Wednesday, February 1, 2023
Greetings From the World of Tomorrow!
Hiya! FYI, the title has nothing to do with anything, just the first thing that came to my mind.
Anywho, for those few who might have been wondering, I just wanted to drop in to say I'm still alive and kicking. Had some personal tragedy that really put me off my feed for a long time, but I'm slowly crawling out of my hole until the next thing strikes me down. That's the way of life, you do until you don't.
Anything new and interesting going on in the AN community lately? I have to admit I haven't been paying much attention to anything for the last year and a half. I think I may have dropped a comment here or there, but that's been it for me. I see Mosher's still twisting in the same feedback vortex he's been stuck in for the last ten years. I'd suggest a new topic, maybe unicorns or something. Arguing for things that don't exist seems to be firmly in his wheelhouse, and of course the only REAL EVIDENCE of anything in the world is what pops up in his mangled little brain, after all. BTW, been loving Stephen Brough's actual science as opposed to Mosher's pseudo-scientific approach. Then again, Gary IS a highly religious man after all, as I've pointed out previously.
But other than that crazy cracker, what's everybody been up to re AN, if anything?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
13 comments:
Google is now requiring me to sign in even to read this blog, after first clicking that I'm not scared to read sensitive content or whatever. The old days of the free & wild internet fading away, though not completely gone.
Hiya TGGP! Ltns! I put the 'read sensitive content' in a while back because of the censorship tendencies these days. The signing in part is new to me. Yeesh.
Glad to see you're still around, Jim. Was worried after your long silence. I have the impression that the online AN world is pretty quiet these days. Have a feeling everything was said, arguments put forth, counter-arguments rebutted in the great glory days of its birth c.07-11. Even Gary only posts his vids every couple weeks now. Anyway, great to hear from you! Karl
Karl! Glad to see you're still kickin', and hopefully you're generally happy and well. Yeah, I'm not sure how much more there is to say, but...well, you never know. Can't say if I'll be writing anything myself, but again... Good to see you, my friend.
Jim! Nice to see a new message from you here, perhaps especially after all you've been dealing with.
People seem to have pronounced AN a dead letter, but I tend to think that's because we're a bunch of jaded old punks.
Have you seen the film It's Such a Beautiful Day by Don Hertzfeldt? I'll recommend it for what jogs if not. It's set in a unique key and captures such delicate verities, I think, about the experience of grief and loss and the strange situation of being anything at all (to paraphrase a line from that Neutral Milk Hotel song). Would love to hear your take.
Another not-so-recent event was the publication of the book, A Feeling of Wrongness
Pessimistic Rhetoric on the Fringes of Popular Culture, by Joseph Packer and Ethan Stoneman. I thought it was a fascinating pop-cult analysis of the embedded influence of AN subcurrents in contemporary media, and it might be something to write about.
Do take care, man. I'll be in touch privately as soon as I get a couple of items off my front burner. Blog culture is dead. Long live blog culture.
Someone who met him told me that although Benatar is a Jewish atheist, he does attend Synagogue. Very interesting.
I'm doing all right, Jim. Great to see you. I'm still an AN. I post a lot on reddit these days. There's r/TrueAntinatlists for a more civilized discussion. The original r/Antinatalism thread is a cesspool.
My beliefs are a little bit more refined now, especially the definitions and criteria of "good" and "bad" (broadly speaking). The long and short: I firmly saying good-pleasure has lower priority over stopping bad-misery. Plus my definitions of "good" and "bad" are less about perceptive states than they are about actual states of being (i.e., cult members, slaves, and impoverished people can have their joyous moments but still are in a bad state overall). I don't know if I qualify as a Negative Utilitarian, Sufficientarian, or Prioritarian, but I do say good is morally important only to the extent that it actually reverses or prevents a bad, and not some emotional band-aid or anesthetic.
Jim: For what it's worth, I would love to read your take on the film, "Koko-di Koko-da."
Only just had a look at this blog and was pleased to see your still around. Although sorry that you've had shit to deal with.
As far as the AN scene is concerned, Gary achieved an outstanding new low last year by defending CP. An old video of his was found by Steve Godfrey, where Garys's saying he wouldn't censor it in some bold proclamation of his commitment to free speech. When that was brought up, he doubled down by saying that CP should be given to child predators because, according to him, it prevented them from preying on children.
The stunning result from those who support him was A - pretend he never said what he said and that it was all "out of context", B - admit he said it and agreed with him because he's never wrong, or C - pretend it was never happening.
You can find Gary's utterances on Steve's YT channel, if you could be bothered.
For mine, it looks like AN in general has expanded world wide and has been getting a bit of mainstream media attention. But the pay-off seems to be that people are treating it like a performative identity, and like a cause to rally to. It's getting very connected to veganism, but also a bit connected to the MGTOW/blackpill crowd as well. There's a mob in the US called "Stop Having Kids" who hold little street rallies where they hold up signs, hand out leaflets and video interactions with passers by. AN seems to have a lot of appeal to the younger, hipper crowd, but as a young, hip save-the-world type scene.
You still there, Jim? Hope things are OK. Wondering about what went wrong that had you out of commission until early this year.
There is plenty of AN activity on YouTube and Reddit. So it's far from a dead letter, unless I misunderstand what Chip means by the term. Exploring Antinatalism podcast is a spectacular source of interviews with AN's.
In the wider world: some of the tech billionaires have taken up pronatalism, notably Elon Musk; and the age of AI dawned, bringing that flavor of doom and/or transfiguration a little closer to reality.
Unhappy memories! Yet I welcome you… you are my long-lost youth…
Post a Comment