Solastalgia in the 2020s
a/n: I don’t think the idea is fully fleshed-out yet, but I can always add and revise. TL;DR According to Sterling, the twenty-teens are defined by Dark Euphoria, a cultural temperament of exhilarating unthinkableness. This is the topic of the preceding post. The tone of Sterling’s speeches in the past couple of years has moved on from more »
Dark Euphoria in the 2010s
Bruce Sterling has a knack for coining/adopting rich phrases to describe cultural sensibilities. I watched some of his recent (2017) talks, and I wanted to record some notes on them to share. I figured a good place to start would be on his earlier talks on the current cultural moment. Bruce Sterling’s talks on “Dark more »
Idiots Are Not Necessary
“It’s hard to grasp that other investors have different goals than we do, because an anchor of psychology is not realizing that rational people can see the world through a different lens than your own.” – Collab Fund I have held positions that are at odds with my position now. I think I can more »
Notes on ‘The Complacent Class’
Tyler Cowen’s “The Complacent Class” isn’t a big book, but it is spawling, touching on a thousand different angles on the same idea. Subtitled “The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream”, it’s easy to draw a clear line from Cowen’s previous book, The Great Stagnation. You can think of this book as detailing the social roots for more »
Fukuyama: Political Decay
Next time I publish notes on a book, I’ll be more careful to frame why it’s actually interesting to me. It’s been a pretty dry month for this blog. The notes took a particularly long time because I lost my little offline copy of quote transcriptions, and a significant amount of willpower with it. A few more posts coming more »
Notes on Graham Harman
Did I finish the Fukuyama dive this week like I said I would? No. Are you gonna do something about it? Nope. — These notes are pulled from a few online lectures I’ve listened to by Graham Harman. I still haven’t read any of his books but the signals are good that he’s a person worth reading more »
Fukuyama: The Spread of Democracy
Previous Book (Origins of Political Order) Political Order and Political Decay Part One: The State and Clientelism Part Two: Foreign Institutions This is Part Three, notes and quotes (1) on Class-based analysis of the development of modern states, (2) about how the political franchise has expanded historically, (3) arguments against democracy, (4) the Arab Spring, more »
Fukuyama: Foreign Institutions
Notes on Fukuyama’s Origins of Political Order. Part One of Political Order and Political Decay. (This is Part Two) I’ll try to get the next part out next week. — I’ve been pretty bad about writing lately. I haven’t been traveling consistently (my preferred writing time). I also got a new cat. I discovered an allergy to her. more »
Fukuyama: The State and Clientelism
Not long ago I posted notes on Fukuyama’s Origins of Political Order. Here are some quick notes on the first third of his recent book, Political Order and Political Decay. As noted before, there are three pillars of political development: a strong central State, Accountability, and the Rule of Law. Fukuyama argues further that the more »
Notes on “World Order”
This summer, I read Henry Kissinger’s Diplomacy. I recently finished his new book, World Order. Both are excellent. Since Kissinger’s project has remained the same for decades, the two books share some content. Between the two, I enjoyed a T-shaped view of Kissinger’s worldview: deeply into Westphalian Europe [Diplomacy] and broadly across the Asian and Middle Eastern more »