarkenlightenment.com/the-dark-enlightenment-by-nick-land/

We did warn you that Deleuze and Guattari were the class enemy!

Richard

===

Dr. Richard Barbrook
Dept of Politics and IR,
University of Westminster
32-38 Wells Street
LONDON W1T 3UW
England

+44 (0)7879 441873

Skype: richard.barbrook
Facebook: Richard Barbrook
Twitter: @richardbarbrook

http://www.gamesforthemany.org
http://www.cybersalon.org
http://www.classwargames.net
http://www.politicsandmediafreedom.net
http://www.imaginaryfutures.net
http://www.imaginaryfutures.net/other-works

'Clause 5: That as the laws ought to be equal, so 
they must be good, and not evidently destructive 
to the safety and well-being of the people.' 

The Levellers, The 1647 Agreement of the People 
for a Firm and Present Peace Upon Grounds of 
Common Right.
#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
#is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:

Re: 1994, Visions Of Heaven and Hell

[Menno Grootveld]

The URL is wrong. The correct one is 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwt-Jrmd5Ns



Op 02-03-18 om 13:24 schreef carlo von lynX:

Bumped into an amazing documentary from 1994: depicting the future
of society in the age of the Internet. Some statements are funny or
sad for their naivity, some others are chilling as they predict the
advent of the great Internet monopolies.
 "Visions Of Heaven and Hell" - https://www.youtu.be/GMdPLxbuc8Q

"I think it could be a disaster scenario, as this new technology
  comes to its fruition, with fewer people getting richer and more
  people getting poorer. And I think it could mean the collapse of
  society as indeed the collapse of the world civilisation and a
  new dark age. And the only thing that I think in the end can save
  that, is if the people who master this technology, the new rich,
  the new intellighenzia, can actually think beyond themselves. If
  they can realise, that the best form of selfishness is unselfish-
  ness. That if they don't actually invest in people other than
  themselves, beyond themselves, they will destroy themselves."
 Charles B. Handy, 1994.



#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
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#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
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1994, Visions Of Heaven and Hell

[Alexander Bard]

Dear Carlo & Co

Where is Nick Land now? What is he up to? Can he be brought back to
philosophy and critical theory?
I read "Fanged Noumea" when it was released a couple of years ago (I guess
most Nettime members did) and remembered how inspired I was by Land's
perspective in the 1990s on "the flat chaos" that would become the
Internet. Although my take it would be more Deleuzian-nomadic than Land's
accelerationist take (you either base your ideology on that worked in The
Tribe or what worked during Feudalism), he is still a massive inspiration
and a truly creative thinker. So his mind would certainly be a welcome
prodigal return for current critical debate.
Last I heard, Land was in Shanghai and busy doing pop culture and writing
psychological fiction. If he is still around there, maybe I could find him
for an interview when I'm in Shanghai in April?

Best intentions
Alexander Bard

2018-03-02 13:24 GMT+01:00 carlo von lynX :

> Bumped into an amazing documentary from 1994: depicting the future
> of society in the age of the Internet. Some statements are funny or
> sad for their naivity, some others are chilling as they predict the
> advent of the great Internet monopolies.
> "Visions Of Heaven and Hell" - https://www.youtu.be/GMdPLxbuc8Q
>
> "I think it could be a disaster scenario, as this new technology
>  comes to its fruition, with fewer people getting richer and more
>  people getting poorer. And I think it could mean the collapse of
>  society as indeed the collapse of the world civilisation and a
>  new dark age. And the only thing that I think in the end can save
>  that, is if the people who master this technology, the new rich,
>  the new intellighenzia, can actually think beyond themselves. If
>  they can realise, that the best form of selfishness is unselfish-
>  ness. That if they don't actually invest in people other than
>  themselves, beyond themselves, they will destroy themselves."
> Charles B. Handy, 1994.
#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
#is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:

1994, Visions Of Heaven and Hell

[carlo von lynX]

Bumped into an amazing documentary from 1994: depicting the future
of society in the age of the Internet. Some statements are funny or
sad for their naivity, some others are chilling as they predict the
advent of the great Internet monopolies.
"Visions Of Heaven and Hell" - https://www.youtu.be/GMdPLxbuc8Q

"I think it could be a disaster scenario, as this new technology
 comes to its fruition, with fewer people getting richer and more
 people getting poorer. And I think it could mean the collapse of
 society as indeed the collapse of the world civilisation and a
 new dark age. And the only thing that I think in the end can save
 that, is if the people who master this technology, the new rich,
 the new intellighenzia, can actually think beyond themselves. If
 they can realise, that the best form of selfishness is unselfish-
 ness. That if they don't actually invest in people other than
 themselves, beyond themselves, they will destroy themselves."
Charles B. Handy, 1994.

-- 
  E-mail is public! Talk to me in private using encryption:
 http://loupsycedyglgamf.onion/LynX/
  irc://loupsycedyglgamf.onion:67/lynX
 https://psyced.org:34443/LynX/
#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
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#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
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#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:

Re: How do we govern ourselves? (was: Mechanical Turkish)

[carlo von lynX]

On Fri, Feb 02, 2018 at 07:32:33AM -0600, Blake Stimson wrote:
> more and more varied cultural consumption than other generations and less
> access to power than other generations. Like any such generational marker,
> its realism for them is a badge of honor and a measure of strength and
> accomplishment.

In the age of Internet-based democracy it is striking how the trash
generation rather identifies with its pointless netflix consumption
rather than with the potential to actually change things. Industry
is doing active manipulation to make young people think that taking
to the streets has zero impact, when in fact the mechanisms of the
EU, for instance, are still very sensitive to street demonstrations
if accompanied by a viable course of action in their message. "Stop
watching us" couldn't work, but "Give us an Internet that can't spy
on us" might.

> On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 2:24 PM, Brian Holmes 
> > The core question of a democratic society is not "how do I become free?"
> > Rather it is "how do we govern ourselves?" Crucially that means: with which
> > institutions, under which rules, backed by which constraints [and, I would
> > add, which power]? If you do not answer these questions - as the entire
> > anarcho-libertarian spectrum including myself did not, throughout the
> > neoliberal period - well, then it turns out that others, like the Koch
> > brothers or Cambridge Analytica, will attempt to answer it for you.

Not frequently, but occasionally I see people coming up with concepts,
how to make democracy resistant against technological deconstruction,
how to improve our abilities of self-governance. And I have focused on
these topics with my legislational ideas to impede the net from having
totalitarian insights into our lives and participation technologies
that can make any group of people take decisions together rather than
delegating to some elected representatives... but then there seem to be
so few people to pick up these candles in the night.. they rather get
distracted by the meme of the year or drown their heads in trash fiction.
In the age after TV, is unreflected entertainment stronger than ever?

-- 
  E-mail is public! Talk to me in private using encryption:
 http://loupsycedyglgamf.onion/LynX/
  irc://loupsycedyglgamf.onion:67/lynX
 https://psyced.org:34443/LynX/
#  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
#is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
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