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    • AMMDI is an open-notebook hypertext writing experiment, authored by Mike Travers aka mtraven. It's a work in progress and some parts are more polished than others. Comments welcome! More.
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  • Weird Studies
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    Weird Studies/Unabomber

    05 Mar 2022 - 25 Jun 2024
    Open in Logseq
      • Well this ep was in my wheelhouse. Not so much about the Unabomber as with the various weird countercultural threads tied to cybernetics, the agency of technology (they cite What Technology Wants ) and Kacinzky's reaction.
      • It's kind of funny how they issue hasty disclaimers that while K had a point, we don't really advocate murder in pursuit of anti-technocratic goals.
      • Also cites the Hexen Tarot Deck which I really must have.
      • They really hate Twitter and Facebook, more than I do for sure. Technology as an overmind that subsumes our own minds.
      • Weird reference to unspecified "MIT Scientists". (just before 33:00 mark)
      • Gelertner's Mirror Worlds mentioned. I think he's probably misinterpreting Gelertner's intent, but maybe not, he's got some weirdness about him.
      • Discussion of how technology creates and solves problems. Argh they really are out of tune on this stuff, that's the only way I can put it. Of course I'm an "MIT scientist" so maybe I'm part of the problem, what they are against. They are conflating technology and capitalism and modernism...it's not technologists that generate ceaseless change, read your Marx.
      • They even discuss this, but say technology is better term than capitalism for what they are talking about. (around 40:00 mark)
      • "Maybe the world will be better with climate change" – eyeroll. Wants a less apocalyptic tone...
      • Mentions Uber as height of technocratic ideal. Well yes, but this is a much different technocratic ideal from the utopias of the 20-60s.
      • The Wayback Machine is basically the Akashic Record.
      • Second card dealt (wow that is on point):
      • image.png
      • Ah Stewart Brand comes up (incorrectly credited with inventing the term "personal computer"). And they cite Le Guin's Almost Coming Home which I really want to reread.
      • And the Brautigan poem about machines of loving grace...of course.
      • Oh nice comparing Whole Earth Catalog with the Hexen deck and the film The Net that they are talking about...all are primarily networks of ideas.