The Last Psychiatrist
The Last Psychiatrist is reliably fun to read. But is there a consistent method/view to the whirlwind soliloquy? I was thinking about this again during my note-taking on the “psychotherapy of nations” theme in The Democratic Surround. This is a short back-of-napkin exercise at approximating the line of thought of The Last Psychiatrist. I think I more »
The Democratic Surround II
Part 1 here. This book was wonderful, very illuminating, and I scratched as much of it as I could to share but there is a lot of very interesting trivia. Here are my notes and quotes on the second half of The Democratic Surround. World War II and the Cold War Post-War America is misremembered more »
Against the Smart City I
In this post, I strategically deploy strawmen. — Now also on my to-read list: “Against the Smart City (The City is Here For You to Use)” by Adam Greenfield. I’ve read some reviews of the pamphlet and it looks very worth the read. The “Smart City” is a proposition forwarded by my employer and other more »
The Democratic Surround I
You can find Part 2 here. On the theories of the Committee of National Morale and the Bauhaus movement in the United States. I apologize if I was too over-broad in my notes in part iv, my sense of art history is weak. I. “How can we prevent Fascism from growing in the more »
Totalitarianism
A favorite relevant passage: “Technology Implies Belligerence“ Greer’s three part series on Fascism ended this week, excellent reads. — My girlfriend has been a bit weirded out by my sudden interest in Fascism over the past few weeks. Let me explain. I have been convinced that Fascism is far more misunderstood as a pathology than more »
Options
Today: Several riffs on options and “multivocality”. Tomorrow: A little bit on “totalitarianism” and my recent readings. — I. Options I’ve painted a worldview that’s very messy, but not so messy that it demands inaction and trembling. I do think that engineering drastic moves is dangerous when you can’t see very far. (I also more »
Unit Operations IV
Part I defined the foundational terms (units, operations) Part II applies the principles of Unit Operations, arguing for a “comparative approach to videogame criticism that identifies and analyzes configurative expression in multiple media”. Part III was on “procedural subjectivity”: the the nature of simulations, their limitations, and the critical role of the user. Below Bogost writes on more »
Unit Operations III
And for me, a circle closes. As I’ve mentioned before, the Simulation Gap was one of my first darling games-analysis-tools. I had picked it up from the far less dense Persuasive Games, which was clearly more meant for practioners than Unit Operations, whose audience is a little more difficult to discern (Media Studies?). It’s been two weeks and a more »
Text Dump: Maneuverability, StarCraft, and human override
Post-heavy week this week- Unit Operations excerpts tomorrow and Wednesday, and then if I can clean them up, maybe some more coherent posts at the end of the week. — Below, some loosely related threads that are incubating. Posts like these are an opportunity to share some recent thoughts/readings and to use bits as fodder for later more »
Mulling: The “Sheeple” Problem
(Relax, I’m not using that word seriously.) I have a tendency to wax on a bit, especially when idea is still new and exciting to me- writing helps me crystallize things and turn them around in my hand. I wanted to be clear about a few positions before I start picking up another line of more »