Culture, Communication, Complexity.

Tag: social psychology

The Human Condition

Psychoanalysis begins with a joke that only works because it fails: the patient arrives burdened with paranoia, anxiety, and unhappiness, and the doctor replies that this is simply the human condition. (Cure denied.) The moment this is understood, the structure collapses. The consulting room becomes a mirror, not a remedy, and what it reflects is […]

Philosophy

On Being Smart in Stupid Times

Post author By G
Post date Jan 27, 2026
No Comments on On Being Smart in Stupid Times

Intelligence is becoming a liability. Not socially ornamental intelligence, not credentialed cleverness, but actual understanding. The kind that sees structure, delay, recursion, consequence. The kind that notices when a system is lying to itself. That form of intelligence generates friction. It interrupts performance. It destabilises belonging. It exposes the hidden costs that simple stories are […]

Tags algorithmic amplification, algorithmic governance, attention economy, attention manipulation, behavioral conditioning, cognitive load, cognitive manipulation, collective behavior, collective identity, communication theory, cultural dynamics, cultural engineering, cultural performance, cybernetics, digital authoritarianism, digital propaganda, emotional manipulation, fear and belonging, fear-based politics, identity formation, identity politics, ideological contagion, information warfare, learned behavior, mass mobilization, mass persuasion, mass psychology, media ecology, memetic transmission, narrative control, networked persuasion, performative politics, political manipulation, political psychology, political technology, power and influence, propaganda systems, social conformity, social control, social psychology, societal polarization, systemic risk, systems theory, technological influence, technological mediation

Philosophy

Structural Insecurity Precedes Moral Failure

Post author By G
Post date Jan 17, 2026
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Racism, misogyny, and other forms of exclusion recur not because they are compelling, justified, or desirable, but because large-scale social systems are biased toward generating them, or things like them, under stress. Calling this structural does not mean denying choice. People do make choices, good, bad, and ugly, and they live with the consequences of […]

Philosophy

Predatory Opportunism in University Systems

Post author By G
Post date Jan 11, 2026
1 Comment on Predatory Opportunism in University Systems

University systems are not simply organised around knowledge, discovery, or intellectual community. Those are decorative claims. The real game is status. Universities function as credential factories and hierarchy-maintenance machines, where prestige, funding position, and reputational insulation matter far more than whether anything true, useful, or unsettling is learned. This is predatory opportunism in institutional form. […]

cybernetics

Immigration: Blame, Shame, Gullibility

Post author By G
Post date Aug 31, 2025
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Nationalism and anti-immigration movements recycle the same script: identify an external group, blame them for decline, and convert frustration into political capital. Yet the structural causes—corporate monopolies, rent-seeking industries, regulatory capture—remain largely unexamined. People misattribute the erosion of wages, housing affordability, and job security to migrants because scapegoating offers a simple, visceral answer where systemic […]

cybernetics

Complex Power Dynamics

Power’s paradox is that it flourishes best where it cannot fully dominate. Like the tensile balance of a body held together by structured tension, it requires counterforces, resistance, and the ever-present possibility of dissolution to sustain itself. Autocracy and capital alike reveal this pattern: their most efficient mode of operation is not in a vacuum […]

Philosophy

Fear

Post author By G
Post date Mar 31, 2024
No Comments on Fear

The aesthetic liberation of the depiction of the impossible is found in representational systems such as languages and narratives, which are unified by their inability to represent anything beyond their own tautological interfaces. The entity that embodies horror most powerfully is not the tangible evils of the world, but rather the absence of unambiguous truth […]