“To Dissolve Man” An Investigation into the Liquefactionist Party In the 21st century, we will have to deal both with the odious Liquefactionists and with a confused and reactionary anti-Liquefactionism, which is far more apparent and obviously horrifying. I borrow the term “Liquefactionist Party” from William S. Burroughs, who writes about the Liquefactionists in the “Parties of Interzone” section of Naked Lunch - which, as a political policy guide, is unmatched in its insight and accuracy. He writes that, “ The Liquefaction program involves the eventual merging of everyone into One Man by a process of protoplasmic absorption. ” He goes on: “It will be immediately clear that the Liquefaction Party is, except for one man, entirely composed of dupes, it not being clear until the final absorption who is whose dupe.” Paradoxically, Burroughs goes on to tell us that “Liquefactionists in general know what the score is.” If they know the score, how can they be dupes? Perhaps thi
THE PRODUCTIVITY BOMB Sorry, Ray Kurzweil , there will be no singularity. As much as Moore’s Law has become a cliche, it has also become a cliche to point out that exponential growth has no "knee" - that is to say, that an exponential growth curve has no inflection point. It goes up faster and faster, so that not only is the value rising but the derivative of the value is also rising (that is, the rate of increase is itself increasing) yet at any given point it is still a gradual increase. Growth that gets indefinitely huger as it approaches a specific point of time, a limit known as a singularity, is not exponential growth but rather hyperbolic growth . There’s no evidence that technology is growing hyperbolically; it is “only” growing exponentially. Gordon Moore himself has stated that he doesn't believe in the singularity, or even in the continuation of Moore's Law. (And Moore's Law is starting to fail, anyway ... ) But it hard
I beg you, please stop referring to Trump as a "populist." 1. It's factually untrue. Trump is an extraordinarily unpopular president. Not only did he win the presidency after losing the popular vote, but - even more unusually - Trump's approval rating, in his entire presidency, has never been above 50%. There have been presidents whose approval ratings have gone up and down, but this is relatively unprecedented . Usually even unpopular presidents have some kind of honeymoon period, however brief and slight. His is the first presidency that has never broken 50% in Gallup polling , and has the lowest average approval rating of any president in history . 2. The word "populism" has a meaning. Populism has a history. People like Jim Hightower and Molly Ivins are (or were) populists. Donald Trump simply has absolutely nothing to do with the tradition of Eugene Debs, Terence Powderly, James Weaver, and William Jennings Bryan, let alone people like Ernesto
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