Yes, you are absolutely right that globohomo's objective is to unleash a woke AI to scan everyone's internet, phone, text histories and assign people a social credit score -- the WEF said this is happening by 2030 -- and if your social credit score is "bad" then you will be cut out of the financial system and your assets stolen from you. This is coming. Regardless, failure to resist is to acquiesce to the slaughterhouse being implemented for humanity.
Also, you wrote "I don’t think of myself as a dissident political figure in any respect but I do think that I’m a dissident aesthetic figure in at least some sense, and in the era of the increasingly totalizing Western state, my expectation is that the digital panopticon will eventually come for all of us." It was Charles Baudelaire who stated, "There are but three beings worthy of respect: the priest, the warrior and the poet. To know, to kill and to create. The rest of mankind may be taxed and drudged, they are born for the stable, that is to say, to practise what they call professions." Even though you write prose, ARX, you are a poet. And it was Ernst Junger who wrote that any resistance to globohomo must begin with the poets.
Good post re: stablecoins - my understanding is that both USDC and USDT can remotely freeze your stablecoins if they want to. Agree also that they're related to some deep state/natsec shadow banking fuckery of some kind (these types of shenanigans predated crypto, of course).
At the same time, I would partly disagree re: the maximally pessimistic view here.
That the feds are effectively doing a kind of crypto-targeted operation chokepoint 2.0 (as Nic Carter has pointed out) and, for example, jailed the Tornado Cash devs in Europe, shows that the potential is still there, even though it's increasingly co-opted and marginalized.
It's certainly not lived up to the original cypherpunk vision, but being able to store and move funds from your own hardware wallet remains an important pathway for financial exit that I anticipate will become increasingly important (e.g. in a crisis-type situation - Arthur Hayes has argued that they'll enact capital controls in the event of a war with China and shut down the fiat ramps outright).
I respect and understand your perspective: indeed, I’ve had these very thoughts.
That said, I am simply not afraid of this happening. I am only pseudonymous on Substack because I am a teacher in a public high school, and I want to discuss and debate politics and religion and controversial subjects openly on the internet in order to refine my views. I maintain political neutrality in my classroom, and I don’t want my students tracking down all of my writing and feeling like they can’t connect with me or trust me because they support Black Lives Matter or Kamala Harris and I roughly support rightist causes. Remaining anonymous helps me feel responsible as I spend time reading and discussing controversial books online.
I am not hiding from the thought police. They can come and get me anytime; I’d be proud to be a martyr in this war, and I think more of us should feel emboldened in this same way. There are truly millions of people who hold controversial beliefs. They should be—and obviously are—scared of us. Stop worrying.
I think, to an extent, this piece was somewhat imprecise when it comes to realistic scenarios around censorship and repression in the Western context.
It's not so much state-backed censorship that is likely to be the mechanism that makes art difficult or impossible, but platform-based censorship combined with extra-judicial repression (e.g. de-banking via some opaque algorithmic decision, getting hit attacked by AI bots optimized for doxxing, ending up on some NGO hit-list, etc.).
I don't anticipate a scenario where novelists are thrown into prison like the UK, but something akin to the current situation but dialed up to a much greater degree.
I don't think of myself as a political dissident of any particular stripe, only as someone committed to freedom of artistic expression. In that vein, I applaud your fortitude. My own desire is to keep producing (and distributing) more work, and for that I will necessarily require ongoing operational freedom.
Last year, I read a book called Days of Rage, which was about the varieties of left wing terror in the United States during the 1970s—The Weather Underground, Black militant groups, etc. One thing that struck me—probably the primary thing that struck me—was how radically committed so many left activists were during this period. People lived lives totally outside the law, robbing banks to fund their activities, even with wives and children; they lived totally “underground,” meaning that their closest friends and family members couldn’t see or speak to them for years at a time. They went to jail for long stretches, and of course they died for their beliefs. There was a sense of inevitability and of invincibility of their ideas, which emboldened them. Part of the reason we are talking about the idea of left totalitarianism is because of these people, who inspired probably millions of “square” activists and academics, like Angela Davis and Bill Ayers, who have built the foundation of ideological infrastructure that you are anticipating. We don’t need to commit violent crimes; we don’t need to have orgies to break up developing committed relationships between group members (a bourgeois mode that needed to be unlearned), but I think we can learn a little of their courage and faith in our own cause—because we are strong in as far as we are right, We should, therefore, be expressing ourselves in a more fearless, dominant manner rather than paranoid and prey-minded.
Interesting point about leftist movements in the 70's. I think the absence of true belief, conviction, courage - this is a general trend of our era rather than a right or left skewed configuration. A central feature of living under this era of liberalism in general.
Don't have any strong views on the right balance between courage and pragmatism for outsider artists of any stripe (maybe because I'm not a particularly courageous person!).
Prepare for the opportunity. The solution may not even be invented yet, but as artists, we have to keep grinding and make sure that our work is worth preserving when the ship sails.
2 things that struck me: the idea of the internet spaces as Parisian salons ala a Moveable Feast or The Mother and the Whore, and the congregation of dissident expats in some third world country too incompetent or ideologically regressive to monitor people's chudposting. In any case, this all reminds me of Boring and Broke in Buenos Aires which is a play I wrote following dissident aspirants and digital nomads in Buenos Aires doing what you describe. Based on what you've written here I think you'd enjoy it. Unfortunately it's not in print as of yet but will be in a forthcoming collection.
And although the regime discourages us from connecting, and while it may not be wise, however tempting, to gather and risk becoming targets or outcasts, the solace found in connecting here in the periphery via headphones offers much-needed relief and shared inspiration.
I can't help but wonder though if the controlled infiltration in the Parisian cafes of the past was more pervasive or insidious than today’s HR blocked samizdat…
Beyond the Zero is a good podcast I’ve been listening to recently. It’s in a bit of a different literary universe than what you’re talking about but may be of interest...
Hi, for your amusement, I hope, I give you this 1950 French "cafe des poets" scene from the great movie Orpheus by Jean Cocteau. The production borrowed real-life cafe people because only they could portray themselves naturally. Artifice needs reality. https://youtu.be/1IZIwV7c3os?si=udOVnEuIi1i6n8RC&t=228
Yes, you are absolutely right that globohomo's objective is to unleash a woke AI to scan everyone's internet, phone, text histories and assign people a social credit score -- the WEF said this is happening by 2030 -- and if your social credit score is "bad" then you will be cut out of the financial system and your assets stolen from you. This is coming. Regardless, failure to resist is to acquiesce to the slaughterhouse being implemented for humanity.
Also, you wrote "I don’t think of myself as a dissident political figure in any respect but I do think that I’m a dissident aesthetic figure in at least some sense, and in the era of the increasingly totalizing Western state, my expectation is that the digital panopticon will eventually come for all of us." It was Charles Baudelaire who stated, "There are but three beings worthy of respect: the priest, the warrior and the poet. To know, to kill and to create. The rest of mankind may be taxed and drudged, they are born for the stable, that is to say, to practise what they call professions." Even though you write prose, ARX, you are a poet. And it was Ernst Junger who wrote that any resistance to globohomo must begin with the poets.
Thank you for the vote of confidence!
Still need to read Junger - there's a lot of the canon that I haven't gotten through (most of it, unfortunately).
Also, for whatever it's worth, I am highly confident that crypto is not an alternative to this globohomo system because globohomo itself controls the crypto ecosystem via the Tether fraud: https://neofeudalreview.substack.com/p/misconceptions-regarding-viewing
Good post re: stablecoins - my understanding is that both USDC and USDT can remotely freeze your stablecoins if they want to. Agree also that they're related to some deep state/natsec shadow banking fuckery of some kind (these types of shenanigans predated crypto, of course).
At the same time, I would partly disagree re: the maximally pessimistic view here.
That the feds are effectively doing a kind of crypto-targeted operation chokepoint 2.0 (as Nic Carter has pointed out) and, for example, jailed the Tornado Cash devs in Europe, shows that the potential is still there, even though it's increasingly co-opted and marginalized.
It's certainly not lived up to the original cypherpunk vision, but being able to store and move funds from your own hardware wallet remains an important pathway for financial exit that I anticipate will become increasingly important (e.g. in a crisis-type situation - Arthur Hayes has argued that they'll enact capital controls in the event of a war with China and shut down the fiat ramps outright).
I respect and understand your perspective: indeed, I’ve had these very thoughts.
That said, I am simply not afraid of this happening. I am only pseudonymous on Substack because I am a teacher in a public high school, and I want to discuss and debate politics and religion and controversial subjects openly on the internet in order to refine my views. I maintain political neutrality in my classroom, and I don’t want my students tracking down all of my writing and feeling like they can’t connect with me or trust me because they support Black Lives Matter or Kamala Harris and I roughly support rightist causes. Remaining anonymous helps me feel responsible as I spend time reading and discussing controversial books online.
I am not hiding from the thought police. They can come and get me anytime; I’d be proud to be a martyr in this war, and I think more of us should feel emboldened in this same way. There are truly millions of people who hold controversial beliefs. They should be—and obviously are—scared of us. Stop worrying.
Points well taken across the board!
I think, to an extent, this piece was somewhat imprecise when it comes to realistic scenarios around censorship and repression in the Western context.
It's not so much state-backed censorship that is likely to be the mechanism that makes art difficult or impossible, but platform-based censorship combined with extra-judicial repression (e.g. de-banking via some opaque algorithmic decision, getting hit attacked by AI bots optimized for doxxing, ending up on some NGO hit-list, etc.).
I don't anticipate a scenario where novelists are thrown into prison like the UK, but something akin to the current situation but dialed up to a much greater degree.
I don't think of myself as a political dissident of any particular stripe, only as someone committed to freedom of artistic expression. In that vein, I applaud your fortitude. My own desire is to keep producing (and distributing) more work, and for that I will necessarily require ongoing operational freedom.
Last year, I read a book called Days of Rage, which was about the varieties of left wing terror in the United States during the 1970s—The Weather Underground, Black militant groups, etc. One thing that struck me—probably the primary thing that struck me—was how radically committed so many left activists were during this period. People lived lives totally outside the law, robbing banks to fund their activities, even with wives and children; they lived totally “underground,” meaning that their closest friends and family members couldn’t see or speak to them for years at a time. They went to jail for long stretches, and of course they died for their beliefs. There was a sense of inevitability and of invincibility of their ideas, which emboldened them. Part of the reason we are talking about the idea of left totalitarianism is because of these people, who inspired probably millions of “square” activists and academics, like Angela Davis and Bill Ayers, who have built the foundation of ideological infrastructure that you are anticipating. We don’t need to commit violent crimes; we don’t need to have orgies to break up developing committed relationships between group members (a bourgeois mode that needed to be unlearned), but I think we can learn a little of their courage and faith in our own cause—because we are strong in as far as we are right, We should, therefore, be expressing ourselves in a more fearless, dominant manner rather than paranoid and prey-minded.
Interesting point about leftist movements in the 70's. I think the absence of true belief, conviction, courage - this is a general trend of our era rather than a right or left skewed configuration. A central feature of living under this era of liberalism in general.
Don't have any strong views on the right balance between courage and pragmatism for outsider artists of any stripe (maybe because I'm not a particularly courageous person!).
Prepare for the opportunity. The solution may not even be invented yet, but as artists, we have to keep grinding and make sure that our work is worth preserving when the ship sails.
2 things that struck me: the idea of the internet spaces as Parisian salons ala a Moveable Feast or The Mother and the Whore, and the congregation of dissident expats in some third world country too incompetent or ideologically regressive to monitor people's chudposting. In any case, this all reminds me of Boring and Broke in Buenos Aires which is a play I wrote following dissident aspirants and digital nomads in Buenos Aires doing what you describe. Based on what you've written here I think you'd enjoy it. Unfortunately it's not in print as of yet but will be in a forthcoming collection.
Please post a link when it's out as I'd love to read it!
absolutely
The Sangha is indeed one of the Three Jewels!
And although the regime discourages us from connecting, and while it may not be wise, however tempting, to gather and risk becoming targets or outcasts, the solace found in connecting here in the periphery via headphones offers much-needed relief and shared inspiration.
I can't help but wonder though if the controlled infiltration in the Parisian cafes of the past was more pervasive or insidious than today’s HR blocked samizdat…
"It's time to build [a new literary culture on the internet!]."
- LEAFBOX-Andreesen
Beyond the Zero is a good podcast I’ve been listening to recently. It’s in a bit of a different literary universe than what you’re talking about but may be of interest...
Thanks, I'll check it out!
This piece is outstanding!
Many good ideas.
I need to reread it with care …
Your readers are grateful that you did not go to that MFA program!
Me too! haha
Hi, for your amusement, I hope, I give you this 1950 French "cafe des poets" scene from the great movie Orpheus by Jean Cocteau. The production borrowed real-life cafe people because only they could portray themselves naturally. Artifice needs reality. https://youtu.be/1IZIwV7c3os?si=udOVnEuIi1i6n8RC&t=228
Nuclear-armed Book Club from Hell network state to mercilessly impose literary freedom upon the world.
Fascinating piece ARX. Lots and lots to digest.