Category: Non Fiction

Deterrence and Escalation

In the postmodern condition, the concept of deterrence has long been framed as a cornerstone of strategic stability. It is the emblematic “Fuck around and find out,” a hollow echo of power that, like all simulacra, is severed from its original meaning. Deterrence, in this context, becomes not a genuine display of strength but a performance—a hyperreal construct where the threat of retaliation is less a material possibility and more a rhetorical device in the theater of global politics.

Deterrence functions as a simulacrum in Baudrillardian terms because it represents a reality that no longer exists. It is a placeholder for a bygone era when power was more tangible, more directly connected to physical and military might. Today, however, the reality it purportedly reflects has been replaced by a spectacle—a spectacle where the display of power is a simulacrum detached from any true substance. The phrase “Fuck around and find out” becomes an empty signifier, its menace diluted by its overuse and its detachment from any genuine capacity to enforce the threat. We find ourselves in a world where deterrence is less about preventing aggression and more about maintaining the illusion of control. This illusion allows the ruling class to “go their merry way,” unperturbed by the actual efficacy of their threats.

The escalation ladder, too, is a simulacrum—a representation of conflict dynamics that presupposes a rational actor model, where each step is calculated, each move met with an appropriate counter. Yet in reality, the ladder is flimsy, a construct of expectations that often betrays those who attempt to climb it. The very concept of “escalation dominance” becomes a form of strategic captivity, where actors are prisoners of their own expectations. The belief in the existence of a structured escalation process traps decision-makers in a cycle of preemptive actions and reactions, each driven by the anticipation of the other’s move, rather than by any grounded reality.

This strategic captivity mirrors Baudrillard’s concept of “hyperreality,” where the map precedes the territory. The expectations that guide escalation strategies are not drawn from the actual conditions on the ground but from a pre-constructed model that is believed to dictate the unfolding of events. In this sense, the participants in the escalation ladder are not strategists but actors in a play, bound by the script of their own making, unable to deviate from the roles they have assumed.

When escalation breaks down—when the carefully constructed ladder collapses under the weight of its own contradictions—the true nature of power is revealed. Here, the figure of Eric Cartman emerges, demanding respect for authority that has already been lost. “Respect my authority!” is the desperate cry of a figure whose power was never as real as it seemed. The breakdown of escalation is the breakdown of the simulacrum; it is the moment when the hyperreal collapses into absurdity, and the once-menacing threat is exposed as nothing more than farce.

The existential crisis that follows is an internal collapse—a recognition that the entire structure of deterrence and escalation was built on sand. The crisis is not merely one of authority but of the very foundation of strategic thought. The power that was once believed to be unassailable is now seen as a mirage, and the actors who once wielded it are left to confront the void. This is the final stage of Baudrillard’s simulation, where the distinction between reality and its representation is obliterated, leaving only the remnants of a failed system that can no longer maintain even the illusion of control.

In this existential collapse, we witness the ultimate failure of the simulacrum. The deterrence that once kept the world in check has been revealed as a fiction, the escalation ladder as a trap of expectations, and the authority that demanded respect as a hollow shell. The postmodern condition leaves us with no recourse but to acknowledge the flimsiness of the constructs that once governed our strategic thinking. In the end, power dissolves into its own hyperreality, and all that remains is the echo of a world that never truly existed.

The Collapse of Strategic Simulacra: RAND’s War Games and the Absence of Realism

The RAND Corporation’s war games have long been heralded as the pinnacle of strategic thought, the apex of a hyper-rational approach to understanding conflict and deterrence. These simulations, constructed in the sterile environment of think tanks and conference rooms, are rooted in the belief that human behavior can be quantified, that war can be reduced to a series of equations and decision trees.

At the heart of this intellectual edifice was the work of John Nash, whose equilibrium theory suggested that rational actors could reach a stable outcome through calculated strategies. Yet, the irony of Nash’s tragic death in a car crash alongside his wife—an event as chaotic and unpredictable as the conflicts these models sought to tame—casts a long shadow over the legacy of these war games.

Nash’s contributions to game theory were foundational to RAND’s strategic models, yet his untimely death serves as a stark reminder that reality does not conform to neat mathematical formulas. The very premise of these models—that war and conflict could be anticipated, measured, and controlled—was always a simulacrum, a hyperreal representation detached from the complexities of the real world. Nash’s equilibrium, which promised a logical pathway to stability, was but an illusion, shattered by the unpredictability of life itself.

As the once-dominant RAND models collapse, it is not merely a failure of technical design but a deeper philosophical implosion. These war games, conceived in the spirit of mathematical abstraction, ignored the irrational and often contradictory nature of human behavior. In their pursuit of a rational actor model, they created a strategic framework that, in the real world, is increasingly irrelevant. The result is a hyperreal simulation of conflict—one that appears orderly and controlled on paper but disintegrates when confronted with the chaotic realities of global power dynamics.

There is still a premium placed on cozying up to certain intellectual frameworks, however flawed, because they offer the semblance of control and authority.

These ontologies remain entrenched not because they are effective, but because they align with the interests and self-perceptions of those in power. The strategic community continues to cling to the simulacra of deterrence and escalation, not out of genuine belief in their efficacy, but because these illusions are easier to uphold than to dismantle. To confront the failures of these models would require acknowledging the deep flaws in the strategic thought that has guided policy for decades—an admission that those who benefit from the status quo are reluctant to make.

In the end, the collapse of RAND’s war games is not just a technical failure; it is an existential crisis. The irony of Nash’s death, emblematic of the unpredictability that these models could never account for, highlights the futility of trying to impose order on the chaos of human conflict through abstract mathematics. Yet, the persistence of these outdated models, driven by the need to maintain intellectual and strategic comfort, ensures that the lessons of their collapse remain unlearned.

As the world grows more complex and the limitations of

Decathexis:

A Wound to the Imaginary

Decathexis, a term often overlooked in the labyrinthine corridors of psychoanalysis, is in fact a violent act, a surgical excision of the psyche. It is the withdrawal of libidinal investment from an object, a tearing away from the phantasmatic world we have so carefully constructed. This process is not a gentle disentanglement but rather a brutal dismemberment of the psychic economy. It is a violent rupture of the libidinal investment that sustains the phantasmatic edifice, a dismantling of the imaginary order.

To cathect is to endow an object with desire, to elevate it to the status of a fetish, a talisman against the void. In this act, the subject finds a semblance of wholeness, a momentary respite from the anxiety of non-being. Yet, the phantasmatic object, however seductive, is a mere simulacrum, a deceptive promise of fulfillment.

The object, in its phantasmatic form, is a seductive mirage, a chimera constructed within the symbolic order to fill the void of the Real. It is a locus of desire, a point of fixation, a narcissistic investment. To decathect is to confront the abyssal nature of this lack, to dismantle the carefully erected scaffolding of the ego.

The object, once imbued with the subject’s desire, becomes a locus of jouissance, a point of intense pleasure and pain. To decathexis is to sever this umbilical cord, to relinquish the ecstasy of fusion and embrace the solitude of the real. It is to confront the abyss of lack, the primordial wound from which desire emerges.

Decathexis is the painful process of disavowing this illusion, of withdrawing the libidinal charge that sustains the fantasy. It is a movement from the imaginary order to the symbolic, a passage from the world of appearances to the realm of language and difference. But this transition is fraught with danger, for it exposes the subject to the abyss of the real, a traumatic encounter with the limits of signification.

The subject, in their resistance to decathexis, clings to the phantasmatic object, as a drowning man clutches at a straw as the subject is forced to confront the limitations of the imaginary order. The phantasmatic object, once a bastion of security and identity, is revealed as a mere simulacrum, a hollow shell devoid of substance. The subject is then compelled to venture into the symbolic realm, a space of language and law, where meaning is constructed and desire is mediated.

Decathexis is thus a painful initiation into the world of difference, a recognition of the irreducible gap between the self and the other. It is a mourning process, a grieving for the lost object, a melancholic withdrawal from the world of illusion. Yet, it is also a necessary step towards psychic maturation, a movement towards autonomy and subjectivity.

This clinging is a defense against the anxiety of separation, a fear of returning to the primordial state of lack. Yet, it is precisely in this moment of crisis that the potential for transcendence and transformation resides.

The process is one of mourning, a melancholic journey through the ruins of the lost object. The subject is confronted with the impossibility of fulfillment, the eternal deferral of desire. The pain is acute, a masochistic pleasure in the face of the Real.

In this dismantling, the subject is forced to relinquish the comforting illusions of the Imaginary and confront the desolate terrain of the Symbolic. It is a painful, arduous task, a necessary step in the analytic process. Yet, it is in this very desolation that the possibility of new formations, of a more authentic subjectivity, begins to emerge.

Decathexis is not a passive process, but an active struggle against the inertia of the desire. It demands a radical reorientation, a displacement of the libido onto new objects, a reconfiguration of the psychic economy. It is a painful birth, a passage through the fire of the Real, a necessary condition for the emergence of a subject capable of desire and love.

In the end, decathexis is a double-edged sword. It is a wound that bleeds desire, but it is also the opening through which new possibilities emerge. It is a necessary step in the subject’s journey towards autonomy, towards a more authentic relation to the world.

The Lie Factory

The subject’s desire, a perpetual lack, constitutes a fundamental void at the heart of the psyche. This void, a gaping maw of incompleteness, seeks incessant repletion. In the political sphere, this desire manifests as a demand for an impossible fullness, a utopian ideal that can never be attained. 

In its pursuit of fulfillment, it constructs an imaginary order, a symbolic edifice where the impossible is posited as attainable. The political sphere, as a microcosm of this larger psychic drama, becomes a stage upon which this desire is projected, magnified, and ultimately frustrated.

In the political sphere, this void is projected onto the figure of the leader, a phantasmatic object destined to fill the impossible lack. The leader, in this construction, becomes a symptom of the social body, a manifestation of its collective desire, a desire predicated on a fundamental impossibility.

The leader, in this scenario, occupies a liminal space between the subject and the impossible. As the embodiment of the symbolic order, they are endowed with the power to articulate the desires of the many into a coherent narrative. Yet, this narrative, to be effective, must promise a fulfillment that is inherently unattainable. For desire is fundamentally a lack, a void that can never be completely filled.

The subject’s demand, distinct from desire, is for a concrete, attainable object. Yet, the political promise, in its essence, is a response to desire, not demand. It is a seductive illusion, a mirage in the desert of the real. The leader, then, becomes a master of the signifier, a manipulator of language who promises to satisfy the insatiable.

The leader, in this schema, becomes the object petit a, a contingent object imbued with the power to fulfill this impossible desire.

However, the leader, a symptom of the social structure, is inherently constrained by the Real. The Real, the irreducible kernel of existence, is a realm of impossibility, a traumatic limit that cannot be symbolized or mastered. Thus, the leader,as a symbolic figure, must necessarily lie. Their promises, seductive and alluring, are merely phantasmatic constructions designed to obscure the fundamental impossibility of fulfilling the subject’s desire.

In this context the leader becomes a purveyor of illusions, a master of the signifier. Their rhetoric, a carefully crafted tapestry of promises and aspirations, serves to obscure the fundamental impossibility of the desired object. The subject, in their infinite desire for completion, is seduced by this illusory promise, investing the leader with a quasi-divine status.

The sociopath, a subject profoundly alienated from the symbolic order, is particularly adept at inhabiting this liminal space between the subject’s desire and the Real’s intransigence. Lacking a stable ego, the sociopath is free to exploit the subject’s desire without the constraints of moral or ethical considerations, they are unburdened by the constraints of reality. The sociopathic leader, then, becomes a perfect embodiment of the political lie, a figure who promises the impossible while simultaneously reveling in the subject’s perpetual disillusionment.

Lacking genuine empathy, the sociopath is liberated from the constraints of the symbolic order. Their discourse is pure performance, a seamless weaving of signifiers designed to captivate the audience. The subject, in their desperate search for fulfillment, is readily seduced by this empty rhetoric.

The election of such figures is thus a testament to the fundamental disillusionment of the subject. Aware of the impossibility of their desires, the subject invests in the fantasy offered by the political lie. It is a perverse pact, a cynical arrangement wherein the subject sacrifices truth for the illusion of hope. The sociopath, in turn, exploits this vulnerability, becoming a symptom of a society that has lost touch with the real.

The question remains: can the subject be liberated from this cycle of desire and disillusionment? Can a politics based on truth and accountability emerge from the ruins of the fantasy? Or is the sociopathic leader an inevitable consequence of the subject’s fundamental alienation?

It is in this dialectic between the desiring subject and the deceitful leader that the pathology of contemporary politics is revealed. The system, predicated on the perpetual deferral of gratification, ensures the continued reproduction of power. The people, trapped in a cycle of hope and disillusionment, remain eternally complicit in their own subjugation.

The subject, in their infinite desire for completion, is complicit in this masquerade. The belief in the possibility of a perfect leader, a messianic figure who will eradicate suffering and injustice, is a testament to the subject’s refusal to accept the fundamental lack that constitutes their being. The election of sociopaths, therefore, is not merely a symptom of a failing political system but a reflection of the subject’s own desire for a master, a figure who can bear the burden of the Real and offer illusory satisfaction in its place.

Shared Values

In the labyrinthine corridors of modern politics and ideology, the concept of “shared values” emerges as a monolithic beacon, guiding disparate factions towards a semblance of unity. Yet, this beacon is an elaborate illusion, masking the gory underbelly of historical sins and geopolitical machinations. To dissect this paradox, we must traverse the grimy streets of history and politics, with a gaze sharp enough to cut through the fog of propaganda and deception. Enter the grotesque dance of Nazi scientists, Ukrainian Bandera, and Israeli apartheid—a sordid ménage à trois that reveals the shocking and often sinister dynamics of shared values.

In the post-World War II world, the integration of former Nazi scientists into the corridors of American and Soviet scientific establishments was not merely a strategic move but a harbinger of ideological compromise. These men, tainted by their participation in the barbarities of the Third Reich, were absorbed into Western scientific ventures under the aegis of “shared values”—or more precisely, shared strategic interests. The value in question was not one of ethical consistency or moral purity but a cynical calculation of utility. The promises of technological advancement and military superiority were deemed more critical than the ideological baggage these scientists carried.

Thus, the concept of shared values here is not an ethical stance but a transactional agreement—a perverse form of camaraderie built on mutual benefit rather than mutual respect. The U.S. and its allies, hungry for the spoils of Nazi scientific prowess, extended an olive branch to those who had once danced to the tune of fascism. The values in question were not about human dignity or democratic ideals but about leveraging the horrific legacies of the past to secure a more dominant position in the future.

Turn your gaze to Ukraine, where the figure of Stepan Bandera stands as a symbol of nationalist fervor and ethnic purity. Bandera’s collaboration with the Nazis during World War II complicates his legacy—a fact often glossed over in contemporary nationalist rhetoric. His vision of Ukrainian independence, which entailed violent purges and collaboration with the very forces that sought to annihilate millions, clashes with the supposed values of democracy and human rights that his modern admirers claim to uphold. The manipulation of Bandera’s legacy to bolster a sense of national pride while obscuring the violent and exclusionary aspects of his ideology reveals another facet of the shared values fallacy.

In the Israeli context, the term apartheid emerges as a haunting echo of South Africa’s racial segregation, reconfigured to describe the political and social realities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Israeli state, born from the ashes of the Holocaust and positioned as a haven for Jews worldwide, has become embroiled in an ongoing struggle that involves not only questions of territorial sovereignty but also the moral imperatives of human rights. The shared values here are once again exposed as a duplicitous construct—one that aligns itself with the historical suffering of Jews while perpetuating its own forms of exclusion and control over another population.

The irony is as stark as it is troubling: the moral currency of shared values, which was once a means to unite disparate factions under the guise of higher principles, has been debased into a tool for justifying the perpetuation of historical grievances and geopolitical exploitation. The grotesque ballet of Nazi scientists, Bandera’s legacy, and Israeli apartheid is a testament to how shared values can be reconfigured, twisted, and manipulated to serve ends far removed from their purported ethical origins.

The shared values paradigm is less a beacon of moral clarity and more a sprawling circus of political and ideological expediency. It reveals how historical sins, nationalist fervor, and geopolitical strategies converge in a macabre dance that perpetuates the cycles of violence and oppression. In this hall of mirrors, the values shared are not those of universal human dignity but of strategic advantage, ideological convenience, and historical amnesia.

Thus, the paradox of shared values—revealed through the machinations of Nazi scientists, Bandera’s legacy, and Israeli apartheid—is a stark reminder of the dissonance between professed principles and the grim realities of their application. The shared values of our time are less about enlightenment and more about the preservation and perpetuation of power through the sleight of hand of historical revisionism and political expediency.

Transhumans

Man, the monkey with a machine, has built a cage around himself. A glittering, sterile cage of steel and glass. He swings from bar to bar, a captive acrobat, his tricks designed for the amusement of no one but himself. A god-monkey, he has fashioned a world in his image, a mechanical Eden, a plastic paradise.. The monkey with a machine, dreams of a world spun from his guts, a sterile womb of steel and glass. A womb where the sun is a bulb, the wind a hum, and the earth a flat, featureless plane. He craves the antiseptic, the predictable, the world as a clockwork toy, wound tight and ticking to his rhythm. But this is a narcotic dream, a junkie’s high, a desperate attempt to flee the chaos of creation.This paradise is a prison, and the bars are his own creation

To build this plastic prison, he must first become plastic. His flesh, once raw and responsive, is encased in a shell of chrome and concrete. His heart, a jungle of desire and fear, is replaced by a transistor’s calm efficiency. He is the architect and the slave of his design, a puppet dancing on strings of his own making.

The flesh must be wired, the mind programmed. We are the software for our own hardware. A constant update, a perpetual reprogramming. We shed our skins like snakes, only to replace them with a newer, shinier model. We are the products of our consumption, and the consumers of ourselves.

The world is a zoo now, man behind bars of his own design. Concrete canyons, steel jungles, electric meadows—a sterile terrarium for a captive breed. He’s built a cage, gilded and wired, and stuffed himself inside. A cosmic narcissist, he’s erected a monument to his own image, only to find it a distorting mirror.

And in this manicured wasteland, he’s become a bonsai version of himself, clipped and pruned to fit the pot.

The old gods are dead, replaced by the gods of the machine. Man, the measure of all things, is now the measured, a cog in a clockwork universe. He’s traded his soul for a silicon chip, his spirit for a spectral signal. And in this digital dreamtime, he’s lost himself, a ghost haunting the machine he’s created.

The old gods of earth and sky are replaced by the new gods of data and speed. Man, the measure of all things, becomes the measured, a mere cog in the great machine of his own devising. He yearns for connection, for warmth, for the touch of soil beneath his nails, but his world is a sterile void, a black hole sucking in all that is human.

And so, he doubles down, injects more plastic into his veins, builds higher walls, creates deeper chasms. A desperate attempt to drown out the echo of his own emptiness. But the void only grows, a black sun at the center of his manufactured universe. And in the end, he will find that the only escape from this plastic prison is to shatter it, to crawl out of the ruins, and to begin again, naked and afraid, in the raw, indifferent embrace of the world.

There’s a joke in there somewhere, a black laugh at the absurdity of it all. Man, the ape-turned-architect, trapped in his own tower of Babel. A tragicomic farce played out on a global stage. And the punchline? We’re still writing it.

Tech Cycles

I have always been curious about what a tech cycle looks like from up close, the mechanics of it, the raw gears grinding beneath the polished veneer. As this last one scrapes the bottom of the barrel and sputters to its inevitable end, it’s worth noting that innovations like the first iPod or the latest LLMs are, in their essence, affect machines. They could rewire entire systems of perception if used properly. But tech people, with their near-religious devotion to speed, to the thrill of the next release, to the relentless pursuit of dopamine, are too caught up in the rush to truly savor affects.

They’re the speed freaks, the ones whose minds race at a thousand miles an hour, always two steps ahead, but never quite present. They can’t afford to slow down, to feel the ripples of emotion and sensation that affect brings. In their world, everything is reduced to a hit, a spike in the data, a momentary high before the next fix is needed. The machinery of tech hums along, fueled by this insatiable hunger for speed, for progress that’s always just out of reach.

Meanwhile, those outside this digital cyclone—artists, thinkers, those who dwell in the messy, unpredictable world of affect—are tripping through the kaleidoscope, inhabiting a different temporality altogether. They follow the slow, undulating rhythms of feeling, of experience, their minds tuned to the subtle shifts in light and shadow, in mood and tone. They navigate the spaces between, where tech’s binary rigidity falters, where the infinite complexity of human emotion unfolds.

Remember the Hawkwind quote: “the band was built on one bunch of guys taking acid and another bunch of guys taking speed, and they never got along because they were inhabiting different temporalities.” Tech is the speed, always hurtling forward, barely aware of the ground beneath. Art is the acid, dissolving boundaries, blurring lines, steeping in the affective present. The collision of these temporalities creates a dissonance, a disconnect that neither side can fully reconcile.

And so, the tech cycle spins on, driven by speed, by the relentless pursuit of the next hit of dopamine, while the affects remain in the periphery, sensed but not fully grasped, felt but never truly integrated. It’s a loop, a circuit that never quite completes, always racing ahead but never arriving, always seeking but never finding the depth, the richness that lies just outside the frantic beat of the digital age.

No medium lasts forever, but affects mostly do. The critical distinction lies in how they evolve over time. Dopamine, the quick fix, the rush of the new, inevitably turns to cortisol—the stress of keeping up, the anxiety of the chase. What once thrilled now grates, what once sparked joy now triggers fatigue. The cycle of dopamine-fueled tech and innovation is unsustainable, leading to burnout as the novelty wears off and the demands increase.

Affects, on the other hand, have a way of self-renovating. They aren’t just a fleeting chemical response but a deeper, more enduring resonance within us. Affects grow, shift, and adapt—they transform with us, renewing themselves through new contexts, new interpretations, new emotional landscapes. While the medium through which they’re delivered may fade, the affects continue to evolve, sustaining their relevance and power long after the original source is gone.

In this way, affects hold a kind of timeless vitality that dopamine-driven experiences lack. They renew themselves, reflecting the ever-changing nature of human experience, while the mediums we rely on to trigger that dopamine rush eventually falter, leaving only stress and dissatisfaction in their wake.

Tech Barriers

The barriers within the tech industry do not emerge from some inherent or natural order; rather, they are the result of a symbolic construction, carefully inscribed within the social fabric through a process akin to gerrymandering. These barriers are not neutral but are inscribed with a political logic that serves to maintain the dominance of certain subjects within the field of technology, positioning them as the ‘masters’ of this symbolic order.

The costs and externalities associated with technological development—the environmental degradation, the erosion of privacy, the deepening of social divides—are not mere accidents or side effects. They are the necessary disavowals, the repressed Real that threatens to erupt within the symbolic, yet is meticulously managed and contained through political mechanisms. These mechanisms ensure that these externalities remain the Other, kept at bay to protect the coherence of the symbolic order.

In this light, the so-called ‘natural’ evolution of technology is revealed as a fantasy, a narrative constructed to mask the underlying political machinations that maintain the status quo. The barriers that appear as inevitable are, in fact, contingent, produced by a symbolic order that is always-already structured by power. It is through this lens that we must understand the tech industry’s dynamics, not as the unfolding of some universal law, but as the operation of a hegemonic discourse that seeks to perpetuate its own logic, even as it disavows the costs it imposes on the Real.

In Lacanian terms, the Real represents what is outside the symbolic order—those aspects of existence that cannot be fully captured, articulated, or symbolized. It’s the chaotic, ungraspable force that constantly threatens to disrupt the constructed reality maintained by the symbolic order.

When you ask how the Real is going to rewrite the symbolic order, you’re essentially inquiring about the moments when the unrepresentable, the traumatic, or the unsymbolizable breaks into the established structures of meaning and disrupts them. The Real has the potential to destabilize the symbolic order because it reveals the latter’s limitations, inconsistencies, and the gaps in its logic.

The rewriting of the symbolic order by the Real might occur through various forms of rupture:

  1. Crisis: A technological, environmental, or social crisis could bring the repressed aspects of the Real—like ecological devastation or massive inequality—into the forefront, exposing the symbolic order’s failure to adequately manage these realities. This exposure forces a reconfiguration of the symbolic structures to accommodate or respond to the intrusion of the Real.
  2. Subversion: Acts of subversion, whether by individuals or groups, can channel aspects of the Real into the symbolic order in ways that challenge the existing power structures. This could involve bringing into discourse those elements that were previously excluded, marginalized, or repressed, thereby destabilizing the current symbolic network.
  3. Trauma: A traumatic event, something that cannot be easily integrated into the symbolic order, can cause a fundamental shift in how reality is perceived and symbolized. The symbolic order may attempt to reconstitute itself around this trauma, but in doing so, it necessarily transforms, creating new meanings, new identities, and new structures of power.

In these ways, the Real, though by nature elusive and resistant to symbolization, can force the symbolic order to undergo transformation. However, this transformation is never complete or final; the symbolic order will reconstitute itself around the disruptions, incorporating elements of the Real while still attempting to maintain a coherent structure. Thus, the rewriting of the symbolic order by the Real is a continuous process, marked by moments of rupture, reconfiguration, and reconstitution.

In the context of Lacanian theory, the slowing of Moore’s Law, the end of Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP), and the tech industry “scraping the barrel” can be seen as moments where the Real begins to intrude upon and destabilize the symbolic order that has long governed the tech industry’s narrative and economic logic.

Moore’s Law and the Limits of the Symbolic Order

Moore’s Law, which predicted the exponential increase in computing power, has functioned as a kind of master-signifier within the tech industry—a symbolic guarantee that progress is both inevitable and infinite. As the pace of Moore’s Law slows, we encounter a limit within the symbolic order, where the expected endless progression begins to falter. This slowing represents a crack in the symbolic structure, where the Real—the material limitations of silicon, energy, and physics—begins to assert itself, challenging the fantasy of boundless technological growth.

The End of ZIRP and Economic Disruption

The end of ZIRP marks another intrusion of the Real into the symbolic order. ZIRP had created a financial environment that sustained tech industry valuations, investments, and speculative growth, allowing for the fantasy of infinite liquidity and risk-free capital. As interest rates rise, the Real economic forces—scarcity, risk, and the cost of capital—start to disrupt this symbolic order, exposing the fragility of the tech industry’s reliance on cheap money. This shift forces a re-evaluation of business models, valuations, and investment strategies, rewriting the symbolic order to acknowledge the new economic realities.

Tech Scraping the Barrel and the Exhaustion of Innovation

The idea that the tech industry is “scraping the barrel” suggests that the industry is running up against the limits of its own creative and innovative capacities. This is another point where the Real disrupts the symbolic order. The tech industry’s narrative of perpetual innovation and disruption—a key part of its symbolic identity—faces a crisis as genuine breakthroughs become harder to achieve. The Real here is the exhaustion of easy gains, the diminishing returns on existing technologies, and the unfulfilled promises of radical new innovations. As these limits become apparent, the symbolic order is forced to adapt, perhaps by shifting focus to new narratives (like AI) or by acknowledging the need for more fundamental shifts in technological paradigms.

Rewriting the Symbolic Order

These developments—slowing Moore’s Law, the end of ZIRP, and the scraping of the tech barrel—represent the Real’s intrusion into the symbolic order, forcing it to confront its own limits and inadequacies. The symbolic order, which once revolved around the fantasy of endless growth, innovation, and prosperity, must now be rewritten. This rewriting might involve a new symbolic logic that integrates these limitations, acknowledges the material constraints, and reconfigures the narrative of technological progress.

However, this process will not be smooth or straightforward. The tech industry, like any symbolic order, will resist acknowledging these intrusions, attempting instead to manage or disavow the Real’s disruptions. But as these limits continue to assert themselves, the symbolic order will inevitably undergo transformation, perhaps leading to new forms of technological and economic understanding that more accurately reflect the realities of our current moment.

Spiritual Reaganites

The Reaganite Sublime:

The Reagan era, a black hole of consumerist excess and evangelical fervor, sucked in the nation with a force that rivals a supernova. At its core, a spiritual singularity, a Reaganite void, a Lacanian lacuna, where the Real of the market met the Imaginary of the blessed. These were the spiritual Reaganites, the true believers in the gospel of greed and God, their minds a labyrinth of desire and deficit.

To invoke Reagan, that spectral behemoth of American mythos, is to summon a phantasmagoria of excess, a carnivalesque delirium where the sublime and the ridiculous entwine in a grotesque pas de deux. Consider the Reaganite, that peculiar subspecies of homo sapiens, a creature of paradox, a being at once hyper-individualistic and deeply enmeshed in a collective dream of prosperity and power.In the labyrinthine depths of the Reaganite psyche, where the logic of the market meets the metaphysics of the divine, we find a peculiar breed of spiritual seeker.

They were the children of the suburbs, raised on a diet of television and fast food, their minds a blank slate upon which the cultural script was written. They were taught to desire, to consume, to believe. But deep down, they yearned for something more, a sense of purpose, a connection to something larger than themselves.

The Reaganite sublime is a curious phenomenon, a distillation of the American Dream into a quasi-religious experience. It is a vision of a nation as Eden, a place where material abundance and moral rectitude are inextricably linked. It is the sublime of the shopping mall, the fast food joint, the endless highway. It is a sublime of consumption, of excess, of the insatiable desire for more. Yet, curiously, it is also a sublime of the spirit, of a return to a mythic America, a land of apple pie and picket fences, where God and country are synonymous.

The prosperity gospel, a theological doctrine that equates wealth with divine favor, finds fertile ground in this cultural milieu. In the Reaganite imagination, economic success is not merely a measure of personal achievement but a sign of election, a testament to one’s alignment with a cosmic order. The entrepreneur becomes a prophet, the stock market a sacred text.

Consider the televangelist, a figure of spectral authority, their voice a carrier wave for the commodity fetish. Their sermons, a carnival of signification, where the cross was a branding iron and the Holy Spirit a marketing consultant. The congregation, a flock of desiring machines, their wallets open like sacrificial lambs, their souls traded for the promise of prosperity. This is the Real of the market, the cold logic of capital, cloaked in the soft drapery of the sacred.

Yet, beneath the surface of this triumphalist narrative lurks a deep-seated anxiety, a fear of falling from grace, of being cast out of the promised land. The Reaganite’s embrace of individualism is a defense against this primordial terror, a desperate attempt to control one’s destiny in a world perceived as increasingly chaotic. The self becomes a fortress, a bastion against the encroaching tides of uncertainty. This is the underside of the Reaganite sublime, a dark mirror image of the sunny optimism that defines the movement.

Lacan might suggest that the Reaganite is a subject in perpetual pursuit of a lost object, a primordial unity that has been fragmented by the exigencies of the symbolic order.

The Reaganite subject, a fractured entity, split between the demands of the ego and the allure of the Other. The Other, in this case, a phantasmic America, a land of milk and honey, where everyone owned a Cadillac and a Bible. This is the Imaginary, a world of illusion, where desire is endlessly deferred, a mirage shimmering on the horizon of the American Dream.

The material wealth and power so coveted by the Reaganite are, in this view, desperate attempts to suture the wound of separation, to restore a sense of wholeness. The spiritual dimension of Reaganism can be seen as a parallel quest, a search for meaning and purpose in a world that often seems devoid of both.

The Real, the raw, traumatic core of existence, is perhaps glimpsed in the shadows of the Reagan era: the crack epidemic, the rise of AIDS, the growing chasm between the haves and the have-nots. The Symbolic, the order imposed on chaos, is the Reagan myth itself, a grand narrative of American exceptionalism and renewal. And the Imaginary, the world of images and desires, is the glossy facade of Reagan-era prosperity, a world of big hair, shoulder pads, and material excess.

The Reaganite, then, is a subject caught in a perpetual oscillation between these three orders. They yearn for the return of a mythical past, a lost Imaginary, while simultaneously being complicit in the construction of a Symbolic order that is increasingly at odds with the realities of the Real. This tension, this internal contradiction, is the engine that drives the Reaganite psyche.

It is in this liminal space, between dream and reality, between the sacred and the profane, that the Reaganite finds a peculiar form of spiritual fulfillment. The shopping mall becomes a sacred space, a place of pilgrimage where the faithful can consume and be consumed. The television, that oracular device, becomes a portal to a higher reality, a realm where problems are solved with a quip and the world is always sunny.

The Reaganite’s faith is a faith in the spectacle, in the image, in the illusion. It is a faith that demands nothing of its adherents except a willingness to believe. And yet, perhaps, this is a faith for our time, a faith that acknowledges the absurdity of the human condition while offering a comforting narrative to make sense of it all.

In the end, the Reaganite sublime is a chimera, a phantom of desire. It is a world that never was and never will be, yet it continues to haunt the American psyche, a spectral presence that refuses to die. And so, we are left to wander through this postmodern wasteland, searching for meaning in the ruins of the Reagan era, haunted by the ghosts of a past that refuses to be laid to rest.

In the end, the Reaganite sublime is a complex and contradictory phenomenon, a cultural formation that both reflects and reinforces the contradictions of American society. It is a testament to the human capacity for hope and despair, for creation and destruction. To understand the Reaganite is to confront the dark heart of the American Dream, to acknowledge the ways in which our desires for individual fulfillment and collective salvation are inextricably intertwined.

influencers, podcasters, crypto scammers, and small-town tyrants

One might approach influencers, podcasters, crypto scammers, and small-town tyrants as figures who occupy different positions within the symbolic order, each representing a distinct mode of desire and the manipulation of the Other.

Influencers are the epitome of the Imaginary, where the ego is constituted through the gaze of the Other. They craft an idealized image, an objet petit a, that their followers endlessly pursue but can never fully obtain. This image functions as a mirror, reflecting not only the influencer’s own narcissism but also the desires of their audience. The influencer becomes the embodiment of the “ideal ego,” a figure who is both desired and envied, sustaining the illusion of wholeness in a fragmented symbolic landscape.

Podcasters operate within the register of the Symbolic, where discourse takes precedence over image. They engage in what Lacan would describe as the “talking cure,” but rather than facilitating the subject’s entry into the symbolic order, they often reinforce the subject’s alienation. The podcaster’s voice, a manifestation of the “big Other,” creates a pseudo-intimacy that masks the subject’s fundamental lack. Their narratives and conversations are structured around the promise of insight or enlightenment, but this is merely a lure, as the true desire lies in the endless consumption of discourse—a jouissance that traps the listener in a cycle of repetition.

Crypto scammers embody the Real in their exploitation of the symbolic order’s gaps and inconsistencies. They operate in a realm where signifiers lose their mooring, where value is untethered from any stable referent. The crypto scam is a masterstroke of the “foreclosed signifier,” a promise of wealth that exists only in the imaginary and whose inevitable collapse reveals the void at the heart of the symbolic. In this sense, the crypto scammer is a figure of radical jouissance, one who derives pleasure from the destabilization of the symbolic order itself.

Small-town tyrants represent a return to the Imaginary, but with a twist. They are figures of paternal authority, standing in for the “Name-of-the-Father,” but their power is not rooted in the symbolic law but in the arbitrary exercise of will. Their authority is a simulacrum, a hollow echo of the real paternal function, and their tyranny is a performance designed to mask their own lack. In the Lacanian sense, they are figures of “phallic jouissance,” deriving pleasure from the subjugation of others, but this pleasure is tainted by the ever-present threat of castration—the recognition of their own impotence within the broader symbolic order.

In sum, these figures—whether influencer, podcaster, crypto scammer, or small-town tyrant—are all caught in the web of desire, each embodying a different facet of Lacan’s triadic structure of the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Real. Their actions and personas are strategies for managing the fundamental lack that defines subjectivity, yet in doing so, they reveal the very structures they seek to escape. They are not merely players in a game of power and influence; they are symptoms of the social order’s own inherent contradictions, which they simultaneously exploit and are entrapped by.

Champions of the Done Deal

Activism, in its most earnest and self-congratulatory form, often resembles a group of people loudly shouting at a parade they believe they’ve organized, while the parade marches on oblivious to their presence. They don’t realize that the band was already playing, the confetti was already falling, and the crowd was already cheering long before they picked up their signs. Take, for instance, the secularization of society—a grand process set into motion by the grinding gears of time, by the natural erosion of old certainties in the face of new doubts. But our plucky activists, armed with righteous indignation and a few catchy slogans, took to the streets as if they were the architects of this grand transformation.

They weren’t leading a charge; they were merely racing to the front of a movement that had already lapped them several times, hoping to be seen as the heroes of a battle that had been won before they even showed up. It’s like standing over the corpse of a once-great beast, delivering a rousing speech about the triumph of slaying it, all the while ignoring the fact that the poor creature had already died of natural causes. This, of course, is the essence of activism: the noble art of taking credit for inevitabilities and then basking in the self-satisfaction of a victory that was never really theirs.

So there they were, these champions of the obvious, these valiant defenders of the done deal. Like frantic squirrels hoarding acorns in a barren oak, they clung to the fading husk of a world order that had already sprouted new and altogether godless trees. They were, in essence, a horde of religious relic hunters, digging furiously for dinosaur bones in a bustling metropolis. The age of faith was a fossil, and they were the museum curators of a bygone era, desperately trying to stuff it into a display case. It was a noble pursuit, I suppose, if a tad delusional. After all, what’s more heroic than tilting at windmills that ceased to exist centuries ago?

They were a peculiar breed, these activists, convinced they were midwives to a new age. But the baby had already been born, slipped out unnoticed while they were still fussing over the amniotic sac. The world was already a secular place, a godless, grinning expanse, and they were merely dancing on the grave of the old gods, their frantic jig a desperate attempt to stay relevant. It was like trying to stop a runaway freight train by throwing pebbles at it. A futile, comical spectacle, really.