Category: Non Fiction

Systems Thinking

Most systems research, it’s a kind of digital voodoo, a techno-shaman dance around the void. They conjure up these phantoms of utility, these spectral promises of a better tomorrow, built on the bones of yesterday’s discarded dreams. It’s a leap into the black, a wager on the unknown, a bet that this particular configuration of ones and zeros will somehow, magically, transmute the muddled, broken present into a gleaming, efficient future.

You got these smoke-and-mirrors projects, built on the hope that a useless contraption, some black box of ones and zeros, might somehow fix another useless contraption. It’s like trying to cure cancer with a Ouija board. A chain of maybes limping along on promises of future grace, a Rube Goldberg machine of wishful thinking, leading to a system that’s mostly a crippled beast,

Crypto, like systems research, operates in a speculative loop where each layer of promise is built upon another, teetering on the brink of collapse or breakthrough. It’s a recursive Ouroboros, where the digital snake devours its tail in hopes that, at some indeterminate point, it will transform into something greater. The faithful march forward, armed with algorithms and white papers, convinced that today’s inefficiencies, today’s absurd complexities, are but necessary sacrifices for a future that shimmers just out of reach.

But in the present, all we have are clunky protocols, Byzantine workarounds, and a marketplace more volatile than stable, more theoretical than real. The pitch is always the same: this new blockchain, this new token, this new consensus mechanism might solve the problems of the last. And so, the cycle continues, with each leap of faith promising that the next iteration, the next upgrade, will finally deliver on the grand narrative spun since the genesis block. But like a mirage in the desert, the closer you get, the further it fades, leaving you to wonder if the whole journey was just a clever illusion—a glitch in the matrix of finance and technology.

In this world, belief isn’t just currency; it’s the code that underpins everything. Yet for all its talk of decentralization and disruption, crypto often feels like it’s circling the same cul-de-sacs as the systems it claims to transcend, perpetually refining itself while never quite breaking free.

But the odds are long, the house always wins, and the prize is often a casino chip worth less than the cost of the ticket in.It’s a leap of faith, sure, but more like a bungee jump off a skyscraper without a cord.

Everything is Subjunctive

Subjectivity Implies Reality’s Contingency:

“Everything is subjective” is a performative contradiction, a metaphysical sleight of hand. The assertion of subjectivity as a universal condition paradoxically institutes a meta-subjectivity, a transcendental signifier that grounds the very groundlessness it proclaims. This is the insidious logic of the logocentric, a phantom objectivity haunting the spectral realm of the subjective. The subjunctive, often relegated to the margins of grammatical discourse, is here elevated to an ontological principle. Yet, in this elevation, it is also diminished, reduced to a mere modality of the subjective.

The subjunctive, a mode of potentiality, of what could be, is thus conscripted into the service of a metaphysics of indeterminacy. This is a curious operation, a dialectic of affirmation and negation. On the one hand, the subjunctive opens up a space of infinite possibility, a horizon of undecidability. On the other, it is confined within the limits of the subjective, a bounded field of experience.

The play between the subjective and the subjunctive, between the actual and the potential, is a chiasmic entanglement.The one is always already implicated in the other, and vice versa. In this sense, the claim “everything is subjective” is not merely a description of the world but a performative act that constructs the world as such. It is a deconstruction of the metaphysical edifice, a dismantling of the hierarchical opposition between subject and object, appearance and reality. Yet,in this deconstruction, new structures of power and meaning emerge, new forms of domination and exclusion.

The question then becomes: Can the subjunctive be liberated from the constraints of subjectivity? Can it become a site of radical alterity, a space beyond the reach of metaphysics? Or is it doomed to remain a captive of the logocentric order, a ghost haunting the machine of representation?

A “presque” Deleuzian Perspective

To assert “everything is subjective” is to posit a false unity, a phantom totality. It is to impose a static order upon the ceaseless flux of becoming. Subjectivity, in this sense, is a molar construct, a rigid form that arrests the nomadic flow of desire.

Rather than a realm of personal opinion, the subjective is a field of intensities, a dynamic interplay of forces. It is not a bounded territory but an open, expansive plane. To say “everything is subjunctive” might appear to align with this,suggesting a world of potentiality. However, the subjunctive is still trapped within the confines of representation, of a language bound by grammar and logic.

Deleuze would insist on a move beyond subjectivity, towards a becoming-imperceptible. The true plane of immanence is not subjective or objective but a pure difference without identity. It is a field of intensities where desire flows freely,unhindered by the molar formations of subjectivity. To truly grasp the world, one must become a nomad, a line of flight escaping the sedentary order of representation. The subjunctive, while hinting at a world beyond the given, ultimately remains within the horizon of the possible, a realm still circumscribed by the virtual.

To truly think without a subject is to enter the abyss of pure creation, to become a force of difference. Only then can we begin to understand the world as a rhizomatic multiplicity, a dynamic network without center or hierarchy.

EVERYTHING IS SUBJUNCTIVE

The assertion “everything is subjunctive” is a provocative invitation into a deconstructive exploration of language and ontology. It dismantles the rigid structures of logic and metaphysics, opening up a space of infinite deferral. The subjunctive, often marginalized as a grammatical mood of potentiality, becomes the fundamental mode of being, challenging the metaphysics of presence and refusing the absolute.

This subjunctive realm is not a utopian escape but a site of perpetual negotiation, where meaning is always in flux. It posits language as a ceaseless play of signifiers without ultimate signified, transforming the subjunctive from a mere grammatical construct into an ontological condition.

Reality, then, becomes a chiasm of the actual and the virtual, an interplay of presence and absence. This perspective destabilizes the foundations of metaphysics, dissolving the rigid dichotomies that have long dominated philosophical thought.

The subjunctive becomes the haunting specter of what could be, a ghost in the machine of language. However, it is not a realm of pure freedom but a site of complex interrelations, a network of differences. It is within this différance that the world unfolds, a perpetual becoming without origin or end.

This view invites us to reconsider our understanding of existence, truth, and meaning, proposing a more fluid and dynamic ontology that embraces potentiality and ambiguity as fundamental aspects of reality.

Repetition

The subjunctive transcends its grammatical origins, emerging as a cosmic force and vital intensity. It represents the plane of immanence where all possibilities converge and diverge, forming a rhizome of potentialities. This dynamic flow escapes the constraints of representation, revealing the true nature of becoming—a process without subject or object, a pure event.

In this perspective, the universe is not a realm of uncertainty but a field of infinite creativity, a space for inventing new worlds. The actual world is always a partial realization of a virtual multiplicity, where the subjunctive acts as the generative power itself.

To embrace the subjunctive is to affirm the joy of creation and the ecstasy of difference. It represents the nomadic movement beyond the fixed and determined, a vitalism without ground. This cosmic force embodies the affirmation of difference over identity, of becoming over being.

In essence, the subjunctive becomes the lifeblood of reality’s rhizomatic structure, fostering multiple, open-ended connections. It is not a modalization of the possible but the pure event itself, a ceaseless differentiation that shapes our understanding of existence and potential.

The subjunctive is the collapse of the subject-object dichotomy. It is the dissolution of the rigid structures of representation. It is the affirmation of a world without guarantees, a universe of pure intensity. In this sense, the subjunctive is not merely a linguistic mode but a cosmic condition, a fundamental ontological principle.

Dark Humor/American Collapse

Collapse, a word for the wordless. No laughter here, only the echo of a joke lost in the static. Soviet black, French absinthe green, Spanish crimson – these were the hues of humor, once. Now, the palette is gray, the canvas smeared with the fingerprints of empire. Vonnegut, Pynchon, high-rise clowns juggling fire in a burning circus. We are the ground floor,the crushed and trampled, the dirt beneath their manicured nails. Germany, a shadow over the future, a specter haunting the neon dreamscape. No humor here, only the cold logic of decay.

I guess one difference between our collapse and others is that we don’t really have any black humorists in the vein of late Soviet dark satire, French fin de siecle, Spanish picaresque, east european surrealism or British absurdism.

Maybe Kurt Vonnegut or Thomas Pynchon but they’re both “high empire” 🤔

We’re more like Germany😐

Collapse, a word. A tumor in the throat of time. No clowns, no jesters. Just a vast, gray, grinding machine. Soviet black, French decay, Spanish grift, Eastern Bloc dreamscapes, Brit wit – all these cancers, they had their court fools. But us? We’re the punchline, the mark, the empty stage. Vonnegut, Pynchon, high-empire clowns, but clowns nonetheless. A circus before the fire. Now, it’s Berlin ’45, the joke’s gone sour, and the world’s the punchline.

A Collapse Without Laughter

Our collapse is a flatulent beast, a gaseous golem birthed in the fetid womb of consumerism. No Gogol to sneer, no Beckett to wail, no Cervantes to mock. Just a dreary, endless parade of automatons shuffling through the ruins of meaning. Vonnegut and Pynchon, those carnival barkers of the high empire, can’t disguise the stench of decay beneath their colorful tents. We are the clowns without makeup, the acrobats without nets, the punchline to a joke nobody wants to hear. Germany, a cold, efficient machine, grinding out its own brand of despair. We are the spare parts, rusting in the rain.

History of Violence

Man, a junkie scratching at the scabs of history, digging for the bone beneath the plaster. 

Also Man, a junkie for clean hands. His story a wet dream of innocence, a snow job centuries deep. Violence, the original sin, painted over like a cheap whorehouse facade

History, a junkie’s needle, tracks the red line of violence. A mainline into the heart of darkness.

Ages of red, raw fact scrubbed clean, painted over with angel piss and unicorn smiles. Violence, the old, faithful whore, always there, but hidden behind a veil of cotton and lies. 

Every conquest, a fresh coat of whitewash, every revolution a new shade of denial. We are the ghosts in the wallpaper, the screams muffled by centuries of silence.

They paint it white, these pushers of progress, slick with lies like a cheap fix. Empires built on blood, scrubbed clean for the schoolbooks.

We’re a species of housepainters, dabbing whitewash on the crimson canvas of existence. Every masterpiece a lie, every brushstroke a denial. We’ve built a world on denial, a tower of lies reaching for the antiseptic sky. And at the top, a god in our own image, a porcelain doll dripping with the blood we refuse to see.

Every conquest a fresh coat of whitewash, another lie to nod off to.

Violence, the original sin, buried deep, but it seeps through, red stains on the soul of civilization.

Intersectional Racism

When he does it, it’s the old-time religion, the serpent’s tongue forked and hissing in the jungle night. Bad blood, pure and simple. A virus in the bloodstream, a tumor on the soul. But when we do it, it’s a quantum leap, a fractal unfolding of consciousness. Intersectionality, they call it, a buzzword for the new age witch doctor, a mantra for the chemically lobotomized masses.

When they spew the poison, it’s a plague rat’s hiss, a leprous howl of hate. But when we chant the mantra, it’s a symphony of liberation, a cleansing fire against the white devil’s world. Intersectionality, the opiate of the marginalized, dulls the pain of their boot on our necks. It’s a language virus, mutating meaning, twisting truth into a pretzel logic for the comfort of the guilty.

When they project the spectral shadow of ancestral evil onto the canvas of the present, it is vile, a cancer on the soul. When we, however, cast the same spectral shadow, it is a kaleidoscope of liberation, a necessary evil in the labyrinth of systemic oppression.

Eschatologies are Existential dissociations.

Eschatologies are the junkie’s nod to nothingness, a cosmic cut-out, a freefall from the self into the sterile white light of oblivion. They’re the ultimate comedown, the final fix without a rush, the terminal buzz that leaves you cold and alone in the infinite waiting room.

Eschatologies, those terminal dreams of a world unwound, are the acid-flashbacks of the soul, a cosmic hangover from the ultimate bender. We’re all just junkies shooting up the future, chasing the dragon of meaning in a universe that’s already overdosed. Existential dissociation is the needle in the arm of time, pumping the void straight into your veins.

Eschatologies, oh man, those spectral projections of a world-ending, are nothing but the mind’s desperate, shivering retreat from the cold, hard now. A dissociation, a junkie’s nod into the cottony, dream-spun realm of the hereafter, where the self dissolves in a cosmic vat of acid. The future, that phantom limb of time, is amputated and fetishized, a substitute for the terror of existence.

Eschatologies, those fever dreams of the world’s last gasp, are nothing but a cosmic game of musical chairs. A select few,the chosen, the righteous, scramble for the last empty seat while the rest of the world is left to drown in the flood, burn in the fire, or be vaporized by whatever celestial weapon the sky-gods have cooked up. It’s a sick joke, really. A way to feel superior, to justify the unjustifiable. A cosmic con game where the mark is the whole damn planet.

Eschatologies, those cosmic horror flicks projected on the mind’s screen, always star a chosen few. A VIP lounge in the sky, a deluxe suite on the Space Station Eternity, reserved for the faithful, the pure, the utterly convinced. The rest? Cannon fodder for the cosmic grinder, roadkill on the highway to oblivion. It’s a sick joke, a mental virus, a parasite of the soul, this notion of a cosmic lottery with only one winning ticket. A way to justify the unjustifiable, to elevate the mediocre, to turn the planet into a battleground for rival fan clubs of the Apocalypse.

Eschatologies, those twisted carnival mirrors of the mind, always promise a VIP lounge in the cosmic catastrophe. A select few, the pure, the righteous, the utterly convinced, get to skip the line when the world goes up in smoke. It’s a cosmic con game, a spiritual hustle, where the mark is promised salvation while the rest of the suckers burn. A digital divide of the soul, where the saved are streaming high-def rapture while the damned are stuck on dial-up doom. It’s the ultimate power trip, a divine dictatorship where the chosen few lord it over the cosmic underclass.

Democrats and Tech

In the grand theater of American politics, the Democrats are finding themselves abandoned by their once loyal tech-supporting audience. Picture this: the shimmering beaches of Venice, California, where the promise of a crypto revolution was supposed to bring prosperity. Instead, it’s a ghost town of missed opportunities and empty storefronts. Abbot Kinney, that iconic stretch of bohemian capitalism, gasps for breath as the tech industry, bloated with subsidies, fails to deliver the lifeblood of employment.

Imagine it as a tragicomedy: the tech industry, decked out in its finest attire of R&D tax credits, sales tax exemptions, and California Competes Tax Credits, struts across the stage. It’s a darling of innovation hubs and CAEATFA Sales Tax Exclusions, wooing the audience with the promise of eco-friendly gadgets and futuristic solutions. But behind the curtain, the reality is stark. The industry, despite its glitz and glamour, employs only a handful. Crypto, that much-hyped disruptor, employs just enough to form a small circle of beachgoers, barely a ripple in the ocean of local economies.

The irony is rich. While the film industry, with its comparatively modest tax credits, manages to churn out jobs and support local businesses, the tech sector hoards its wealth. The lavish incentives meant to nurture innovation become gilded cages, trapping prosperity in a bubble that never bursts into widespread economic benefits.

So here we are, in this Vonnegut-esque landscape where the Democrats, despite showering the tech industry with more perks than a Hollywood blockbuster, are left wanting. The local economies languish, the support wanes, and the dream of a tech-fueled renaissance flickers like a dying neon sign on an abandoned boardwalk. The Democrats, once the champions of innovation, now face the sobering reality: all that glitters in the tech world is not gold, and the promise of jobs is as ephemeral as a Venice Beach sunset.

So there you have it, friends and neighbors. The tech industry’s got more money than God and more perks than a rock star, but when it comes to creating jobs, they’re about as useful as an ashtray on a motorcycle. And that, my dear Earthlings, is why the Democrats are watching their tech support vanish faster than ice cream on a hot sidewalk.

Monstrous Offspring

The machine, our monstrous offspring, spews forth its digital detritus, a toxic sludge of ones and zeros. We are drowning in data, a deluge of information that leaves us intellectually constipated. We’ve traded the mystery of the unknown for the certainty of the superficial, a world flattened into a screen, a universe reduced to clickable icons.

The machine promises enlightenment, but delivers only a blinding glare. It has shrunk the world, yet expanded the boundaries of delusion. We are a species of addicts, hooked on the dopamine rush of likes and shares, our attention spans as fleeting as a gnat’s. We’ve become shallow vessels, filled to the brim with trivia, incapable of depth, of contemplation.

The machine grows, a monstrous parasite feeding on our minds. But the dark persists, deeper, vaster than ever. With each new app, with every silicon synapse fired, we move further from reason, lost in a labyrinth of our own creation. The machine is a black hole of credulity, sucking in light and logic, leaving behind only echoes of our former selves.

We are a generation of junkies, hooked on the digital drip, craving the next fix of information. The world shrinks to a screen, a panopticon of curated reality. Critical thought, once a vibrant ecosystem, is now a desert, a barren wasteland eroded by the relentless tide of data. We are dumber, more susceptible to the siren song of the absurd, our minds a vacant lot for the next viral meme to occupy.

In this age of instant gratification, patience is a lost art, critical thinking a quaint relic. The machine feeds us pabulum,pre-chewed thought, and we gobble it up with mindless glee. We are a generation of sheep, following the digital shepherd,bleating in unison, never questioning the electric pasture. The frontiers of ignorance may be receding, but the swamps of stupidity are overflowing.

Mason & Dixon

The flickering neon of a roadside diner cast a sickly green glow on Mason’s face. The Pennsylvania night crawled with static. Fireflies blinked like short circuits in the swamp, and the air thrummed with unseen frequencies. 

He tapped a manicured nail against the chipped Formica, the rhythm echoing the digital thrumming in his pocket – a bootleg newsfeed pulsing with whispers of conspiracies.

Mason, a gaunt man with eyes that as FCCtg mirrored the flickering fire, nursed a mug of lukewarm whiskey.

“They got us running lines, Dixon,” he rasped, voice a rusty hinge. “Lines that divide, lines that control. DBut who controls the lines, eh? 

“This line, it’s a data stream, a way to control the flow of information, the flow of people. We’re just meat puppets, laying down the digital infrastructure for some unseen power.”

“Lines of code, lines of control. But who writes the script, eh? The goddamn Jesuitware, their black robes a firewall across the New World.”

Dixon, a slightly younger man with a permanent Bluetooth glint in his eye, scoffed. Smoke from his vape pen curled like a phantom download. “Jesuitware? Give me a network crash, Mason. It’s the Company, man. The East India Co. 2.0, their servers reaching across the globe, sucking the bandwidth out of every continent.  You’re stuck in the past. This ain’t about land anymore, it’s about bandwidth. They’re drawing a virtual border, a firewall to keep the information have-nots at bay.”

Mason scoffed, a harsh laugh escaping his lips. “The Company’s just a front, Dixon. They’re all puppets,dancing to the strings of some vast intelligence, some god pulling the levers behind the scenes.”

Mason slammed his mug on the rough table, whiskey splashing. “Don’t be naive, Dixon. Religion’s the opiate of the masses, and the Jesuits are the biggest damn pushers. They’ll use this line to carve up souls as well as land.”

The fire crackled, casting grotesque shadows on the cold stone walls. A low, mournful howl echoed from the distance, a coyote or something less earthly. Dixon shivered, a sudden unease settling in his gut.

The diner door hissed open, admitting a burst of cold air and a cloaked figure shrouded in shadow. Mason and Dixon exchanged a wary glance. The figure slid into a booth across the room, its face concealed by darkness. Mason grunted, a flicker of agreement in his shadowed eyes. They sat in silence, two men caught in an invisible web, the surveyors becoming the surveyed.

“Gentlemen,” a voice like synthesized static emanated from the figure. “Your suspicions are…close.”

A cold sweat prickled Dixon’s skin. 

Messrs. Mason and Dixon,” it rasped, the sound like rusty gears grinding. “Your progress has been…noted. But the line you traverse…it is a busy one. 

“There are others…powers, lurking in the dark corners of the world.. They too have designs on this territory. And above everything stands the subjunctive” A verb without being, a ghost of grammar haunting the real.”

The stranger paused, its eyes burning with an inhuman intensity, “It is a cartographer of the unseen, a surveyor of the soul.It measures desire against reality, potential against actuality. And where these lines intersect, worlds are born or destroyed.”

EXIT

Flickering reality screen, a million flickering faces – The World Theater. Neon promises crawl across the marquee, a carnival shill barking come-ons for dreams pre-packaged in cellophane. But the exit, man, the EXIT – a rusted fire escape,barely two rungs wide, wobbling precariously over an abyss of black noise.

The sucker, see? Blinded by the glitter, mesmerized by the spectacle. Counts the plush seats, the depth of the stage, the endless buffet of distractions. Never a thought for the goddamn exit. Sold a ticket to the main event, hypnotized by the pre-show, completely missing the bleak one-way route out back. He’ll be shuffling towards that rusty ladder when the lights finally dim, pockets full of worthless tokens, head full of empty promises.

The World Theater’s a roach motel, bug zapper for the unwary. Check in’s a breeze, check out’s a bitch. So sharpen your fucking eyes, cut through the bullshit. This ain’t a goddamn palace, it’s a rigged game with a one-way door. Focus on the escape hatch, not the velvet wallpaper.