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A batch of the best highlights from what J's read, .
Prior to the Great Disembedding, cultural systems were woven into the living fabric of a people, into their social environment and natural ecology. The people, having been raised in these ideas and thus taking them for granted, did not see the need to justify or universalize their beliefs. Memes (or [memeplexes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memeplex)) only flourished if they helped the tribe flourish (e.g. helped them forage more efficiently, made them better fighters, etc.); gene-culture coevolution was tightly coupled.
The Great Disembedding
Roger’s Bacon
The effect of training people’s attention on matters of discourse and representation is to avoid addressing what is principally at issue, which are material facts. The material facts in this case are: money, land, weapons, and over 37,000 dead Palestinians.
Acts of Language | Isabella Hammad | the New York Review of Books
Isabella Hammad
This is all a kind of vulgar Thatcherism. Margaret Thatcher's mantra was "There is no alternative." She repeated this so often they called her "TINA" Thatcher: There. Is. No. Alternative. TINA.
"There is no alternative" is a cheap rhetorical slight. It's a demand dressed up as an observation. "There is no alternative" means "STOP TRYING TO THINK OF AN ALTERNATIVE." Which, you know, *fuck that*.
The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Criticizing AI
pluralistic.net
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