“The Bible tells us that after the kingdom of Solomon was divided and so fell to the Babylonians, the author of the prophetic Book of Daniel was taken captive, along with a number of other Hebrew youths from many notable families — hostages you might say, to insure against future revolt. They were sent to study the Babylonian sciences — what the Hebrews called ‘the black arts’ — under King Nebuchadnezzar … Continue reading Babylon Eternal
This is “Splash goat” by Zhelong Xu. It’s not pottery. It’s computer generated. It was made by a Chinese artist and it beautifully illustrates how easy it will be to fake just about everything. I expect forgery will make a comeback, only rather than forging “lost” works of art, talented artists will be paid by nation-states, media outlets, and criminal syndicates to forge reality itself … Continue reading The link between digital art and hegemony
There is not, and probably never can be, a science of why we eat the things we do. While there are clear material influences — people in hot climates tend to eat spicy food because chiles and hot peppers grow in hot climates — ultimately there’s no accounting for human taste. It’s one of the reasons that, once culture evolved, a full assessment of the … Continue reading Why we eat what we do
It starts with a crisis, the singular belief that defines the religious history of our species: that this world, full of suffering, where the race does not go to the swift nor food to the hungry, cannot be all there is. That there must be something more. So it is, the divine singularity, the unity of creation, shatters. And mankind is left separated from the … Continue reading In the Beginning: a very short history of religious thought
Originally posted on Serum:
The American Presidency is a fascinating institution and one that has grown and changed over its two-and-a-quarter centuries. Like any complex social phenomenon, it has both manifest and latent functions. We all learn in school, for example, that the president is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, as specified in the Constitution, but did you also know he is the chief… Continue reading Understanding Our Century: How We Got Here (in two short acts)
I think a lot of the angst in the English-speaking world, from Trump to Brexit and everything in between, comes from the disillusionment that inevitably followed the unwarranted optimism of the early 21st century, by which I mean since 1989. For those who don’t follow history, generally scholars divide the modern era into a long 19th century, stretching from the French Revolution to the end … Continue reading What do you call the end of the end? (the world since the Cold War)
While this is taken from the philosophy of G.W. Leibniz, it represents a kind of late-medieval/early-modern periodic table, with the four elements at the cardinal directions, and the four states between, along with their relations. What’s interesting is that we still believe in binary relations (attract or repel) and four fundamental states of matter; we just call them liquid, solid, gas, and plasma rather than … Continue reading I’m in love with Schrödinger’s cat
