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compiling some of the articles i've enjoyed lately into one list -- mostly for myself, but maybe you'll find some value in it, too. topics vary from quantum computing to soft cults to AI to new-age religion. under each link you will find a direct quote, to pique your interest (or not). plus a bonus video and track! enjoy!
by Alex Quicho
Consider that the girl is a symbolic category, unfixed from biological sex or social gender. Itβs a perspective best articulated by Andrea Long Chu in her 2018 book Females. Long Chu updates old-school psychoanalysis in which βfemaleβ denotes a subject formed through psychological, social, and symbolic aspects rather than springing from some essential biology. βThe female [is] any psychic operation in which the self is sacrificed to make room for the desires of another,β she asserts. And since everyoneβs desire arrives without their authorship, everyone is symbolically female. Desire for another, desire for recognition, desire for political change, desire for change within yourself, all riding in on un- and subconscious processes, afloat on a raft of experience and sociocultural codes.
by Benoit Tokyo for Blog by LAN Party
Whatβs often misunderstood about soft cults is that they donβt require total commitment. Theyβre subtler than we might thinkβmanifesting as any group or ideology we follow without much scrutiny. Alt-net circles, underground subreddits, niche online scenes. The truth is, most of us engage with them in some way. We just tend to overlook it.
This nuanced understanding of soft cults aligns with Robert Altmanβs perspective:
βWhatβs a cult? It just means there are not enough people to make a minority.β
That is: cults are credos that havenβt gone mainstream yet.
But soft cults complicate that idea. They donβt follow strict doctrine. Instead, they fuse ideology and aesthetic through a semi-coded perspective. Niche and ironic, but still echoing broader ideological frameworks: group identity, insider language, a sense of belonging. They reject the rigidity of traditional cult structures, but the blueprint creeps backβrefitted with better looks, deeper lore, and softer boundaries.
by Travis Kling
The American Dream of upward mobility has been slipping out of reach for increasingly more people. Why do you think Oliver Anthony exploded out of nowhere into such popularity? That is Financial Nihilism.
So if youβre like the large majority of Americans and youβre on the wrong end of this, what do you do about it? You take bigger risks. You feel driven to take bigger risks to try and leapfrog from your current financial position (mostly paycheck to paycheck; buying a home feels nearly impossible; saddled with student loans; salary increases not keeping up expense increases) to something more tenable. More comfortable. More baller.
by Freya India
Religious faith has collapsed, and many trends and movements have moved in to fill the void. The one that most resembles a religion to me, though, is the rise of therapy culture. I think itβs an exaggeration to say all of Gen Z are following the cult of social justice or climate activismβbut I really donβt think itβs an exaggeration to say that a significant majority of young people now interpret their lives and emotions and relationships through a therapeutic lens.
This is how many of us make sense of loss, of love, of hurt now. We refract our relationships through therapy-speak. We define ourselves by our diagnoses. And we mimic religion, all the time. We donβt pray at night; we repeat positive affirmations. We donβt confess; we trauma dump. We donβt seek salvation; we go on healing journeys. We donβt resist temptation from the devil; we reframe intrusive thoughts. We donβt exorcise evil spirits; we release trauma. And of course we donβt talk to God, cβmonβwe give a βspecific request to the universeβ that βhas a greater planβ for us.
by Justin from Stay Grounded
Weβll reach a point when the phrase βsocial media is all fake robo-crapβ will be as common of knowledge as βcigarettes cause cancerβ or βslot machines are a poor investmentβ. Adults can still smoke and slot, sure. But nobody in the developed world can say they werenβt warned of the risks. My other hope is that when that time comes, real human-made art made for connecting with human audiences can be more readily recognized by society as the valuable thing it is on its own, not only when it is put to work in service to some marketer turning a profit for some CEO.
Before that day comes, weβll probably have another ten-ish years of people like me getting all bent out of shape, while the majority of users wonβt put together that their persistent feelings of social detachment stem from these ostensibly βsocialβ services that slowly, but increasingly will be perceived as little more than tiny slot machines, foregoing the casino chips for dopamine.
AI canβt kill the job of artist, because making art, like playing chess, is an activity people would do even if money didnβt exist. It wonβt ruin socializing. But it will ruin the βgameβ of social media. And weβll be better for it.
For real quantum computing, there are a few parameters that really matter. We are many, many orders of magnitudes away from the level we need to be on each of these parameters when it comes to realizing a real quantum computer that can do meaningful computation. Each category is a Manhattan project level effort (x10) to overcome, and all three need to be overcome, or you have nothing.
by Rachel Moss
The garden as a metaphor is very persuasive when weβre talking about the social Internet. Gardens give us the illusion that nature is something we can control and prune and make into something beautiful by our standards. I think we want to believe the social Internet is the same. That with a little tenderness, a little curation, a little attention, we can get it to grow the way we want. The problems weβre having right now β AI, enshittification, the commodification of crisis β these are all just weeds to be cut back.
But there is no apt metaphor for what the social Internet is doing to us. We are not in a garden like I am in my dreams. We are in a place where entertainment has become the living and those human qualities that were once beyond commodification β attention, creativity, empathy, to name a few β are now capital.
by Benoit Tokyo
Weβre making myths again. Algorithms act like gods. CSS and emojis are modern runes. A profile bio is a ceremonial nameβpart ID tag, part ward. Donna Haraway said stories build worlds. The cyborg was her symbolic figure. Online, identity shapeshiftsβrace, gender, form. Avatars are digital familiars.
Weβve entered a new animism. Platforms respond. Data lingers. Algorithms feel fed. Manifestation becomes literal. Even a refresh is divination. Notifications are signs. Weβve left the era of pure spectacle. Now we're into vectorsβswipes, likes, flows. Every gesture casts a spell.
Examining Baudrillard's theory of the "hyperreal" and how it manifests in society's relationship to art, movies, mass media, advertising, education, architecture, technology, and language.
tinyrainboot
π₯°
compiling some of the articles i've enjoyed lately into one list -- mostly for myself, but maybe you'll find some value in it, too. topics vary from quantum computing to soft cults to AI to new-age religion. under each link you will find a direct quote, to pique your interest (or not). plus a bonus video and track! this could be one of those tabs you keep open for months and never actually look at :D https://paragraph.com/@tinyrainboot/a-tiny-reading-list
loveddd it!! @benoit-tokyo u get a double mention!!
i <3 lan party, i shill it to people all the time
you are just the best π₯Ήπ₯Ήπ€π€
@procoin curate ποΈ
This cast has been curated to ποΈ on the Feeds miniapp @tinyrainboot you have been issued ποΈ shares Feed Market Cap: $175.74
Thanks Tiny :) @benna and I always appreciate your support! You will love our next curation ππ (And the next after the next.)βοΈ canβt wait to share.
lovely π«Ά thanks for the inspiration. maybe youβd love to join /internetbookclub coming up in August Blood in the machine
ooooooh. tell me more! how does it work? i see there are irl meetups, are there also online?
We do have a group chat via whatsapp. happy to send you the link if interested. I set up the /internetbookclub here on farcaster in the hopes of growing the online community
how does it work?! you like one of our suggested reads?! read along. if i.e. the August read does not speak to you, start with Candy House right away. there will be irl in different cities at the end of each month to discuss. if we are a couple of people (in a specific timezone) interested to discuss online, happy to set sth up ππΌ
and π€« Tel Aviv Paris Singapore meetups forming as we speak
@procoin curate fyi
This cast has been curated to FYI on the Feeds miniapp @tinyrainboot you have been issued FYI shares Feed Market Cap: $81.89