I have just recently learned of your work, I heard the interview on rune soup and felt compelled to reach out. I don’t engage with people online much anymore but I wanted to say thank you for writing this new book. I think many of us who are not online that much really appreciate it and you for writing it. I look forward to getting a copy soon.
I have almost finished the book & I found it very interesting, although it’s sometimes hard for me - an Irishwoman in my 60s - to get my head around all the terms & definitions.
Q: Briefly, what does the near future (10 years or so) look like to you globally and locally? Predictive, not aspirational.
Q: Do you have strong feelings about male circumcision? As a fellow American, you know that the "default" in the states is to circumcise males at birth, but I've heard a strong and growing pushback about it in recent years.
Q: Do you think monogamy is the "normal" or "default" state of human relationships? Do you think "traditional marriage," and monogamy in general, (whatever that term means to you) is compatible with modernity, and regardless of your answer, is that a good or bad thing?
5: I find the standard European (as opposed to US) Coke can size to be pretty ideal
4: Sausages and cucumbers. Sounds like a continuation of # 5, I realise.
3. I find being "monogomish" works best for me -- mostly with one person but allowed to roam a bit. For society? I don't know. If there's no other stability in life, having a stable relationship/family can keep you sane. Perhaps if the default were stability, than we'd see many more successful poly relationships.
1. I think we'll see more "states of emergencies" and more frequently. Centrist parties will generally fall apart, Europe will go more "right wing" in most places, American cities will start to look more like walled enclaves. Energy everywhere will become extremely expensive, and food shortages will occur so often most will forget there was a time they didn't happen.
Sep 27, 2023·edited Sep 27, 2023Liked by Rhyd Wildermuth
I'm surprised at how unsurprising your answers were. :)
The first time I saw an uncircumcised one, I was legitimately freaked out ("where is it?")- up to that point I had only seen cut ones, and admittedly relatively few by then. I confess I still find it "weird," which I rationally find ridiculous as it is the natural baseline.
I know a few guys that wish they hadn't been cut as babies and are quite resentful about it.
I don't blame them, you lose a lot of feeling. There is a whole lot of guys that are pissed about it, some more unhinged than others. My dad is cut and I'm not. My sister just had a son and she left it up to her husband, he decided to go with it "so it would look the same as his" which is an oddly common reason, apparently. This is a good listen about it. https://www.blockedandreported.org/p/episode-168-just-the-tip-of-the-circumcision#details
It's universal in Japan, too, since at least the Kamakura period (and obviously having nothing to do with Abrahamic religion). Uncut ones are seen as very odd-looking and associated with foreign weirdness.
Rumor has it you aren't crazy about capitalism. 1) How would you (briefly) describe your alternative ideal-but-realistic economic system? Or is the answer to buy your book? ;)
2) What are you feelings about Distributism, a la Chesterton/Belloc? It's a popular alternative in my (loosely) conservative Catholic circles, although no one can really point to any examples of it being put into practice on more than a small scale. To be fair, it's hard to find any examples of larger scale economic systems these days where there isn't a tendency for all the resources to be consolidated in the hands of the few.
Probably not your intent, but I'm frequently frustrated by the requirement that a rebuttal to existing systems be "ideal," when the existing system being challenged is itself far from ideal. It feels rhetorically dishonest. Nothing is "ideal," but it doesn't mean that status quo should go unchallenged.
Certainly not my intent (hence the "-but-realistic" suffix). Also wasn't intended as a request for a rebuttal to the existing system--just genuinely curious! Probably a better way to describe what I was going for is "desired long-term goal". As in, what sort of system should we work *towards*? (Mere opposition to something only goes so far.)
Actually, I'd be happy with distributism, democratic confederalism, or any of the unnamed currently- and previously-existing indigenous forms.
I'll tell you what I'd not be happy with, though: "fully automated luxury communism," or any of the other techno-utopian schemes that require us to keep destroying the earth (and then move off-world to mine other planets).
I have been a leftist since middle school and I’m well into my 40’s now 😅. I started out as a pissed off little anarchist but matured into someone much different. I have children and pets. I am a husband. So any model that threatens the future of the wealth of diversity on this planet is anathema to me. I am firmly on the side of those that oppose the industrial growth society. I’m an old commie now. I don’t think I have kept up with the movement in the USA. Since 2014 it seems so different as to almost unrecognizable. After occupy maybe. Anyway good morning internet lol.
Rhyd I just started watching the interview and your metaphor of standing in the same place then finding the map has been redrawn is spot-on. I remember when I first realised that what I personally do doesn't stop culture shift: it was when digital photography came in and I was like, well, I'll just stick with film. Then over time all the films I liked to use disappeared one by one, then finally the labs closed. Then everyone's idea of what a photo is, and what it means to take one, and ideas around ethics and consent, morphed more and more until I was like- I don't want to be a photographer any more. It means something different now.
I noticed the same thing at the start of the Pandemic. Previously people had called me a nihilist and an extremist and suchlike (for wanting to discuss politics and the end of the world an so on), then when they got rabbit-holed, they were calling me a shill for the Man (for wanting to discuss politics and the end of the world, but not in their terms), and I was like- I'm still standing in the exact same place. It's you who have moved.
Q.: How are your dreams these days? (I mean literal sleep dreams.)
Gordon is incorrect about NZ politics though. Ardern will never admit it, but she was basically hounded out of office. And Labour have lost plenty of elections- prior to the Ardern Govt we had three terms of John Key. Key, AKA 'Teflon John', a multi-millionaire merchant banker, did the same thing as Ardern: resigned mid-term, then went back to work for the banks.
Oh, my dreams -- utterly incomprehensible since equinox. Just before they felt like clear conversations, but now they feel like walking through a foreign city with everyone speaking a different language. Eager to hopefully learn this new language they're speaking in...
You follow Charles Eisenstein as well, right? Recently (and also previously) Charles has stated that he believes that nothing but a collective choice will save us (humanity) from ever encroaching alienation by technology and attendant ecocide. However, I'm with JMG and others, as I'm pretty sure that the end of cheap oil will mean the end of industrialisation as we know it. And I can't imagine how this level of alienation or ecocide can continue without industrialisation.
I'd be curious what you think? I know that you conside things from materialist and spiritual perspectives.
For a little while, I think we'll see both industrial-technological collapse and hyper techno-industrialization at the very same time, just in different areas of the world and even in different areas of the same cities. In other words, the "cyberpunk" dystopia, with a tiny class of people having access to life-extending drugs and other "high-tech" inventions, while the rest of the world scrambles for scraps.
Again, though, I think that will be only a temporary state, after which that class will find it harder to maintain control over the rest and will dissolve or be killed.
I have just recently learned of your work, I heard the interview on rune soup and felt compelled to reach out. I don’t engage with people online much anymore but I wanted to say thank you for writing this new book. I think many of us who are not online that much really appreciate it and you for writing it. I look forward to getting a copy soon.
Hey thanks for that, and welcome here!
I have almost finished the book & I found it very interesting, although it’s sometimes hard for me - an Irishwoman in my 60s - to get my head around all the terms & definitions.
Thank you Rhyd .
Q: Briefly, what does the near future (10 years or so) look like to you globally and locally? Predictive, not aspirational.
Q: Do you have strong feelings about male circumcision? As a fellow American, you know that the "default" in the states is to circumcise males at birth, but I've heard a strong and growing pushback about it in recent years.
Q: Do you think monogamy is the "normal" or "default" state of human relationships? Do you think "traditional marriage," and monogamy in general, (whatever that term means to you) is compatible with modernity, and regardless of your answer, is that a good or bad thing?
Q: Favorite meat? Favorite veg?
Q: Length or girth?
Well... I did say "anything," huh? :)
Will go backwards:
5: I find the standard European (as opposed to US) Coke can size to be pretty ideal
4: Sausages and cucumbers. Sounds like a continuation of # 5, I realise.
3. I find being "monogomish" works best for me -- mostly with one person but allowed to roam a bit. For society? I don't know. If there's no other stability in life, having a stable relationship/family can keep you sane. Perhaps if the default were stability, than we'd see many more successful poly relationships.
2. It's rare to encounter a circumcised man here, so much so that I sometimes forget that's the default state in the US. My feelings around it relate to its modern origins and the strange fact that there's a profitable market in foreskins: https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/why-human-foreskin-is-a-hot-commodity-in-science
1. I think we'll see more "states of emergencies" and more frequently. Centrist parties will generally fall apart, Europe will go more "right wing" in most places, American cities will start to look more like walled enclaves. Energy everywhere will become extremely expensive, and food shortages will occur so often most will forget there was a time they didn't happen.
I'm surprised at how unsurprising your answers were. :)
The first time I saw an uncircumcised one, I was legitimately freaked out ("where is it?")- up to that point I had only seen cut ones, and admittedly relatively few by then. I confess I still find it "weird," which I rationally find ridiculous as it is the natural baseline.
I know a few guys that wish they hadn't been cut as babies and are quite resentful about it.
I don't blame them, you lose a lot of feeling. There is a whole lot of guys that are pissed about it, some more unhinged than others. My dad is cut and I'm not. My sister just had a son and she left it up to her husband, he decided to go with it "so it would look the same as his" which is an oddly common reason, apparently. This is a good listen about it. https://www.blockedandreported.org/p/episode-168-just-the-tip-of-the-circumcision#details
It's universal in Japan, too, since at least the Kamakura period (and obviously having nothing to do with Abrahamic religion). Uncut ones are seen as very odd-looking and associated with foreign weirdness.
Rumor has it you aren't crazy about capitalism. 1) How would you (briefly) describe your alternative ideal-but-realistic economic system? Or is the answer to buy your book? ;)
2) What are you feelings about Distributism, a la Chesterton/Belloc? It's a popular alternative in my (loosely) conservative Catholic circles, although no one can really point to any examples of it being put into practice on more than a small scale. To be fair, it's hard to find any examples of larger scale economic systems these days where there isn't a tendency for all the resources to be consolidated in the hands of the few.
Probably not your intent, but I'm frequently frustrated by the requirement that a rebuttal to existing systems be "ideal," when the existing system being challenged is itself far from ideal. It feels rhetorically dishonest. Nothing is "ideal," but it doesn't mean that status quo should go unchallenged.
Certainly not my intent (hence the "-but-realistic" suffix). Also wasn't intended as a request for a rebuttal to the existing system--just genuinely curious! Probably a better way to describe what I was going for is "desired long-term goal". As in, what sort of system should we work *towards*? (Mere opposition to something only goes so far.)
The rumors are correct!
Actually, I'd be happy with distributism, democratic confederalism, or any of the unnamed currently- and previously-existing indigenous forms.
I'll tell you what I'd not be happy with, though: "fully automated luxury communism," or any of the other techno-utopian schemes that require us to keep destroying the earth (and then move off-world to mine other planets).
I have been a leftist since middle school and I’m well into my 40’s now 😅. I started out as a pissed off little anarchist but matured into someone much different. I have children and pets. I am a husband. So any model that threatens the future of the wealth of diversity on this planet is anathema to me. I am firmly on the side of those that oppose the industrial growth society. I’m an old commie now. I don’t think I have kept up with the movement in the USA. Since 2014 it seems so different as to almost unrecognizable. After occupy maybe. Anyway good morning internet lol.
I guess when I said diversity what I meant was “diversity of species”
Rhyd I just started watching the interview and your metaphor of standing in the same place then finding the map has been redrawn is spot-on. I remember when I first realised that what I personally do doesn't stop culture shift: it was when digital photography came in and I was like, well, I'll just stick with film. Then over time all the films I liked to use disappeared one by one, then finally the labs closed. Then everyone's idea of what a photo is, and what it means to take one, and ideas around ethics and consent, morphed more and more until I was like- I don't want to be a photographer any more. It means something different now.
I noticed the same thing at the start of the Pandemic. Previously people had called me a nihilist and an extremist and suchlike (for wanting to discuss politics and the end of the world an so on), then when they got rabbit-holed, they were calling me a shill for the Man (for wanting to discuss politics and the end of the world, but not in their terms), and I was like- I'm still standing in the exact same place. It's you who have moved.
Q.: How are your dreams these days? (I mean literal sleep dreams.)
Gordon is incorrect about NZ politics though. Ardern will never admit it, but she was basically hounded out of office. And Labour have lost plenty of elections- prior to the Ardern Govt we had three terms of John Key. Key, AKA 'Teflon John', a multi-millionaire merchant banker, did the same thing as Ardern: resigned mid-term, then went back to work for the banks.
Oh, my dreams -- utterly incomprehensible since equinox. Just before they felt like clear conversations, but now they feel like walking through a foreign city with everyone speaking a different language. Eager to hopefully learn this new language they're speaking in...
What would you have answered to Matt Walsh’s “What is a woman?”
Tempted to answer the same way feminist Catherine McKinnon did to a similar version of this: "I am aggressively indifferent to this question."
But in reality, if I'd been asked off the cuff, I'd have said "adult human female" or "one of the human categories of sex, the other being man."
Fair enough :-)
You follow Charles Eisenstein as well, right? Recently (and also previously) Charles has stated that he believes that nothing but a collective choice will save us (humanity) from ever encroaching alienation by technology and attendant ecocide. However, I'm with JMG and others, as I'm pretty sure that the end of cheap oil will mean the end of industrialisation as we know it. And I can't imagine how this level of alienation or ecocide can continue without industrialisation.
I'd be curious what you think? I know that you conside things from materialist and spiritual perspectives.
For a little while, I think we'll see both industrial-technological collapse and hyper techno-industrialization at the very same time, just in different areas of the world and even in different areas of the same cities. In other words, the "cyberpunk" dystopia, with a tiny class of people having access to life-extending drugs and other "high-tech" inventions, while the rest of the world scrambles for scraps.
Again, though, I think that will be only a temporary state, after which that class will find it harder to maintain control over the rest and will dissolve or be killed.