Emile Durkheim: Sociology, Suicide, and the Nature of Religion

Marcel Mauss: A Century of Symbolic Gift Giving

The 'Gift' of 9/11

The twin towers were not destroyed by terrorists. The twin towers committed suicide. They collapsed under their own weight. When the two towers collapsed, you had the impression that they were responding to the suicide of the suicide planes with their own suicide. It has been said that even God cannot declare war on himself. Well he can. The West in the position of God, divine omnipotence and absolute moral legitimacy has become suicidal and declared war on itself.

-Jean Baudrillard, "The Spirit of Terrorism"

from Google AI:

Continental Philosophy (The Event as Rupture)

In Continental philosophy, an "event" is often viewed as a sudden, unpredictable rupture or breakthrough that changes everything—it alters how we perceive truth, language, or history. 

• Alain Badiou: A French philosopher who defines an event as an unpredictable, ground-breaking rupture that brings forth new truths. According to Badiou, an event shatters established norms and forces individuals to take a leap of faith to remain faithful to this new truth (e.g., a revolutionary political movement or falling in love).
• Gilles Deleuze: Drawing from the ancient Stoics, Deleuze viewed events as "incorporeal" entities. Rather than physical actions, events are the meaning or sense of what happens, which subsist at the surface of things and transform how we understand ourselves and our realities.
• Martin Heidegger: In his later work (Contributions to Philosophy), Heidegger conceptualizes the event (or Ereignis) as a moment of appropriation, where human beings and the meaning of "Being" come into a mutually revealing relationship.

The End of Pure Positivity

Adjusting the Markov Blanket

More on Plur1bus

More on Markov Blankets

Valentin Turchin: Meta-Systems Transition Theory - A Case for Anti-Fragility?

Chapters:

00:00 The night the bronze age went silent 

07:10 The world before the crash 

15:00 Egypt’s records and the sea peoples name 

23:36 The last letters from ugarit 

36:55 Hatti collapses and hattusa burns 

51:34 Mycenaean greece and the end of palace life 

1:08:45 Cities along the levantine coast fall 

1:24:18 Cyprus and the broken copper highway 

1:39:51 Anatolia in motion 

1:54:27 What the battles might have looked like 

2:08:15 Earthquakes, drought, and the climate question 

2:22:22 Piracy, refugees, and a sea full of desperation 

2:36:14 Why the great powers couldn’t bounce back 

2:50:30 Where did the mystery army go 

3:03:39 What the collapse left behind 

3:19:32 A mystery that still breathes

What?  No "Sea Peoples" from Atlantis? 

Peter Turchin (Valentin's son): Elite Surplus Theory -

Sovereignty...

Jean-Luc Godard, "A Bande Apart" (1964)

Hector Goes to War

Friedrich Schiller, "Hector and Andromache"

Andromache
Will you, my Hector, forever go away
to where with unmatched hands Achilles makes
Patroclus bloody off’rings?
____________________Who will teach
your little one with strength to throw the spear,
or how to honor the gods, if what I fear
occurs and Orcus devours you?

Hector
Dear wife, enough of tears, for go I must,
for love of you I burn with battle-lust
my arms sustain Pergamus.
____________________If now I fall,
I’ll fall in the Trojan gods’ and your defense
as a pious hero, then make my descent
to grim, to Stygian Dis.

Andromache
I’ll never hear the clash of your weapons again,
unused, your iron will rust in the halls of men,
and Priam’s line will die.
__________________You’ll go to where
no sun, no day e’er shines his golden face,
to where the Cocytus slithers through the waste,
your love will die in the Lethe.

Hector
Though all my hopes and all my thoughts will sink,
from the gentle flow of the Lethe, my love won’t drink,
no, my love won’t drink.
__________________Listen! The Greeks
are blustering at Ilium’s walls. Now gird my sword,
hold back your tears, and listen to my word;
My love won’t die in the Lethe.

 

Georges Bataille: The Solar Anus & Sovereignty

I Am the Je Suis!

Just Follow the Plan!

THE PLAN

In the beginning was The Plan.
And then came the assumptions.
And the assumptions were without merit.
And The Plan was without substance.

And darkness was upon the face of the workers.
And they spoke among themselves, saying, “It is
a crock of shit, and it stinketh.”

And the workers went unto their supervisors and said,
“It is a pail of dung, and none may abide the odor thereof.”

And the supervisors went unto their managers, saying, “It is
a container of excrement and it is very strong, such that
none may abide by it.”

And the managers went unto their directors, saying,
“It contains that which aids plant growth, and it is very strong.”

And the directors went unto the VPs, saying unto them,
“It promotes growth and it is very powerful.”

And the VPs went unto the Prez, saying unto him, “This plan
will actively promote the growth and vigor of the company,
with powerful effects.”

And the Prez looked upon the plan, and saw that it was good.
And The Plan became Policy.
This is how shit happens!

On Lamaism vs. Islam: Where to Invest a Society's Surplus?

What is Life? 

Life is a chemical System that uses energy to keep itself from reaching chemical equilibrium. Equilibrium is the situation in which chemicals no longer have a tendency to react over time.

What are a Society's Eschatological Goals for the End Times.   To Immanentize it, or to Catechize it?  And to serving and achieving what 'ends' should a Society devote its' Surplus (Luxury - Necessity) energies?

from Google AI:

While Marx seeks to understand and optimize the production of wealth through human effort [Anthropogenic Energy?}. Bataille seeks to understand the necessary destruction of wealth through energy expenditure [Energy in all its' forms?].

Are you on Kronos Time? Or Kairos Time?

...Either way, the Quality of Times are Not Strained!

Shakespeare, "Merchant of Venice"

Portia: I pray you tarry, pause a day or two

Before you hazard, for in choosing wrong
I lose your company; therefore forbear a while.
There’s something tells me (but it is not love)
I would not lose you, and you know yourself
Hate counsels not in such a quality.
But lest you should not understand me well
(And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought)
I would detain you here some month or two
Before you venture for me. I could teach you
How to choose right, but then I am forsworn.
So will I never be. So may you miss me.
But if you do, you’ll make me wish a sin,
That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes,
They have o’erlooked me and divided me.
One half of me is yours, the other half yours—
Mine own, I would say—but if mine, then yours,
And so all yours. O, these naughty times
Puts bars between the owners and their rights!
And so though yours, not yours. Prove it so,
Let Fortune go to hell for it, not I.
I speak too long, but ’tis to peize the time,
To eche it, and to draw it out in length,
To stay you from election.

from Google AI:

Spoken by Portia in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, "peize the time, to eche it" refers to intentionally slowing or extending time to delay a critical moment. The phrase combines weighing down the pace with stretching it out, illustrating her desire to postpone Bassanio's casket choice.

Not all decisions must be made at the Speed of Causality!?  ;)