We talk about the tabletop RPG/War game Lancer and its unusual utopianism
Some topics:
- Those who Walk Away from Omelas and the structure of Dystopia/Utopia
- Reimagining the French Revolution
- The Role of Violence in a Communist Utopia
- Permanent Revolution
We never left, so we are not back. We just like to keep you guessing about episode times. This time we talk about the brilliant Saint of Bright Doors, a decolonial multifaceted dark fantasy novel that's quite a thinker, but also pretty accessible. Give it a read!
Eden recommends playing "Laysara: Summit Kingdom", which kinda fits the theme of this episode.
We talk about how to critique the Fascist sentiments in Warhammer 40k, without worrying too much about the degrees of intent or satire behind it.
We talk about Ammonite, a somewhat under-the-radar excellent sci-fi book about a virus killing all the men in a far-off planet and exploring indigenous lands as a colonizer anthropologist
Themes explored:
- Anthrophopolitics and diversity within identity
- Biopolitics and virology
- "Going Native" (TM)
- Some Ursula LeGuin themes
Eden's ep of death-sentence about The Dawn of Everything:
https://soundcloud.com/death-sentence-pod/david-wengrow-and-david-graeber-the-dawn-of-everything
We talk about the sci-fi strategy game Ixion and its somber adventure through space.
Some topics discussed:
- Shameful space
- Space is silence and death
- Gravestone science
- Accelerating the flows
- The eternal recurrence of the same
- Middle management euphemisms
Referenced Some More News video 'Jeff Bezons Learned Nothing in Space':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7TQFFH9gj8&ab_channel=SomeMoreNews
This is an especially rambly episode of us talking about the excellent kitchen sink space romp movie Spacesweepers.
Topics discussed:
- Billionaires hate humanity
- The limits of Villainry
- What internationalism looks like
- The ethics/politics distinction
We read Brooke Bolander's short and painful novelette and spoke about:
- Nuclear semiotics
- The uses of violence
- The master's tools
- Being pushed to the corner
Citizen Sleeper is touching and optimistic without being saccharine and might be just what we need in these trying times.
The podcast opens with us venting our feelings and thoughts about another demonstration of incredible violence from Israel against the Palestinian people. Free Palestine!
Then we talk some themes. Here's what you can expect:
We talk about Corey J White's modern vision of Cyberpunk: Repo Virtual, reimagining the genre and its radical potential.
Topics discussed:
- Data creep
- Radical potential of games
- Firearms in smart cities
- Cyberpunk's questionable beginnings
- Opting in / Opting out
- Identity politics and data dystopia
Referenced pieces:
- Video discussing (among other things) how youtube manufactures identities:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41B5YonixBs&ab_channel=F.DSignifier
- Watched over by machines of loving grace:
https://allpoetry.com/All-Watched-Over-By-Machines-Of-Loving-Grace
We discussed the role-playing game Spire, with its different ways of representing oppression and the struggle against it.
- Epistemic vice and epistemic resistance
- Construction of knowledge and infrastructure space
- Adevnturism and the challenge of struggling in a hopeless fight
- Good weird and bad weird
Links:
Eden's podcast appearance about magical realism and much more:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/inner-experience-62792132?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copy_to_clipboard&utm_campaign=postshare
Eden's essay on the topic:
https://www.notthesky.com/posts/essays/on-becoming-a-god/
Mordew is a down-to-earth, complex fantasy world, and a promising beginning to a promised trilogy. We talk about:
- Realist fantasy
- Materialist morality
- Knowledge and Protagony
- Mark Fisher's Red Plenty
See much more anarchist science fiction at anarchysf.com
External links:
Protagony, by Innuendo Studios:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R943_eAvnWw&t=75s&ab_channel=InnuendoStudios
We dive deep into "The Matrix (1999)" and a little bit into the sequels. No Resurrections here as this was recorded before it came out.
Topics discussed:
- What is the Matrix?
- Snooty philosophers vs. the Matrix
- Abolishing everything
- The Messiah Complex
- Do we want to escape to the Desert of the Real?
- Fighting together
Editing took a while, so references to current events are referring to about a month ago, including the sad discussion of Charles Mills' death.
Charles Mills' NYT obituary (many more exist):
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/27/us/charles-w-mills-dead.html
CCK Philosophy's video on Baudrillard and the Matrix:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bf9J35yzM3E&t=804s&ab_channel=Jonas%C4%8Ceika-CCKPhilosophy
We talk about a medley of Kurt Vonnegut books, how they play around with cynicism and sentimentalism, how they're anarchist and humble and absurdist.
Near the end Eden mentions this paper by David Graeber and David Wengrow:
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/62756/1/__lse.ac.uk_storage_LIBRARY_Secondary_libfile_shared_repository_Content_Graeber%2C%20D_Farewell%20to%20childhood_Graeber_Farewell%20to%20childhood_2015.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1tVc7d35wbjGhGmH-L2VnhDqUHEMaSiMH0ubzQEaUhZlJcxSX-f4_H80w
We talk about the video game franchise Dishonored. Topics discussed:
- The means of magical production
- Sociological storytelling
- Resentiment
- Hypocritical opiate (of the masses)
- What good is an individual?
- What to do after a revolution
We had a great time talking about Oval, by Elvia Wilk. It's a complicated little story about being an artist in Berlin and watching as the world around you burns, or turns.
Discussions:
- Leftism's "call to action"
- Reciprocity vs. Transactions
- The Relationship Between Hi-Tech and Art
- How Tech Falls Apart
- Human Nature and Economics
References:
"Hauntology" is discussed in Derrida's "Spectres of Marx"
We mention a video by the great youtube channel space commune, about art and gentrification:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJqBAqM-8KU&ab_channel=SpaceCommune
We talk about a cool little action movie that didn't do well in theatres but has its own little place in our hearts with its scathing critiques of bad environmentalism, bad identity politics, and bad cyberpunk.
Paper on design fiction (though it doesn't use the term):
https://www.hellofosta.com/writing/the-future-mundane
We talk about the Rivers Solomon's thought provoking and gut punching "An Unkindness of Ghosts". But we promise there are no spooks! Some rough discussion topics though (Body manipulation, sexual assault and rape).
Topics discussed:
- The pneumatics of power
- The revolutionary potential of food
- Afropessimism
- Racialization
- Midwives
- Gendered Racism
External reading referenced:
- Article about Afropessimism:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/20/the-argument-of-afropessimism
- More critical view on Afropessimism:
https://www.academia.edu/44499560/Nick_Mitchell_The_View_from_Nowhere_On_Frank_Wildersons_Afropessimism_Spectre_November_2020_
- Desert:
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anonymous-desert
We talk about the incredible film adaptation to the early 20th century epic poem Aniara. Pretty depressing stuff, but we refuse to be doomers.
Discussion topics:
- Why are the people who cause calamity in charge of fixing it?
- Why do we obey?
- Why do we work?
- How do temporary hierarchies become permanent?
- Opium for the masses
- The complicity of scientists
Lindsey Ellis video essay on three act structure:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0QO7YuKKdI&ab_channel=LindsayEllis
Oliver Thorn's video essay on airport security:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyzd_a6vLWY&ab_channel=PhilosophyTube
On "efficiency" compromising the readiness of hospitals for a pandemic:
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/09/gambling-with-your-health
We talk about Jeff Vandermeer's New-Weird book - Annihilation, a book about climate horror and accepting uncomfortable changes.
Issues discussed:
- The horror of climate change
- Unintelligible politics
- The failure of facts and logic
- Doing better than Lovecraftian racism
- Becoming other
- Permeable boundaries
We talk about the excellent solitary space adventure that is Moon (2009). Topics discussed:
- How exploitation is marketed to white men
- Foucault's "Care of the self"
- How space capitalism is an especially risky form of exploitation
- How space can be an opportunity to organize
- The race between capitalist exploitation and worker organization
- Capitalism's obvious failures
Links:
Innuendo Studio's discussion of the right's obsession with cucks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQjVbk6JSck&ab_channel=InnuendoStudios
The Ethics of the Care of the Self as a Practice of Freedom: https://pages.uoregon.edu/koopman/events_readings/cgc/foucault_ethics_concern_for_self.pdf
PhilosophyTube and Mexie's video on the housing market: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qihG6AGjkRk&t=1059s&ab_channel=PhilosophyTube
Current Affairs' Fake Nerd Boys of Silicon Valley: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/07/the-fake-nerd-boys-of-silicon-valley
