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Cybernetic Culture Research Unit

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Re: Cybernetic Culture Research Unit

#21

Post by convolvatron »

FooBarBizBazz wrote: post #19
api wrote: post #10

… or what happens when you give massive amounts of meth to academic pomo philosophy majors… There were some interesting ideas in there in the beginning, albeit not as original as some thought. A lot of that stuff just goes back to cybernetics, psychedelia, and occultism. But then the CCRU turned a bit culty and some of them including Land lost their minds. The Land went full fascist. There seems to be a connection be…

It's funny, then, that meth is a prescription drug given to children (and adults) to increase their tolerance for existence within academic/corporate hierarchies.

why do you find that contradictory?

Re: Cybernetic Culture Research Unit

#22

Post by izzygonzalez »

In the spirit of CCRU, me and a few dozen other people have been having ongoing discussions on related topics under the banner of effective extropianism. I think it’s important to figure out how the landscape of rapidly evolving tech fits into our lives and vice versa. We’re working on a repository of adjacent texts.

If you’re interested, my Twitter handle is in my hn bio.

Re: Cybernetic Culture Research Unit

#23

Post by xk_id »

Barrin92 wrote: post #11

it's kind of wild how many influential people and work either directly and indirectly came out of the CCRU. Someone else already mentioned Mark Fisher but also Nick Land during his time there when he was still producing academic work published some great pieces, Meltdown is I think a very prescient one. Astonishing that he wrote this in 1994 I think. http://www.ccru.net/swarm1/1_melt.htm

My thoughts exactly. What is striking is how the content created by CCRU is seeing a considerable resurgence in public consciousness, twenty years later.

Re: Cybernetic Culture Research Unit

#24

Post by api »

FooBarBizBazz wrote: post #19
api wrote: post #10

… or what happens when you give massive amounts of meth to academic pomo philosophy majors… There were some interesting ideas in there in the beginning, albeit not as original as some thought. A lot of that stuff just goes back to cybernetics, psychedelia, and occultism. But then the CCRU turned a bit culty and some of them including Land lost their minds. The Land went full fascist. There seems to be a connection be…

It's funny, then, that meth is a prescription drug given to children (and adults) to increase their tolerance for existence within academic/corporate hierarchies.

Not the same thing at all. The dosages for one are much lower, and people with ADD have a different reaction.

ADD is real. It’s not something people make up and it’s not a social pathology. It’s no different from people needing eyeglasses.

Re: Cybernetic Culture Research Unit

#25

Post by p_l »

rektide wrote: post #14
nico wrote: post #9

Tangential, but reminded me of Project Cybersyn An electronic country/society-wide dashboard devised in the early 70s for the Chilean government https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn

Anyone have links to any of the good takedown articles on Cybersyn? There's plenty of pieces talking it up. And plenty demonizing American CIA actions around those time periods. But the effort itself was such a incredibly simple lo fi system, such a style over substance effort. The screen was literally manually painstakingly updated ahead of time. As an idea I see why Cybersyn was so successful & enrapturing. And CCR…

The technical implementation aspects of Cybersyn are, honestly, the least interesting parts of it.

The logistical, design underpinnings of how ultimately the men behind the curtains got the information to draw on the screen was the real improvement - effectively, it was the real "ugly scripts, notebooks and excel spreadsheets" of today even if the end result is sold to management through fancy looking visualizations that someone has to painstakingly manually edit.

In many ways, some of the ideas behind Cybersyn combine quite well with Toyota production system, except done on much larger scale. And unlike failing nearly by design soviet GosPlan, it incorporated the idea of shortening feedback loops instead of trying to deal with combinatorical explosion of variables at the top.

Re: Cybernetic Culture Research Unit

#26

Post by thebooktocome »

astrange wrote: post #20
thom wrote: post #8

Mark Fisher went on to become one of the most significant voices on the Left in the UK before his suicide in 2017. His many online leavings are worth a significant investment of time.

They can't be that good if they produced the UK left, which is one of the world's worst and least successful left movements and is currently promoting "intentionally making the country poorer". Since the UK is already becoming poorer, of course, nobody even needs them for that.

Fisher did not “produce” the UK left, he was an outspoken critic of Labor. Actual politicians these days rarely take notice of philosophers.

His main work, Capitalist Realism, was about the post-Cold war condition in which any alternative to Capitalism seems defeated before it gets off the ground—your comment is a splendid example of this phenomenon.

Re: Cybernetic Culture Research Unit

#27

Post by asynchronous »

api wrote: post #24
FooBarBizBazz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny, then, that meth is a prescription drug given to children (and adults) to increase their tolerance for existence within academic/corporate hierarchies.

Not the same thing at all. The dosages for one are much lower, and people with ADD have a different reaction. ADD is real. It’s not something people make up and it’s not a social pathology. It’s no different from people needing eyeglasses.

I’ve heard it described as “it’s the same thing like bread is the same as beer.”

Re: Cybernetic Culture Research Unit

#28

Post by astrange »

thebooktocome wrote: post #26
astrange wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can't be that good if they produced the UK left, which is one of the world's worst and least successful left movements and is currently promoting "intentionally making the country poorer". Since the UK is already becoming poorer, of course, nobody even needs them for that.

Fisher did not “produce” the UK left, he was an outspoken critic of Labor. Actual politicians these days rarely take notice of philosophers. His main work, Capitalist Realism, was about the post-Cold war condition in which any alternative to Capitalism seems defeated before it gets off the ground—your comment is a splendid example of this phenomenon.

The UK can't escape capitalism because it hasn't escaped feudalism yet. Should try that first. It's run for the benefit of retirees and landlords at the moment.

Re: Cybernetic Culture Research Unit

#29

Post by rektide »

mistrial9 wrote: post #16
thom wrote: post #8

Mark Fisher went on to become one of the most significant voices on the Left in the UK before his suicide in 2017. His many online leavings are worth a significant investment of time.

this looks relevant today https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exiting_the_Vampire_Castle

Rather sharp rebuke of a reactive Leftism that, in an Adam Curtis fashion, had no real vision direction or purpose. Instead reduced to an angry forever defense, snapping out at violators of it's ideals, while rarely offering hope or possibility.

Incredibly stunning work that turns the mirror on a side that aptly I think wants to be better than the FUD it has to contend with so persistently.

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