Philosophy

25 years ago, the trajectory of history changed. What the conspiracy theorists got wrong, why the terrorists won, and how to fight for the future.

I recently watched a very well-produced documentary by, obviously, a very critical and thoughtful filmmaker. It certainly stimulates the spine-tingling cognitive dissonance that exploring the details of 9/11 should trigger for anyone who’s able to think for themselves.

Ten years ago, I started writing a cyberpunk/sci-fi thriller about a Biohacking cybercriminal named "Nero" who gets entangled with two beautiful Colombian twins while trying to save the world from the same comet that destroyed Atlantis 12,800 years ago.
I imagined there would one day be digital tools to bring this story to life, as vivid as it was in my own head. And here we are. 

Poseidon’s massive trident was broken; it protruded at an obtuse angle from the rubble of the temple. Icicles hung from its three prongs that no longer avariciously pointed heavenward.

Xavier shuddered and pulled the fur layers tighter around him against the cutting cold of the gale as he raised his eyes from the trident to behold the desolation of Atlantis.

The once-great city lay entombed beneath a glacial shroud, its towering spires now jagged ruins of ice-encrusted stone. Frozen waterfalls cascaded from shattered aqueducts, their crystalline tendrils reaching toward the skeletal remains of sunken palaces. The streets, once teeming with philosophers and noblemen, were buried beneath ages of snowfall, their stories erased by the merciless grind of time.
He walked beside one of the grand concentric canals that had once given Atlantis its lifeblood—now a lifeless trench of ice, its once-glittering waters frozen solid. The great bridges that had arched above them lay in shattered heaps, their stone and gold filigree broken and half-buried beneath layers of snow. Homes and temples had collapsed into the icy depths, their fractured remains jutting out at grotesque angles.
Beyond the canal, where the marina had once bustled with the sails of the mighty seafaring empire, the wreckage of ancient Atlantean vessels lay strewn - carcasses of a bygone age. Some remained eerily intact, their prows frozen mid-rise from the ice, while others had been crushed beneath falling towers, their splintered hulls tangled in masts and rigging.
Then, across the frozen expanse of the marina, it came. A low, resonant growl, rolling over the ice like distant thunder. Not the wind. Not the groaning of shifting ice. Something alive. Something primal.
Xavier froze. His breath curled into the air as the sound faded into the howling void. He was not alone in the ruins of Atlantis.

Why "flat Earth" is a Dunning-Kruger trap for skeptics and believers...

More people than ever now believe in the flat Earth. Perhaps you’ve wondered about it yourself…

Now I’m the first guy to be distrustful of things that the government tells us, and I’ve watched most of the conspiracy documentaries on the topic, but I remain utterly unconvinced of the flat Earth because of simple logic…

There is tremendous economic incentive for someone to expose the supposed hoax of the globe Earth, yet no one has yet to offer really compelling evidence of a flat Earth.

In the technocratic dystopia of modernity, things are undeniably grim, and they are getting worse at an accelerating rate.

This is not merely an observation for the hopelessly naive normie who still believes the evening news; it is a reality that even the most savvy lifehacker must confront daily. We find ourselves trapped in a pincer movement of economic instability and biological decline. If you are a Millennial or a member of Gen Z (I shall dub thee: Gen Zer), looking at the sordid state of affairs and deliberating between the career options of selling your body on OnlyFans, becoming some specie of online scammer/grifter, or signing up to die in some utterly pointless foreign war, I have a contrarian option for you.

I answer the May Biohacking and lifehacking questions in the Q&A podcast below.

And I share some philosophical thoughts on the contraction of freedoms due to the global pandemic and explain why personal and interpersonal freedom matter more than political freedom in living a good life. Listen to it on the go here on Castbox.

I wrote about May...

A month I’ve always loved not just because it’s the month of my birth but because it’s the month when (in the northern latitudes, at least) spring ceases its teasing. The changing of the seasons reminds us that life is profoundly cyclical. A sense of optimism has always infused my being as the snow melts away, the sky’s gloomy grayness retreats, and the green leaves of the trees bud. Spring also urges us to seize the moment; as a glorious summer beckons, we’re compelled to drink deeply of the sunny joys of life as the chilly fingers of winter yet stroke the backs of our necks.

In this podcast, I hope to share some much-needed optimism with you - I explain in an epic rant, why I'm white-pilled about the future.

Book Review: "Young-Civilizationists" are the new “Young-Earth Creationists"

This is Graham Hancock’s most recent book, a follow-up to Magicians of the Gods, painstakingly evaluating the evidence that hints at a lost civilization in deep antiquity (Atlantis?)

An admission, I used to be a "young-earth creationist," which means that I was among the Christians who believe that God created the world and universe about 6,000 years ago. A commonly-held and dogma-driven view of history that we now view as absurd and anti-rational which necessitates ignoring a lot of evidence. Almost nobody (Christians included) is now a young-earth creationist - but (even the intelligentsia of) society still holds some very dogmatic views of history that require ignoring a lot of evidence. Graham Hancock has written several books thoroughly documenting and analyzing this evidence. According to the mainstream view of history, our species suddenly jumped from scratching about in the dust to building the pyramids and other megaliths of tremendous proportions and size - civilizational endeavors requiring mastery of complex mathematics and engineering principles. While our modern civilization can barely keep the lights on in a lot of places (and can't even keep the Notre Dame cathedral from burning down), we're made to believe that ancient humans jumped right from chasing down megafauna on the flatlands with spears to the decadent project of building giant monuments perfectly aligned to the astrological starscape above, in a matter of (at the most) a few thousand years, while they were mired in a barbaric and deeply superstitious societal state. Indeed, "young civilizationists" (like young-earth creationists) believe that something magical happened about six millennia ago.

Is beauty vain, or is beauty, instead, a philosophical treasure that refracts the potency of our inner life force?

Is physical beauty something we've programmed to respond to by the 5000 ads a day? Is the obsession with one's own physical beauty a sign of a deeply corrupt soul? If all you have to offer is that which you did not earn, you'll be terrified to lose it. Is the lustful obsession with physical beauty the way of what appears to be a man, but is really an animal?
OR is physical beauty a gift from the divine (or evolution if you prefer)? A reward for when we draw nearer to the most metaphorically divine act, that of creating new life in our own image.

It's all too easy to call the woman vain who spends hours before the mirror fixing her make-up. Mainstream self-help pop culture would call her insecure for the way she frets over how her attire falls on her form. Surely, she must be compensating for her intellectual shallowness or bad childhood when she rouges her lips.
But what about the health-conscious Biohacker - who spends hundreds of hours a year in the gym shaping their physique? Who never misses a day without their collagen supplements? Who shines beautifying wavelengths of red light on their skin every day?
The Biohacker who dares to defy human condition: grow old, grow ugly, and die - long thought of as nonnegotiable. The Biohacker who spends a small fortune on sophisticated anti-aging supplements and tools for the fight to become a beautiful immortal, have they merely multiplied vanity by delusion?

The Internet is making everyone stupid, and that's a good thing!

The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains is a book that dramatically changed how I view the Internet. You don't need to read this book because the title says it all - your suspicions are correct, the Internet is NOT very good for our minds.