The New Inquiry

>Thiel apparently gives talks about the Antichrist

You forgot to mention the part where Thiel tells, in all seriousness, that the Antichrist is on Earth, now, and may literally be Greta Thunberg [1].

And that's one of the reason Greta Thunberg must be opposed.

> He's actually a very thoughtful Christian

That's one way to upsell "deranged".

Thoughtful he is (as many lunatics are).

As far as religious aspects go, him losing faith in democracy after women and "benefits recipients" got the right to vote[2] doesn't sound very Christian-like to my ears.

Neither does his argument to end affirmative action[3], if you read it carefully, but that's a whole another can of worms.

> following the works of Rene Girard.

Ah yes, the fine fellow who (like Thiel) sees religion as a technology to manage humans by designating sacrificial scapegoats, which is the Girard's final solution to all problems.

In Girard's (and Thiel's) view, scapegoating isn't only an emergent outcome, it is necessary to stave off the end of the world.[3]

Thiel's support of Trump and his influence and backing of the Heritage Foundation / Project 2025 is very consistent with this philosophy.

Trump/Project 2025 make scapegoats out of immigrants, DEI, minorities, trans people, women who don't dedicate their lives to being breeding machines, ... - the list goes on.

So, in Thiel, we have:

- a gay man (who destroyed the paper that outed him out of spite) who thinks women are not just ewww, but are the reason…

You might like to read deeper on why mainstream superhero plots follow such a peculiar formula... Are they trying to teach adolescent boys something?

> "These “heroes” are purely reactionary, in the literal sense. They have no projects of their own, at least not in their role as heroes: as Clark Kent, Superman may be constantly trying, and failing, to get into Lois Lane’s pants, but as Superman, he is purely reactive. In fact, superheroes seem almost utterly lacking in imagination: like Bruce Wayne, who with all the money in the world can’t seem to think of anything to do with it other than to indulge in the occasional act of charity; it never seems to occur to Superman that he could easily carve free magic cities out of mountains.

> "Almost never do superheroes make, create, or build anything. The villains, in contrast, are endlessly creative. They are full of plans and projects and ideas. Clearly, we are supposed to first, without consciously realizing it, identify with the villains. After all, they’re having all the fun. Then of course we feel guilty for it, re-identify with the hero, and have even more fun watching the superego clubbing the errant Id back into submission."

> "It’s in this sense that the logic of the superhero plot is profoundly, deeply conservative." (http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/super-position/)

here's my review from when i saw the movie:

Finally went and saw Brave. And, I have to say, I was disappointed :(

Oh, the movie certainly had its good points. It was technically gorgeous - both the artwork and the character animation were Pixar at the top of their very considerable game. And despite complaints of the story being overly Disneyfied it was satisfyingly subversive[0] of many of the tired tropes it referenced. I didn't even mind that it was predictable[1] - fairytale movies tend to be, and that is often part of their charm.

No, what ruined it for me was that it was a fundamentally boring movie. The dialogue was bland, the humour was slapsticky (which tends to fall flat for me), the moralising was heavy handed, and there was no real tension other than that required for the linear development of the plot. Even the "jokes for the adults" that have practically become de rigueur for big-budget animated movies weren't all that funny (though I did blink a bit at the Wicker Man reference).

All in all, not one of Pixar's best.

[0] http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/just-another-princess-movie/

[1] it was nice that it ended with her going her own way rather than finding a nice boy to marry, but it wasn't really what I'd call a plot twist

Some common themes with an essay[0] I read yesterday.

Social media is to the Read/Write Web what sprawl is to the metropolis of modernity: a homogenous, cancerous, rhizomatic junkspace that expands exponentially outward on a sludgy wave of strip malls and sponsored links, greed and induced demand. This ruthless modernization produces miles of “junkspace” — a term coined by the architect Rem Koolhaas, who wrote that “more and more, more is more. Junkspace is overripe and undernourishing at the same time, a colossal security blanket that covers the earth in a stranglehold of seduction… Junkspace is like being condemned to a perpetual Jacuzzi with millions of your best friends … Seemingly an apotheosis, spatially grandiose, the effect of its richness is a terminal hollowness, a vicious parody of ambition that systematically erodes the credibility of building, possibly forever.” Koolhaas was referring to the airport and the strip-mall and the single-zone sprawl, but he could have been talking about Facebook.

[0] http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/arcades-mallrats-tumblr-thugs/

A government only accept its currency to pay taxes -> you have to pay taxes -> you need the currency even if you lose trust in it.

It's the power of raising taxes what gives money its value.

"Variations of the modern-money narrative are found repeatedly throughout history. The levying of monetary ­taxes to create waged labor was “a nearly universal experience throughout Africa” in the colonial era, explains economist Randall Wray. Hut taxes, coupled with extreme violence and racial segregation, forced unwilling migrant laborers into the gold and diamond mines of South Africa. Bernard Magubane, an anthropologist, described the purpose of these taxes as being to “increase the economic pressure on the African peasants” to force them into waged work."

from: https://thenewinquiry.com/the-world-according-to-modern-monetary-theory/

Hi. I just went off and read In Defense of Looting[1], which I'd never seen before, following its mention in your earlier post. It's fascinating. I think you should read it. It presents a very interesting perspective that many might not be familiar with and, despite the title, is not primarily a defense of looting.

Isn't this an interesting idea worth thinking about?
"Looting is extremely dangerous to the rich (and most white people) because it reveals, with an immediacy that has to be moralized away, that the idea of private property is just that: an idea, a tenuous and contingent structure of consent, backed up by the lethal force of the state."

I don't think looting is a good idea, but I do think reading that essay is. Possibly Deeray McKesson felt the same way.

[1] http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/in-defense-of-looting/