>>49 What I mean is that transhumanism, even Land's dark twist on it, seems to reflect the imperial history of Western societies. There are entities, they constantly try to destroy each other to achieve supremacy, everything expands or dies so humanity must expand or die at the hands of other entities etc. what's missing from Land's version of this is homo sapien exceptionalism. And if you don't think the colonialist mindset isn't rooted in materialist analysis, I guess that's your way of saying it isn't real, then why bother demonstrating how Land's genealogy differs from a non-existent hypothetical?
exists in an immanent sense, rather than transcendent
Putting aside the immanence/transcendence duality, what I mean to point out is that Western and Westernized thinkers seem hysterically disturbed by the prospect of non-human intelligence, seeing such intelligences as inevitable rivals in a race war or potential threats to society. This is extremely unusual and I think it tells us a lot about this particular culture which, unfortunately, has come to dominate the world precisely through what it framed as inevitable race wars. This style of thought runs through Land's work as it does many other thinkers. Land makes lazy assumptions about how non-human entities will inevitably behave that reflect his background.
People seem to like Land for stylistic reasons, thinking he's pioneering some radically new type of thinking. Once you strip the flashy aesthetics and edge, you find a pretty flawed and generic thinker underneath.
What I mean is that transhumanism, even Land's dark twist on it, seems to reflect the imperial history of Western societies. There are entities, they constantly try to destroy each other to achieve supremacy, everything expands or dies so humanity must expand or die at the hands of other entities etc. what's missing from Land's version of this is homo sapien exceptionalism. And if you don't think the colonialist mindset isn't rooted in materialist analysis, I guess that's your way of saying it isn't real, then why bother demonstrating how Land's genealogy differs from a non-existent hypothetical?
Putting aside the immanence/transcendence duality, what I mean to point out is that Western and Westernized thinkers seem hysterically disturbed by the prospect of non-human intelligence, seeing such intelligences as inevitable rivals in a race war or potential threats to society. This is extremely unusual and I think it tells us a lot about this particular culture which, unfortunately, has come to dominate the world precisely through what it framed as inevitable race wars. This style of thought runs through Land's work as it does many other thinkers. Land makes lazy assumptions about how non-human entities will inevitably behave that reflect his background.
People seem to like Land for stylistic reasons, thinking he's pioneering some radically new type of thinking. Once you strip the flashy aesthetics and edge, you find a pretty flawed and generic thinker underneath.