“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 subscribe to the American Ontology, which can be stated as follows: An entity can be said to exist, if and only if, and to the extent that, it is, or pertains to, a celebrity. Places, material objects, and animals exist to the extent that they are the places, material objects, and animals of celebrities. Events don’t happen unless they happen to celebrities. Entire regions of the world don’t exist, because they don’t contain celebrities. The American Ontology can be seen as a logical consequence of Berkeley’s famous esse est percipi : to be is to be seen. And therefore, the more seen something is, the more it is . Everyone else can be dismantled, and used for spare parts. In turn, the American Ontology has its own logical consequences: celebrities only exist because of their relation to other celebrities. For instance: Jordyn Woods is famous (i.e. existent) because she was living with Kylie Jenner. Kylie Jenner is famous because she is the sister of Kendall Jenner.
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