“The immense profit from this new exploitation and world-wide commerce enabled a guild of millionaires to engage the greatest engineers, the wisest men of science, as well as pay high wage to the more intelligent labor…”
The best grift is a millenarian saying some disaster or salvation is just around the corner. Keeps people in a perpetual state of panic and frenzy, glued to your feed.
You want to get Angry? (Ignores replies) Zillow: What is the average rent in San Francisco, CA? Updated September 8, 2026 average rent for all property types in San Francisco, CA is $4,720. Average rent $4,720 Month-over-month change +$220 Year-over-year change +$1,040 Available rentals 1,413
Getting ready to board my flight home after an amazing week in Mexico City. I walked 55.6 miles over 5 days. Here’s me at Lucha Libre last night
Having eye glasses prescriptions expire seems like an absolute racket.
The basic idea Wittgenstein’s theory of language games is that words are like pieces in a game, they have a function. When one word is deployed in some context it affects the world in such a way as to achieve a goal. I say “fire” so that you run to safety.
Going to do a long post. It is mostly because I'm just working through some of my own ideas, rather than looking to get off a real banger that'll do numbers, etc. etc.
Just got back from a great discussion at the Oakland Public Library with @ahjohnson.bsky.social on his excellent new book, How to Sell a Genocide. It’s a really strong work of media criticism, and Adam is just as sharp in person as on @citationspod.bsky.social
“Sexuality, ceasing to be a factor of cohesion and shared elation, becomes an individual frenzy for profit. Everyone is obsessed with it and thereby isolated. And, in a characteristic feature, as it is exacerbated, it also becomes anxious about itself.”
I phone banked for El-Sayed and have been a bit worried because the attack ads really did affect some voters. I listened to people really struggling with how they were going to vote. But El-Sayed has a winning message and I think Michigan is going to come through tonight.
The creations of generative AI, the slop, are created by taking the signs of things and removing any relation to what they mean. They are pure signification, just a system of signs mathematically related to each other but with no relation to the real world.
Was doing some phone banking for McKinney in Michigan and a young lady asked me if I wanted to fight. I said no ma'am, but she had already hung up.
In answer to the endless discussion of the “vibe-session”, which is the idea that the economy is good but people perceive it as bad, there is a possible answer from Baudrillard. There are two orders of consumption, needs and privileges,
Reading Baudrillard's The Consumer Society and came across a passage about the role of news in modern society which reminded me of Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities. 1/6
Just finishing up Trade Wars are Class Wars, and strongly recommend it. While It is Keynesian rather than leftist, it is extremely illuminating on the relationship between foreign and domestic inequality to global production, surplus and deficits.
Since the Gramsci quote is used endlessly- some further context: "If the ruling class has lost its consensus, i.e. is no longer 'leading' but only 'dominant', exercising coercive force alone, this means precisely that the great masses have become detached from their traditional ideologies..." (1/2)
Reading Trade Wars are Class Wars, written in 2020, and have a strange feeling they may have been onto something: “Investments are worthwhile only if they satisfy unmet consumption needs. Otherwise they are just wasteful misuses of resources that could have been better deployed elsewhere.” (1/2)
Just found through some jazz listening that the bassline from Steely Dan’s Rikki Don’t Lose that Number comes from Horace Silver’s Song for my Father. Both great tracks
“It is a matter of common observation… that any new theory studied with ‘heroic fury’… especially if one is young, attracts the student… and takes possession of his whole personality…”
Made some Gochujang pita (a recipe I made and have been tinkering by with) and filled them with some homemade Mercimek Köftesi (Turkish lentil balls), sous vide chicken, cherry tomatoes and arugula #breadsky
