Now at long last, this morning the weather has changed and has turned milder so we were able to dash out for a study of the rough turned soil poking up throught the icy ground. We took it from the lane that is by estimate three or four kilometers out from Norrtälje, a little farm track on the left which we have taken you down before on many occasions but there is no name for it other than Fingarno but that hardly helps describe where we were.
Our intention was to take some type of ground study and it was only after a reccie that we chose the soil over the wheat stalks and the thawed grass. We also took the Singularity with us today so you can see exactly where we were and what we did but to spare you the bother we essentially went; reccie, work, coffee, books, work, coffee. The only essential thing to mention is the books, partly to keep you informed and also to prove to you that we still are researching the general area of our/your 5 research themes despite ourselves. We have of course stated that we wanted to escape the themes this season but it has proved not only impossible to just flick a switch and turn them off but also it seems rather difficult to paint on without this mill of ideas, theories, accounts and speculations churning away and while I have not the energy to properly spin out this metaphor, suffice to say it involves a play on 'grist to mill'. I suppose the grist is the research themes (such as they are), books and articles we may read coupled with the general abstract elements gleaned through media engagement. The paintings we paint would have to be the flour, which must make ourselves the mill? We shouldn’t have bothered. The books we are reading, and which we showed the Borg today are, Hal Forster's 'What Comes After Farce', Hito Styrel's Art in the Age of Planetary Civil War, James Bridle's New Dark Age, Makenzie Walk's Capital is Dead is this Something Worse?', Reactionary Democracy: How Racism and the Populist Far Right Became Mainstream and John Ringo's 'There Will be Dragons'. If that lot fails to provide grist to the mill then there's something wrong woth the mill!
We mentioned hyperstition the other day and we perhaps must say more. We have read about the Nrx use of the concept of hyperstition in the Burrows reveal and subsequently seen it all over. We admit to being way out in the woods, easle up and miles from the manner when it comes to an in depth knowledge of the philosophical foundation of hyperstition and more so its application in the software of Yarvin but we do see how it is used in practice by the alt right.
The term was coined by the man Land (that fella who recieved his philisophical guests above the cream shop in Leamington) to articulate the cause and effect relationship which one can see at work in society especially in culture where visions and ideas of the future in moveis, books or tv series become real, as if it were planned. Just look at Star Trek. As we understand it the term hyperstition refers to the articulation of ideas and concepts in the present that are consciously designed to influence and impact the future. But is that not just like planning? Reading back on Burrows we see that the best definition comes from Haider who says that hyperstition "can be defined as the experimental (techno-) science of self-fulfilling prophecies. Superstitions are merely false beliefs, but hyperstitions – by their very existence as ideas – function causally to bring about their own reality." I suppose the term describes a naturally occurring phenomena of culture influencing society but perhaps hyperstition best refers to when this becomes a councious process of proposing ideas or visions today just so as they are available to the future.
Burrows has it that the unlikely, and apparently unworkable, concept of seasteading as a vision of future society is an example of the hyperstitious at work but for us we see this sort of conscious hacking of now to create the future not in left accellerationism, and entirely as part of the 'lets meme the president in to office' tac tics of the far alt right all around us. As we said last post this type of thing, thanks to the tech of data, has becoome an industry of sorts and indeed we surely need to realise the ubiquitous of this idea. Has not the notion of hyperstition become mechanised, commodified? Not now an obscure philosophical proposition but a standard political tool used by ninnies to launder the far right wing? The playbook of Cambridge Analytica and the like? Maybe this is low grade hyperstition at work but even still in then end we must ask why do some hyperstitious ideas come to pass and others do not? Politics and power. There may be or have been some kind of authentic hyperstition whereby science fiction seems to come true but what we have now, and perhaps ever since the work of Land to articulate the concept, is a conscious and synical application of hyperstition as a political tool of the powerful. A service for the wealthy peddled by behavioural change companies but also we have to have an understanding of the process of hyperstition at work through the network of disinformation launderers out there hiding behind free speech. In this way the hyperstitious feedback loop is spinning quicker than ever and can be controlled. One need not look to Blade Runner just to Jimmy Saville!
It is a shame to go on like this especially after pledging to not but we have gotten ourselves to the sharp end with this 'creating the future reality as practice' idea and we must see where it takes us. But does this all still not sound a little just like things we know, that culture influences society, that planning sometimes works, or could we see the idea of the hypostitious object in relation to the utopian one? Perhaps but nrx use of the hyperstitious is all bound up with the tech times, the post truth era, and the recent past which has left us all wondering. I suppose to make us feel better we could split the concept of the hyperstitious into two categories one authentic and one synical and it is the synical that we must worry about because look here, that is some dandy power were talking about, the sort of power one doesnt perhaps notice at work until that is our pitch is completely covered by the astroturf. Are we past the half way line?
In thought,
John
PS.
Our sincere apologies to Smith, Harrison who we now realise is the co author of the Burrows reveal. Perhaps you might send him an official line or even offer the man a sketch.