I will take blame for not making it clear that this is an introduction to a much larger body of thought. If there is a vagueness and incompleteness to it, that's because it's one essay and not the full book.
Here is a comment I made on my blog that more directly explains my thesis.
"Game theory and evolution give us pretty clear null hypothesis for the future and it ain't pretty - the strongest always survive, the mighty are always righty. Weakness and "delusion" (e.g. art, spirituality, love, mercy, compassion) get optimized out of existence as the number of competing agents asymptotes towards infinite; similarly, as technological power asymptotes towards infinity so does infinite corruption.
That sucks. More than anything, it's just fucking boring - nothing surprising ever happens, the underdog never wins, the story always ends the same way. But this is just a null hypothesis - as they say, you don't play the games on paper.
I want to live in a universe where surprising things happen and the aforementioned delusions still have a place. In some sense, I want to turn the world and its ways upside down - I want the weak and the deluded to win - but how? Not through rational intelligence or "work" because that is exactly how the null hypothesis becomes fulfilled. Reality is like a chinese finger trap, struggling only deepens your entrapment.
Workfulness/playfulness, adultiness/childliness - all of this is about realizing the ludic/dramatic dimension of reality (as opposed to giving in to the machinic dimension of reality in which might inexorably makes right). If this seems paradoxical/delusional - well, so is reality, that's the game of it all. This idea that reality is illusive/delusive and is something more like a trick or game is almost the default pre-modern view (Hindus, Greeks, Aztecs, etc.) - it is only us moderns believe who what you see is what you get (that reality is a problem to be solved).
There's a lot more to unpack and I will eventually take this in all kinds of wild directions but that's the jumping off point."
I will take blame for not making it clear that this is an introduction to a much larger body of thought. If there is a vagueness and incompleteness to it, that's because it's one essay and not the full book.
Here is a comment I made on the blog that more directly explains my thesis.
"Game theory and evolution give us pretty clear null hypothesis for the future and it ain't pretty - the strongest always survive, the mighty are always righty. Weakness and "delusion" (e.g. art, spirituality, love, mercy, compassion) get optimized out of existence as the number of competing agents asymptotes towards infinite; similarly, as technological power asymptotes towards infinity so does infinite corruption.
That sucks. More than anything, it's just fucking boring - nothing surprising ever happens, the underdog never wins, the story always ends the same way. But this is just a null hypothesis - as they say, you don't play the games on paper.
I want to live in a universe where surprising things happen and the aforementioned delusions still have a place. In some sense, I want to turn the world and its ways upside down - I want the weak and the deluded to win - but how? Not through rational intelligence or "work" because that is exactly how the null hypothesis becomes fulfilled. Reality is like a chinese finger trap, struggling only deepens your entrapment.
Workfulness/playfulness, adultiness/childliness - all of this is about realizing the ludic/dramatic dimension of reality (as opposed to giving in to the machinic dimension of reality in which might inexorably makes right). If this seems paradoxical/delusional - well, so is reality, that's the game of it all. This idea that reality is illusive/delusive and is something more like a trick or game is almost the default pre-modern view (Hindus, Greeks, Aztecs, etc.) - it is only us moderns believe who what you see is what you get (that reality is a problem to be solved).
There's a lot more to unpack and I will eventually take this in all kinds of wild directions but that's the jumping off point."
I'll have another essay in a few weeks - I will send it to you and I look forward to your criticism.
LWers abhor metaphor and poetry. They want you to spoonfeed them in the most direct and literal way possible.
What is a value? What is a law? What is money?
yes!
interesting!
hmmm weird...
Huh, you might want to get your virus-checker checked - it's just a link to a substack page
https://www.secretorum.life/p/life-on-the-grid-part-2
No worries - critique/feedback are much appreciated.