If you like to speculate about people, knowledge, thought, the future, and technology, then this is the think piece for you. From Bert Olivier at brownstone.org:
Bernard Stiegler was, until his premature death, probably the most important philosopher of technology of the present. His work on technology has shown us that, far from being exclusively a danger to human existence, it is a pharmakon – a poison as well as a cure – and that, as long as we approach technology as a means to ‘critical intensification,’ it could assist us in promoting the causes of enlightenment and freedom.
It is no exaggeration to say that making believable information and credible analysis available to citizens at present is probably indispensable for resisting the behemoth of lies and betrayal confronting us. This has never been more necessary than it is today, given that we face what is probably the greatest crisis in the history of humanity, with nothing less than our freedom, let alone our lives, at stake.
To be able to secure this freedom against the inhuman forces threatening to shackle it today, one could do no better than to take heed of what Stiegler argues in States of Shock: Stupidity and Knowledge in the 21st Century (2015). Considering what he writes here it is hard to believe that it was not written today (p. 15):
The impression that humanity has fallen under the domination of unreason or madness [déraison] overwhelms our spirit, confronted as we are with systemic collapses, major technological accidents, medical or pharmaceutical scandals, shocking revelations, the unleashing of the drives, and acts of madness of every kind and in every social milieu – not to mention the extreme misery and poverty that now afflict citizens and neighbours both near and far.
While these words are certainly as applicable to our current situation as it was almost 10 years ago, Stiegler was in fact engaged in an interpretive analysis of the role of banks and other institutions – aided and abetted by certain academics – in the establishment of what he terms a ‘literally suicidal financial system’ (p. 1). (Anyone who doubts this can merely view the award-winning documentary film of 2010, Inside Job, by Charles Ferguson, which Stiegler also mentions on p.1.) He explains further as follows (p. 2):
Western universities are in the grip of a deep malaise, and a number of them have found themselves, through some of their faculty, giving consent to – and sometimes considerably compromised by – the implementation of a financial system that, with the establishment of hyper-consumerist, drive-based and ‘addictogenic’ society, leads to economic and political ruin on a global scale. If this has occurred, it is because their goals, their organizations and their means have been put entirely at the service of the destruction of sovereignty. That is, they have been placed in the service of the destruction of sovereignty as conceived by the philosophers of what we call the Enlightenment…
In short, Stiegler was writing about the way in which the world was being prepared, across the board – including the highest levels of education – for what has become far more conspicuous since the advent of the so-called ‘pandemic’ in 2020, namely an all-out attempt to cause the collapse of civilisation as we knew it, at all levels, with the thinly disguised goal in mind of installing a neo-fascist, technocratic, global regime which would exercise power through AI-controlled regimes of obedience. The latter would centre on ubiquitous facial recognition technology, digital identification, and CBDCs (which would replace money in the usual sense).
I can’t agree with Stiegler. Stupidity is present but not the deciding factor against reason. Stupidity is akin mass but the accretion disk is generated by the real enemy of reason which is corruption. Corruption likes to wallow in it’s waste. Heraclitus of Ephesus said that humans should be like fire and not like water – meaning should have an uncompromising spirit. He was speaking to his contemporary politicians. As a result the said politicians left for posterity word that Heraclitus died of dropsy Wikipedia:”died covered in dung after failing to cure himself from dropsy. This may be to parody his doctrine that for souls it is death to become water, and that a dry soul is best”. On youtube is a rabbi Manis Friedman who said ~if people ask why do I continue to exist I answer because I like it~
This is corruption which likes to wallow in indulgences of being anyway anyhow. I like to be – shapeless formless – why do you bother me! And the mass of stupid are empowered by encouragements : you are normal, you have wisdom yor infirmity must be cherished – you should park in front!
As for Freud he stole from Schopenhauer an thesis and adorned it with his sexual obsessions and made a business from it .
e=mc2 is in fact m=e/c2 which algebraically isn’t different but in the m=e/c2 it shows that large bodies have energy from caged parts that agitate themselves like tigers in the cage. Einstein’s equation is about caged entities that in their struggle to be free give mass to the cage. Why /
e=mc2 is in fact m=e/c2 which algebraically isn’t different but in the m=e/c2 it shows that large bodies have energy from caged parts that agitate themselves like tigers in the cage. Einstein’s equation is about caged entities that in their struggle to be free give mass to the cage. Why /c2? I’m still thinking about it!
Axel
How bout that man made woke workers utopia.
It’s going to work this time, if we wish real hard and click the heels together three times.
All are equal and the same so as not to offend the stupid.
Harrison Bergeron world.