I wonder what it is about an image that fools the mind so swiftly, so sweetly and so completely. The suspension of disbelief in the essential illusion with which we are presented is so natural and so subtle as to be all but invisible to us. It is perhaps precisely in this invisibility that they […]
The truth, or at least a truth, is that the systems that we recognise as life or living are only really a sub-set of a much larger and distributed range or spectrum of entities and artefacts. Where we assert significance to the overtly and materially self-contained aspects of any particular living system, this is as […]
The old Nietzschean idiom about the abyss staring back seems apt here – as we gaze into an abyss of political chaos, partisan insecurity, confusion and intractable information complexity. This is precisely what is being done in the US right now through externally (and internally) sourced disinformation. Notice that, agnostic of truth-value, distributed patterns of […]
A recent quick dip and paddle into one of the big social media platforms revealed what is probably quite starkly and bleedingly obvious to other observers: attempts (by pretty much anyone) to say anything that is not entirely trivial and inconsequential, regardless of perceived or actual bias or partisan agenda, creates an enormous flurry of […]
I am really quite endlessly fascinated by the many ways that these political, cultural and spiritual traditions (both near and far in time and space, it must be said) become so readily or easily detached from their original motives and inspirations to become quite the opposite of their intended or asserted goals and often become […]
Yes, time is running out – for all of us. For each and every one of us, we inexorably inch closer towards our own demise and existential obliteration. Cheerful? Hardly, but it is a truth rarely acknowledged beyond the feeding frenzy of catastrophically-selfish corporations and political parties at the trough of manifest human insecurity that […]
While it may be low-hanging fruit and all references to it may be quite akin to stating the bleeding obvious, there is a distinct lack of unity in the world: wars, political dissonance, conflict, sabre-rattling and a thousand different flavours of internecine anger or paranoid fear. What might be somewhat less obvious in such an […]
Observing some of the unfolding confrontations and adversarial self-definitions across these social media spaces we all now inhabit, even if indirectly bearing the burden of their consequences, I really have to wonder sometimes, not if the world can still be saved from its own erstwhile immaturity and wilful ignorance but if it is even worth […]
Cultural life is a beautiful thing. In many ways it represents the hidden bonding unity of a people or a place. Always be wary of anyone who attempts to crush or erase cultural difference – the living thread and flow of human history is because of any fear of difference or Otherness, it is what […]
We rarely attain to moments of clarity (or maturity) sufficient to acknowledge the extent to which all of our identities are really and at base quite thoroughly and irredeemably fictional. All definitions of identity are made (and justified) by and in reference to other definitions and those themselves rest similarly upon yet more definitions in […]
Context: Facebook: Recommended Principles for Regulation or Legislation to Combat Influence Operations It is a fascinating issue. I suggest that the complexity of the problem far outstrips these assertions of interdiction and oversight. We have seen pretty much the same thing happen in cyber security. Where a property or quality, if not the actual content, […]
We barely even notice as all this technology sweeps us away, transforms us. The greatest enigma of all is that the more we identify our Self in, through and as this technological hyper-extension of our own minds and bodies – the less we become. Only the greatest of strategists could ever mask their own existence […]
Daedelus Kite 