hyperobjects
19 Dec 2023 - 06 Dec 2025
- A hyperobject is neither a physical concrete object, nor a pure abstraction like the Pythagorean theorem. More like a big distributed thing like evolution, that is still embedded in time and space. OK.
- Hyperagency , a skill we need to learn to operate with hyperobjects.
- I am amazed at the ability of these guys to spout bullshit about these large gassy abstractions. They seem very confident. Man, wish I could do that.
- At the End of the World, It’s Hyperobjects All the Way Down | WIRED
- Timothy Morton is at Rice, like Kripal...hm.
- Hyperobjects. OK.
It’s an enigmatic term, one whose meaning is by definition hard to grasp; it often seems more label than description. But it’s precisely those squishy, elusive qualities that give it its explanatory power. The word hyperobject offers a useful shorthand for why threats like global warming are so difficult to understand or accept: They threaten our survival in ways that defy traditional modes of thinking about reality and humiliate our cognitive powers, a disorienting shift that sends many people reeling into superstition, polarization, and denial. Hyperobjects speak to the immense, structural forces all around us, and even inside us, that we cannot see with our eyes but strive to comprehend through data or computer modeling
- The threat of nuclear war has been a hyperobject in my life since childhood, I feel like someone who grew up with them.
- I guess "objects" is not what I'd call them. Hyperagents?
“Hyperobjects were already here,” as Morton wrote in their book, “and slowly but surely we understood what they were saying. They contacted us.”
In 2019, Adam McKay, the former Saturday Night Live head writer and cocreator of a heap of hit Hollywood comedies, was so inspired by Morton’s work that he named his production company Hyperobject Industries