#424 - Heretic-Con, 2C-B Explained, and reasonable Chomsky
Disney's latest Lin-Manuel Miranda scored animated movie Encanto was great, if you're not a parent whose already seen it a million times. Gorgeous animation, great songs, diverse characters, all set in magical realism early century Colombia.
I spent the weekend in San Diego and don't have anything to report other than what my old guide from 2014 undergrad days says. Beer and beaches - only update is there's also a thriving burner acroyoga subculture I hadn't seen before.
Tech
Hereticon, Notes from the IRL - Pirate Wires — www.piratewires.com
Peter Thiel's Founder's Fund hosted this "conference for thoughtcrime' in Miami last week and it's full of hot takes, obviously. I liked the organizer's brash statement against the Metaverse:
"The future will always be people together — Young people want to bang. They will move to the best possible places to make their fortunes and find their lifelong partners, after which they will move to the best possible places to raise their families. Any vision of the future or technology that doesn’t help us achieve these essential human goals is doomed to failure, thank God, and it's really not something I’m interested in. "
The internet didn’t kill counterculture—you just won’t find it on Instagram — www.documentjournal.com
Good longread delving into how the Gen Z of today rebel not by acting against the mainstream culture, but by sidestepping it into private digital spaces like Discord. It's not punk to speak against the Man - it's more punk to ignore him and act away from his gaze.
The Case Against Naive Technocapitalist Optimism — consilienceproject.org
Another longread that clearly lays out the philosophy that leads to Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism - tech solving all our ills.
Daniel Schmachtenberger and co say it won't cuz capitalism will always concentrate the surplus profits and benefits upwards, as it did in the Industrial Revolution.
Lifehacks
What is 2C-B? The Complete and Honest Explainer
This publication is great for honest scientific reviews of psychedelics, and this rundown on Alexander Shulgin's favorite psychedelic is no exception.
The Peculiar Psychology Of #MediocreWhiteMen — mattwallaert.com
'May you have the confidence of a mediocre white man', the saying goes - and this data shows that white men are indeed more confident, and more productive, at work - mainly because they feel more psychologically safe there.
Thus the best way to lift up minorities at work is to focus psychological safety. Juicy!
Political positions of Noam Chomsky — en.wikipedia.org
Chomsky is the Left's favorite talking head, and I'd never really double clicked on his writings, cuz why would a linguistics genius also be a politics genius?
Turns out I agree with most of his positions though - does that make me a anarcho-syndicalist, as his beliefs boil down to?
Maybe not.... he definitely dropped the ball on the Cambodian genocide - but on all else he's got some smart hot takes - for instance see his response noting that anti-arabism is a bigger problem that anti-semitism today.
Fun
Weather Underground - Wikipedia — en.wikipedia.org
Reading about this radical left wing militant organization from the 70s is a wild ride through Leftism Who's Who:
Current SF city DA Chesa Boudin's parents were both members, and imprisoned for decades after involvement in one of their robberies that left some security guards dead
Obama had a roadbump on his presidential campaign due to being vaguely connected to one of the founders in Chicago world
Tupac Shakur's stepfather was also involved in that robbery (turns out he was named after the Incan ruler when the Spaniards arrived!)
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of An Indigenous People's History of the United States, was also a member, who also founded a feminist org that first advocated for women to separate from dealing with men entirely
The org literally declared war against the American Empire and its members were Most Wanted by the FBI, who illegally infiltrated them and prompted Richard Nixon to testify in favor of wiretapping as a valid method in his first post Watergate court appearance.
It planned to do so by bombing military dance halls, until their leadership died in the bomb lab after one went off, so they stepped back a bit and only bombed public places that were forewarned ahead of time (property damage only) in retaliation for US atrocities abroad in Vietnam
They talked about 'skin privilege' long before white privilege was a term, and some radical members would claim 'all white babies are bastards' like folks say 'all cops are bastards' today