BE redirect

Wed Jun 3 23:17:00 UTC 2020

Live*** not Love, not s Freudian slip I swear...

On Wed, Jun 3, 2020 at 7:11 PM gary webb <gwebb8686 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I agree with you on democracy. Anti-democratic thinking is always chic, it
> has been since Socrates, but I don't see it going away. The problem we are
> in now, as I see it (and I'm nobody, just some internet rando) is economic
> growth, and the obligations associated with it. Markets are great, but
> markets are also destructive, (
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window), and I think
> we've let the destructive aspects of markets, i.e. markets for the sake of
> markets, reach critical mass. In a world of atoms, i.e. AtD Colorado Labor
> War, I might agree, but we now love in a world of bits. The world of
> DeepArcher. There are things like Blockchain and Peer-to-Peer Networks...
> I'm not a Bitcoin-Bro, but the potential of these technologies to allow
> groups of individuals to form autonomous self-collectives, is rapidly on
> the horizon...and these collectives don't have to abide by the status quo...
>
> On Wed, Jun 3, 2020 at 2:21 PM Charles Albert <cfalbert at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I'm gonna get kicked off for sure..
>>
>> There are parts of the capital markets which are "zero sum", but if it
>> was a defining feature of Capitalism, we would never have evolved past
>> Malthus.
>>
>> As is said of Democracy it is, in many applications, the best of a lousy
>> set of alternatives for managing Scarcity.
>>
>> It makes a convenient bete noir but if it's Amoral,
>> it's.....uh.....well......Amoral.
>>
>> I participate in the game because I really do consider Capital Allocation
>> a fiduciary trust, and a perfect alignment of incentives a grail worth
>> pursuing. I do so as a Republican ( in exile since 1980) because research
>> confirms that there exists a select persistent few, equipped by their Maker
>> to lead the Sheep out of their self inflicted darkness.
>>
>> The machine runs on humans, who sometimes have to squeeze to make a
>> mortgage or tuition payment, and as a result prioritize their immediate
>> need over those whom they should serve - on a small scale it is friction
>> within acceptable parameters, on a systematic scale it is The Great
>> Recession.
>>
>> But that's the Operator, not the Tool.
>>
>>
>> for what I hope isn't the last time,
>>
>>
>> love,
>>
>> cfa
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jun 2, 2020, 12:26 PM Gary Webb <gwebb8686 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> The idea of eternal capitalism might be too grim, and sooner or later we
>>> all are going to have to get off the bus before it drives off a cliff, if
>>> it hasn’t already... I stumbled across this idea during the height of the
>>> pandemic, and it’s stuck with me. I’m not sure where I stand on wether or
>>> not rivalrous zero-sum games are hardwired into human nature. Will we
>>> evolve into the below criteria?:
>>>
>>> Creating loop closure within complicated man-made systems
>>> Having the right relationship between complex natural and complicated
>>> man-made systems
>>> Creating anti-rivalrous environments within which exponential technology
>>> does not threaten our existence
>>>
>>> https://futurethinkers.org/daniel-schmachtenberger-generator-functions/
>>>
>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>
>>> >> On Jun 1, 2020, at 6:11 PM, gary webb <gwebb8686 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> > 
>>> > modern finance is mostly alchemy now. I doubt 90% of those on the
>>> street
>>> > making millions could explain exactly what they do. alot people hate
>>> > capitalism and rightly so in many instances but it's gonna be hard to
>>> kill
>>> >
>>> > 100% agree man... a-and most modern finance is computer algorithm
>>> driven, so there are very little rapidly diminishing human inputs... your
>>> comment reminds me of kpunk, or Mark Fisher's book Capitalist Realism: Is
>>> There No Alternative
>>> > (
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_Realism:_Is_There_No_Alternative%3F).
>>> It's a little over 10 years old and there really hasn't been a suitable
>>> alternative to capitalism proposed and/or developed despite the fact that
>>> we've had two major existential crises (2008 & COVID)...
>>> >
>>> >> On Mon, Jun 1, 2020 at 5:00 PM rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> >> u could be right about Rosemary's Baby being some great feminist
>>> horror. my
>>> >> money is on Carnival of Souls.
>>> >>
>>> >> u know Im reading V again and it's amazing to me he was in his
>>> youngish 20s
>>> >> when he wrote it, with such world-weariness; like I felt about BE, a
>>> man in
>>> >> his late 70s to write with such vigor (though I have alot of issues
>>> with
>>> >> the book)
>>> >>
>>> >> Pynchon's villains in the later books are front and center--no
>>> >> sugar-coating romance of Blicero with the Scarsdale V, Mr Ice types.
>>> he
>>> >> lays it out
>>> >>
>>> >> so why convolute things.
>>> >>
>>> >> modern finance is mostly alchemy now. I doubt 90% of those on the
>>> street
>>> >> making millions could explain exactly what they do. alot people hate
>>> >> capitalism and rightly so in many instances but it's gonna be hard to
>>> kill
>>> >>
>>> >> that;s the thing. the system is like that feeling one had under
>>> >> psychedelics that everything was this massive beautiful thing that
>>> even
>>> >> evil and other shit would be absorbed by the sheer size and weight of
>>> it (I
>>> >> know this sounds trite) with no fuss or muss (though I did see
>>> rumsfeld
>>> >> emerge out the side of W's head once like some horror from
>>> Carpenter's The
>>> >> Thing but that's another story). that's modern capitalism, it just
>>> absorbs
>>> >> everything but it's not a beautiful thing. it's an efficient thing.
>>> and woe
>>> >> to us all
>>> >>
>>> >> finally, that is what Pynchon does, the good old misdirect
>>> personified.
>>> >> good way not to be played out or irrelevant soon after not that he
>>> probably
>>> >> cares about that all that much
>>> >>
>>> >> rich
>>> >>
>>> >> On Mon, Jun 1, 2020 at 4:09 AM Cometman via Pynchon-l <
>>> pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>> >> wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >> > Thanks, rich, for the kind words. I did suspect the doctor, but
>>> it’s nice
>>> >> > to know. The whole story of Rosemary’s Baby has probably been
>>> analyzed in
>>> >> > feminist terms as the patriarchy presiding over the ceding of
>>> autonomy in
>>> >> > child rearing, hasn’t it?
>>> >> > My analysis of the choice of villain in BE needs a little work.
>>> >> > We know what we know (although there is more info than my buffers
>>> can
>>> >> > store - I guess that is why tv news repeats a manageable number of
>>> facts
>>> >> > over and over, that and supporting a narrative, of course) but we
>>> don’t
>>> >> > know the full extent of what we don’t know.
>>> >> >
>>> >> > But I do know that Horst’s unoccupied office was not part of
>>> >> > Cantor-Fitzgerald, so the direction of attention would be towards
>>> the
>>> >> > relatively humble sphere of commodity trading rather than municipal
>>> bonds.
>>> >> > And the notion that he’s able to continue his trading in the
>>> Midwest, and
>>> >> > even make a vacation of it for himself and their sons, suggests a
>>> focus on
>>> >> > the ways life goes on after a cataclysmic event.
>>> >> > The rise of gaming and its implications as a method towards social
>>> control
>>> >> > (at one point the kids play a game where they shoot people for
>>> having bad
>>> >> > manners, and at another point they inform an adult that, sorry,
>>> kids don’t
>>> >> > read anymore) and away from it (DeepArcher); the financial
>>> implications of
>>> >> > big computing taking its place among multinational movers and
>>> shakers in
>>> >> > the person of Gabriel Ice; the personification of the executive arm
>>> of
>>> >> > neoliberalism in Windust, his undoing, and his human side; the rise
>>> of
>>> >> > Russian influence in the US - all of these and more seem to be
>>> larger
>>> >> > themes in BE than the events of late Fructidor 2001.
>>> >> > Did the Internet (and by extension, the plot of BE, a-and human
>>> progress
>>> >> > itself) interpret them as damage and route around them?
>>> >> > --
>>> >> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>> >> >
>>> >> --
>>> >> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>> --
>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>>
>>