Porn is bad. In fact, it’s not just bad, it’s the worst of the worst. Quite frankly, it’s demonic. And this post will not make any attempt to prove to you that porn is bad. I haven’t the time to enter into debates with people who mistake their own, subjective ‘good-feelings’, with what is objectively true. All I will state in this first paragraph regarding the ‘morality’ of porn, or its positive/negative effects on society, is that the matter is quite black and white: Porn is abhorrent, and with regard to modern society it is simply a catalyst for the exacerbation of an impersonal misery made personal. Conversely, No-Porn, ZERO Porn, is good, and with regard to society as a whole, where pornography is not, there sanity might retain a foothold.

Now, this post isn’t exactly meant to be an antidote, or cure for those who struggle with the consumption (not enjoyment) of porn, but I believe it may help. Firstly, in recent years discussions around porn have become so commonplace that – much like technology – the root issue is overlooked in favour of various niche debates. Let me explain by first looking at technology. If one is to peruse a mainstream news site, social media site or streaming service, they are likely to find an undercurrent of what could be titled ‘technology-questioning’ literature. That is, think-pieces and write-ups which question our contemporary usage of technology, but not to the extent that one might be persuaded to click off the news-site itself. Much in the same vein, year after year we collectively accept the 1.35 million deaths and 50 million injuries (source) related to road traffic accidents each year as a foregone conclusion, without ever stopping to question the root cause of the problem itself, and whether or not such a habitual and accepted understanding of the **world could ever be questioned. They are not seen as avoidable deaths, but simply as part-and-parcel of the equation relating to our personal freedoms and modern world of convenience.

Much the same logic is applied to porn. Much like the oh-so-humble automobile (Read-in-normal-speak: Car), the pornographic film has itself been subject to the process of normalization, and has been condensed into the catchy and relatable – and somewhat cute-ified – term ‘porn’. It’s no longer a foreign abstraction found in the dark recesses of society, promoted only by the seediest of individuals, no. By way of its continual acclimatization as something unto which we all – apparently, alike the car – partake in without question, porn has become just another accepted facet of the modern world, representing all that is good within such a world of rampant sensuality, which, when separated from love is quite literally, nothing. Also, alike the humble car, the convenience, enjoyment, and personal-freedom of being able to watch porn consistently trumps the various ‘car accidents’ derived from its consumption. (Those pornographic ‘car accidents’ include, but aren’t limited to: Reduction of intimacy, aggression, depression, erectile dysfunction, inability to enjoy sex, increased demands on their partner and anxiety.)

And so, to my point, the discussions surrounding porn – alike the car – are no longer about whether or not porn itself is altogether good or bad, but primarily gravitate around factors such as ethical porn, porn usage, the correct integration of porn into a relationship, when is it ok to start watching porn etc. – such discussions are the equivalent of better seatbelts or airbags, when the option to just not take the car isn’t even offered. And so, quite frankly, porn is in. They’ve won their debate by way of continual and unrepentant normalization of their position, porn is freedom, and freedom is porn. I am, of course, here to offer you the unspoken alternative. Don’t get in the car. Don’t drive. Don’t watch porn. Do not watch porn. And, most poignantly, you don’t have to watch porn. Just because the option of porn, junk food, promiscuous sex, smoking, drugs and drink are offered to you, doesn’t mean that you’re giving up a liberty/freedom by not taking them, in fact, you’re partaking in an even greater freedom, the freedom to understand that they’re not good things, and should be avoided.

This choice, between partaking and not partaking, is the final thing I would like to comment on here, for it is another area where modern consumer culture has won its war. As stated, you have a choice between doing X or not doing X. Between watching porn (choice A), and not watching porn (choice B). However, the malicious forces of the world would like you to believe that choice A, that is the positive choice (to do, to watch) is the normal choice, the one that’s always been there. And that, choice B, is the weird choice, because it is always the choice to not do something, and thus grows the implication that one is missing out if they don’t always choose choice A, that is, to partake in whatever the latest wretched activity the modern world promotes. These choices have been reversed. It’s tough to see, but choice A is choice B, and choice B is choice A. The true state of man, and the real state of his freedom is one in which he is free to act without need of a crutch, there is no real choice B for a free man, there is no negative choice, or fear of missing out for the truly free man, because it is not an option he would ever have conceived of. If you are a master of food, you are a slave to gluttony; a master of sleep, a slave to sloth; a master of violence, a slave to the emotions; a master of porn, a slave to lust. To be free, is simply to be, without need of all the attachments and trinkets which seek to lure you in.

And so, to the first part of my title, ‘love and lust’, what happens to them when fully assimilated into the time of pornography? Much like all things which fall under the spell of the nefarious, the good is taught as bad, and the bad as good, and as such, they become reversed. In the time of pornography, lust usurps love. But what does this look like in practice, and for this we need to turn where many turn who are caught in the thralls of porn, we turn to the internet…

Many who’ve struggled with porn, or even porn addiction (fast becoming a silent epidemic), are quick to turn to the internet for advice. Turning to various message boards, forums or social media accounts for ways to combat the beast that is porn. I imagine, and hope, that many of them are successful in their endeavours, and various practical or habitual alterations to their lives allow them to forgo their addiction. But in combatting porn, they are entering into (almost) the very same passions which lead them into this abyss – They are allowing their emotions, their passions, to take the reins and battle it out; they are fighting fire with fire. In a sense, they are using lust to fight lust. I will emphasize, if this works for you, do not stop. I am not deterring any efforts which work. What I am eluding to, however, is the ignored root, the war itself, between love and lust.

When one consumes porn, they are entering into lust. Lust is a selfish act. It is an act which is targeted solely at the fulfillment of one’s own, personal desires. Quite often in life, one can fulfil their personal desires in an innocent fashion – If one fancies a delicious meal, they can make it; if one desires a nap, they can lay down and snooze away. The thing is, these desires don’t effect others, they don’t effect the foundations of one’s perception. For when one consumes porn, their desires are met at the expense of another. They will of course find various ways to justify – with rationale and logic – why this isn’t so, but at the end of the day, staring them in the face is the reality of the situation – another’s body/flesh is used for the fulfilment of their subjective, selfish desires. When this action is looked at from afar, we can begin to see what lust truly is, lust is love turned inwards, towards yourself, and yourself alone. Lust is the malevolent reversal of what is right and good; lust seeks to justify itself by way of its own voice. Put plainly, in the act of porn consumption, the only reality which exists is the reality of one, and to that reality it seems all things should bend. Porn shuts out community, it shuts out discussion, it shuts out romance, affection, and intimacy, and, at the depths of its abyss, it shuts out the one true remedy for its ills, love.

Love, in absolute opposition to lust, projects itself outward, into and of the world. Love is embracing, caring, nurturing, and yet often tough. Love in action is practices which seek only for the betterment and wellbeing of others; love in thought is the desire for one’s actions to bring about a better world; and finally, love in heart, is an empathy attempting to cradle the most lost of souls.

Before all the arguments and debates, before the NoFap trials and cold showers, before the acceptance and malaise, there was a single choice, selfishness or selflessness, to take or to give, to consume or to create, to lust or to love. What one finds, as they slowly start to demand less of the world, to take less of the world, is that waiting at the sidelines, all along, was the eternal choice of giving and loving. It may seem extremely abstract to try and persuade you that what can truly overcome the abyss which is called porn, is really only love, a selfless love. In entering into the act of consuming porn, one is entering into their own deluded kingdom of subjectivity, where they can never lose, for everyone exists solely for their use. To exit such a false kingdom, one must begin to look upon the other as a person, with all the same strengths, weaknesses and flaws as they have; the antidote to pornography is to genuinely care, to such a degree that in lifting others up, you are brought up by the weight of the giving.

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Z/Acc: A Theory of Accelerating Hyper-Collapse or:

[Z/Acc:] [A Theory] [of] [Accelerating] [Hyper-Collapse]

A definition is needed for each of these 5 parts respectively. In keeping with its temporal non-designation, we begin at the end and ‘loop-back’ to the beginning. As such, we begin with ‘Hyper-Collapse’

[Hyper-Collapse] – The inability to distinguish between objective (fragmentary), process-based degradation, and artificial teleological or eschatological placebos such as: progress, salvation, innovation, upgrade, reset, apocalypse, end-times and/or cataclysm.

Hyperreality defines the inability of one to be able to discern between reality and a simulation of that reality within technologically advanced societies. The simulacrum – the virtual map above all – blends with the terrain itself, and those who wish to journey within reality are stuck with the problem of accessing true reality. Any prolongation of hyperreality, or admission into hyperreality as a default-setting from birth crystallizes in its user an inherent impasse of apprehension; one’s sensibility and understanding is built in to this (hyper)reality, and is developed from it. Thus, hyperreality becomes/is reality; one can never get to the bottom of things, because things themselves have become mixed-up in multiple intense subjective projections.

Hyper-Collapse, alike Hyper-reality, **is a definition with a twofold task. Firstly, the prefix ‘hyper’ is intended as a designation against the Hollywood-ification/Disney-fication of the term ‘collapse’. The propagandistic definition of ‘Collapse’ – the one we see most commonly in mainstream media and film – is one which pertains to an event, an instant or a happening. The term ‘collapse’ in this case falsely denotes that which can immediately be measured as a negative phase-change as the previous structure is altered. This definition is historically, socially, culturally and philosophically incorrect. Put simply, collapse is a process. Collapse always equals collapsing. The citizens of Rome did not wake one day to find their Empire suddenly gone, finished or collapsed. The process was very slow, in fact, it took roughly 300 years for the empire of Rome to fall. Which means that the process of collapse spanned multiple generations, multiple lineages and multiple technological changes, there is no single factor to a collapse. Some people’s entire lives, and the lives of their children, would have been built amidst a collapsing empire, sound…feel familiar? There may very well be a catalyst, but within the complexity of socio-cultural techonomic systems, that catalyst needs fuel to continue, and it is more often that not stopped in its tracks by an oh-so-human band-aid, more on this later.

Secondly then, the prefix ‘hyper’ is placed in relation to the aforementioned ‘Hyperreality’, those who find themselves within the current of ‘Hypercollapse’ find it impossible to discern between the reality of collapse and the simulatory ignorance of collapse. Whereby, the former – the true reality of collapse -attends to the truth of Zero as a function which begets alteration from degradation, and the latter, simulation of collapse, is the nonsensical dialectical collapse which bows to the falsity of a coming-material-salvation and/or the idea of an instantaneous collapse (apocalypse). Collapse is not the apocalypse, but you may come to wish it was. There is no salvation of the earth. The only pseudo-salvation man has masterfully constructed for himself is the notion of immanent, material salvation itself. That is to say, the simulation-of-collapse spawns a mindset which targets itself at either a definite eschatology or teleology. Within Hypercollapse, there is always a false-saviour or an end, there is light and dark; between Hypercollapse there is nothing grey, and yet, the future is going to be incredibly smoggy.

Put simply, collapse is never definite, it is always a process. The intricacies which arrive with a process – as opposed to an event – are many. A process can have feedback, a process can move fast and slow, a process has the possibility of fragmentation and disintegration. Media-baked collapse is a bastardization of the term itself; the media doesn’t handle shadows well, it’s much easier to filter everything into good/bad, black/white etc. True collapse is the slow burn of history – which itself is not dialectical, but simply ‘things which happen in a phenomenal order’ – (as far as we know).

Hypercollapse, then, is the process of true collapse combined with the psychological disorientation of Accelerative simulations of progress inherent within the process of genuine collapse itself. Within the process of collapse – strangely – much is created, born and developed. The organic development of Hypercollapse is understood as being born alongside capitalism and Zero. The motor of techonomic evolution is phase/wave based, Hypercollapse pertains to a cyclic-ignorance, thus developing itself as a psychological mechanism for the continuation of innovative efforts. Hypercollapse allows man to continue whilst ignoring his repetitive fate, existing upon an artificial spectrum of optimism and pessimism, teleology and eschatology. And yet, history shows that neither of these end-states ever come, all that increases is fragmentation; there can only be an end in minutiae. Maybe you’re extremely lucky and were born in the glory days of a growing empire, or slightly lucky in the first bad days of a slowing empire. Perhaps you’re very unlucky and were born in the last days of a dying empire, or the worst of all, the first days of the last phase of a dying empire. As far as I’m concerned, those of us in the West – speaking primarily of the United Kingdom and the United States – who are currently alive, have been born just after the peak (1980-2000), we’re entering into the beginning of the beginning of the end – yes, even the beginning, middle, and end have cycles…and inside them? Yes, more cycles.

If I we were to understand the spectrum of Greatness > Failure as 1-10, and Growth > Collapse as I-X, then we can simply map times and places as follows – of course, one’s position within these states undoubtedly matters (Caesar vs a Peasant), but the numbers signify the health of the zeitgeist in general.

Victorian England: 2/I or the Roman Empire 117AD: 1/I would be clear leaders in history, but what of our own time? I’m from the UK, but much of the Western world is now the same global hellscape, I’d give it 5/VI. In written terms, we’ve hit the threshold where anyone with half-a-brain knows things aren’t looking good (though I will get to this preconceived notion of ‘goodness’ later), and things tend to spiral more quickly once the problem(s) is unable to be ignored. Things are ‘speeding’ up.

Hypercollapse, defined as tightly as I can manage, is the inbuilt simulacrum of contemporary Western civilization which diverts and mutates attention away from legitimate collapse (dull, slow, a process), towards a media-baked frenzy of false-collapse (really, apocalypse). Thus, in the process of doing so, negating and anaesthetizing the reality of actual collapse by way of assigning its authenticity solely to the coming of X instantaneous event. From this perspective, ‘collapse’ is never arriving, because it is understood as an event and not a process, and thus each iteration and development of genuine, process-based collapse (inflation, food prices, resource shortages, supply change problems), is not seen as an indicator as collapse, but merely as a glitch within the utopian ideal of progress. From the perspective of Hypercollapse we are either progressing, or we are dead, there is no in-between.

A digression: Many people, after reading my work on Z/Acc have commented that it’s simply just a complicated name for collapse. I can sympathize with this, and can see how people would get to that conclusion, and in a way, I have no problem with it. But, Z/Acc is a specific reading of the Accelerationist theory of Capitalism (Capitalism is Pure-Techonomic-Acceleration) combined with the limitations of Capitalism’s fuel sources, most notably, man and the planet. If, one of those factors is removed i.e. If we get off the planet, OR, Capitalism gets rid of its ignorant foreman (humanity), then Z/Acc is possibly a failure. But until that point, Capitalism is reliant on both man and the planet, the former limited in its mental resources, the latter in its material resources, the combination of both…isn’t great. In the same way that leftists often imagine a past/present where Capitalism hasn’t won (specifically what Fisher makes clear isn’t the case in Capitalist Realism), rightists often project a future which Capitalism has already won, neither is true. Capitalism is here, now, and it owns the here and now, commodifies it. As for what happens, that depends on a multitude of factors.

[Accelerating] – The positive-[feedback]-oriented mechanism of capitalism; the production-of-production.

The foundation of this text is of course the theory of Accelerationism. One might note that my definitions and theorizations of Accelerationism have been deemed ‘gate-keepy’. This is fine by me, I keep my gate well-oiled. With that said, Accelerationism is (always) new, look around, see what you find. Anyway, ‘traditionally’ Accelerationism is the position that capitalism (and thus technological change) should be accelerated. Alluding back to Deleuze and Guattari’s call in Anti-Oedipus to “accelerate the process”. Fortunately, the theory has come a long way since then, far enough to understand that there is no I or we or collective which can accelerate things by way of their agency, what is accelerating is accelerating itself; which is to say, there is truly no ‘we should’. The anthropocentric form of trade M>C>M (money > commodity > money) is stripped of humanist impulse, and converted into P>I>P – production > intelligence > production. The ‘alien force’ which possesses men to work is itself the elusive agent of Acceleration, residing elsewhere, we simply commune with it unconsciously, machinically.

So, when we look at the Wikipedia page for Accelerationism, we can see that the definition:

‘Accelerationism is a range of ideas in critical and social theory that propose that social processes, such as capitalist growth and technological change, should be drastically intensified to create further radical social change referred to as “acceleration’

whilst being entirely fair, does tend to humanize what is primarily an inhuman process. The error is once again founded upon the word ‘should’, which brings forth the question – ‘Well, who is the agency which believes we should?’. The truth is, there is no such agency in relation to linear human temporality, and the only ‘agency’ at work with respect to the process of Acceleration, is capitalism itself – or: There is not should with respect to Acceleration, there only is Acceleration. Or, in the words of Nick Land:

Anyone trying to work out what they think about accelerationism better do so quickly. That’s the nature of the thing. It was already caught up with trends that seemed too fast to track when it began to become self-aware, decades ago. (Quick and Dirty)

It is the opinion of this author that political variants of Accelerationism – most notably –

Left-Accelerationism: Man seizes the emancipative capabilities of techonomic innovation as a means to free the proletariat.

Right-Accelerationism: The singularity/intelligence explosion/Skynet

Unconditional-Accelerationism: Let the process do what it will.

• come after the philosophy of Accelerationism. [Which I expand on in detail here] That is to say, whatever the process of Acceleration is which is ‘happening’ (largely outside of human comprehension) is doing so with man as an afterthought (if a ‘thought’ at all). Thus, to think of a political form of ‘Acceleration’ is once again to fall into the confusion of Hyper-Collapse, whereby you have come under the spell of a certain political/humanist myth, and believe in a certain form of salvation, wherein something either is or isn’t, and is such immune to the faults seemingly beneath reality. With this said, Z/Acc reintroduces humans – in their true, idiotic form – back into the equation, understanding them to have been removed on the assumption that in the future they wont be needed, which presupposes we’ll ever get to such a future, which we might not if all we have is these humans.

[Of]

This is a theory of Z/Acc. Not a theory promoting anything, or pushing anything. Questions of agency always come after the beginning, and thus, are already null and void.

[A Theory]

This is just one theory as to the combination of Acceleration and Collapse, I urge others to write their own musings on the relationship, which, thus far, and as far as I can see, has only been written of seriously by me.

[Z/Acc] – Zero-Accelerationism. The understanding that the positive-orientation of capitalism is not immune to the function of Zero.

…what the hell does that mean? And this is where I properly begin…

Z/Acc: A Theory of Accelerating Hyper-Collapse

“Man = [0] – [0]” – Donald Crowhurst

“He called it the ‘Cosmic Integral.’ Literally, it means that all that man is from beginning to end adds up to nothing. It declares an absolute nihilism in which every possibility of human existence – the mind of delight as well as the mind of disgrace – is only an illusion of the mind” – A Philosophy of Madness, Wouter Kusters

0.0 ~ From Zero everything is within reach.

0.1 ~ ‘Acceleration’ is implicitly understood as the positive-oriented direction of capitalism in relation to productivity and intelligence. Capitalism seeks – via the increasing instigation of noumenal events – to beget ever-’greater’ versions of itself, thus, any notion of post- or neo- capitalism is already subsumed into its own understanding of itself. If capitalism perceives a future, it is already underway.

0.1.1 ~ A ‘greater’ version of Capitalism is thus never Capitalism 2.0, it is simply, and always, Capitalism. A ‘greater’ version with respect to our understanding of Capitalism’s aims is simply a ‘version’ which has a higher, larger and/or faster potential for survivability and growth. Capitalism is better Capitalism is better Capitalism is…

0.2 ~ The designations ‘economics’, ‘technology’ and ‘capital’ can only be understood as translations of noumenal efforts from within the external world, and are thus, the best we’ve got. In actualising the efforts of economic/market research within notational apparatus, one understands a system of mathematical governance within which they are always one step behind. Accountancy, finance etc. are unilateral human > machine communication.

1.0 ~ As stated, the initial seed-statement pertaining to the origination of ‘Accelerationism’ is found within Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus –

“Or might it be to go in the opposite direction? To go still further, that is, in the movement of the market, of decoding and deterritorialization? For perhaps the flows are not yet deterritorialized enough, not decoded enough, from the viewpoint of a theory and a practice of a highly schizophrenic character. Not to withdraw from the process, but to go further, to “accelerate the process,” as Nietzsche put it: in this manner, the truth is that we haven’t seen anything yet.”

To keep things simpler, as I don’t feel the need to expand upon the overtly complex continental ‘academese’ found within that quote. What’s of importance is the the statement – “Not to withdraw from the process, but to go further, to “accelerate the process,” – This stands as a rupture within the default theorizations of capitalism as something inherently bad. Capitalism isn’t bad, in the same way that entropy isn’t bad. For the application of moral framework onto various ideologies and -isms is only worthwhile if they can be dealt with in terms of agency, which capitalism cannot. It is becoming true that we haven’t seen anything yet, but to conflate that ‘we’ with an agency which can bring anything about is entirely incorrect. The ‘process’ of Acceleration is of itself, it is not of us, and is certainly not of our creation or control. This is how it is usually understood – Z/Acc posits a few minor, but important, oversights.

If we are to understand ‘Accelerationism’ as ‘Capitalism-ism’ (Land), it figures that the process of Acceleration is metaphorically – but likely, literally – the process unto which capitalism becomes self-aware, and seeks only its own continuation – which arguably is what Capitalism is, not an ideology, but a function of intelligence production. The process is only retained within the confines of the signifier ‘Capitalism’ because it is the only function with such infinite plasticity as to subsume anything and everything into it; all forms of governance, social arrangement, cultural upheaval, philosophical conjecture, technological innovation, religious apprehension and reality can be assimilated into Capitalism, and thus used by it for its own aim(s). What is its aim? The continuation and growth of itself; Capitalism is a cosmic-positive/negative-cancer, viewed from the perspective of humanism it is malevolent, viewed by itself it is correct, perfection.

In terms of Capitalism being, in its most compressed form, a function of intelligence production, we understand that intelligence is that metric by which greater production is begat. Higher intelligence brings forth a greater potential for more – and more efficient production, itself thus increasing the capacity for increased intelligence, ad infinitum (supposedly).

2.0 ~ The Philosophy and Politics of Accelerationism (in short)

As for the philosophy of Accelerationism, I have outlined my own study of it here: https://www.meta-nomad.net/accelerationism-capitalism-as-critique/ – as noted in this text, I believe that the philosophy of Accelerationism is always prior to any politics; if we are to accept that the process of Acceleration, which is Accelerationism itself, is an inhuman, atemporal force from the Outside, then it follows that any (human) politics can only be an effect of linearity and illusory human-will. This text isn’t about the overarching philosophy of Accelerationism I outlined 3 years ago, it is an extension which critically includes the theory of Zero, thus obliterating the inherent optimism of Capitalism itself; this continuation theorizes the inevitable conclusion of any cancer, in attempting to grow at the detriment of its host, it ends up destroying everything.

If we are continue this conclusion in our analysis of the so-called ‘political variants’ of Accelerationism, we can note that they are at worst panicked, ignorant emancipative wishes, and at best a form of unconscious capital-worship.

For instance, if we begin with Left-Accelerationism, a politics which seeks to utilize the technologically accelerative effects of Capitalism’s inherent productive capabilities as a means to emancipate workers from continued toil and wage-slavery. One can think of UBIs, increased automation, and various other tech-trinkets which will alleviate the worker (the proletariat) from their struggles. However, anyone who truly believes that at a certain point the process is simply going to stop in its consistent efforts of growth, is once more conflating their supposed agency with that of the process itself. If we end up having UBIs and automated factories etc. it will not be due to our own efforts, and should be seen with the utmost suspicion, for in such a scenario the inevitable conclusion seems to be that we (humans) are being removed from the process entirely. (See: Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work)

If we are then to move onto the contentious issue of Right-Accelerationism, which has yet to acquire a precise definition. The closest one can get is simply Skynet, that is to say, intelligence-explosion, the literal singularity. As Capitalism continues to grow, it does so by recognizing intelligence, seeking to produce intelligence for the continued production of intelligence ad infinitum. (See: Xenosystems)

Finally, we have have Unconditional Accelerationism, which quite simply can be defined as allowing the process to do what it will. Just leave it be. Of course, the former leftists would argue that this is an abuse of potentiality, and the latter rightists would argue that in doing so one will end up with their conclusion because capitalism it inherently targeted towards intelligence explosion. (See: https://xenogothic.com/2019/03/04/a-u-acc-primer/)

As I have stated, I consider these 3 positions tainted; they are all marked by a political arrogance, and all adhere to some form of progression, each abiding by subtle forms of optimism. For those that care not about man, then even the Right-Accelerationist position is optimistic; as the Unconditional perspective is for nihilists. So, where does Zero Accelerationism come into this? I guess it arrives just after the philosophy, and just before the politics. Just before the political variants have their chance to say ‘Ooh, we could use this!’, Z/Acc says ‘Wait! Even that level of bleakness is optimistic, things will likely be way worse!’

For in short, the Zero Accelerationist position is this: Capitalism – and by proxy, the process of Acceleration – has, as its primary source of innovation and accelerative fuel, the productive capacities of man. Capitalism is reliant on humans. Sure, if the R/Acc fantasies play out, eventually man will be a mere speck of dirt in the history of production, but for now all Capitalism really has is us. Without man – even if only seen as a productive resource – capitalism wouldn’t have made it anywhere, to omit the importance of man from the history of Capitalism thus far is a critical oversight. Now, as we are Capitalism’s primary source of innovative fuel, we mustn’t overlook the symptoms which come with us, which is a mass of ignorance, stupidity, oversight, overreaching, personality, and oh-so-human schtick. From the perspective of Capitalism, we are machines, but we are machines trying to be human, which really means, we are malfunctioning machines, at least from the perspective of the process. In the synthesis of Capitalism and man as productive Master and Slave is introduced a critical oversight, that of limitation. I don’t think Capitalism, when it’s using man as its primary resource of growth, recognizes limitations before it’s too late, and I think man has assimilated so much of this attitude, that his unique purpose as a limitation-advisor has been quashed by his reverence of the Master. Capitalism is a terminally intelligent system, whose inhuman language is incompatible with emotion; emotive outbursts of human resilience in relation to humanity will always be nonsensical to the pure forces of capitalism.

3 ~ Zero

Perhaps when I speak of ignorance of limitation, I truly speak of ignorance of Zero. For Zero is the acceptance of the possibility of return, the possibility of decay, or entropy, of collapse. Without Zero there is no possibility of comparison in relation to production and energy expenditure; without Zero infinite progress is possible, with Zero finite reality is realized. When we think of numbers we think of them in a sequence, which goes from smaller to larger numbers, or abstractly, from loss to profit, from degradation to expenditure, for instance: -3, -2, -1, 0, +1, +2, +3, and on and on. The sequence is reliant on a certain number, or non-number, or functional-glyph to make sense, that glyph is ‘0’ or Zero. If a system wants to grow, expand or Accelerate, it needs to understand what it is to grow, expand or Accelerate. This implies that it needs a spectrum from which it can understand whether or not it is growing, expanding or Accelerating. For capitalism this spectrum is the spectrum of numeracy, of number, the sequential spectrum of numbers. With bigger numbers signifying growth/profit and lower numbers signifying loss/negative-growth/decay (very roughly), from this capitalism can transcendentally understand whether or not certain actions undertaken in reality cause it to grow or decay, it emphasizes support for those which help it grow, and suffocates, alienates and deterritorializes those which don’t. So, where does Zero fit in? Zero is the point from which capitalism understands whether or not something is working, whether or not to take action and alter the actions of reality in such a way that growth can begin again. To paraphrase Paul Virilio, ‘When you invent the car you invent the car crash.’ Or in very abstract terms Zero is everywhere all at once. When there is growth there is a simultaneous loss, and when there is loss there is a simultaneous growth. This might seem strange, but that’s largely because modernity wants everyone to think in binary terms.

So when we now think back to the idea of accountancy, finance and numeric quantification in general as our sole means of communicating with Capitalism, we realize that Zero is the point from which we should act in relation to greater aims – such as survivability, growth etc. If Capitalism was itself in charge of its own growth, I highly doubt that it would squander resources (fossil fuels) which are quantitively understood to be finite on notably human bullshit such as cruise holidays and Funko Pops. But alas, much to Capitalism’s likely frustration, its primary fuel and function for its own growth is humans, and humans tend to be really quite thick. And so, it’s not Capitalism itself which is making the blunder, Capitalism is too cold for that. It’s intermediary, at this important juncture in its history, happens to be billions of warm, squidgy, mostly dumb humanoids. And with these humanoids comes the possibility – and tendency – to emotionally ignore data they don’t like (read: Climate change, resource limitation etc.)

Any efficient machine working coldly by its own calculations would firstly note the limitations (see Liebig’s Law of the Minimum) before it prior to setting out on a journey of growth. It would, from this information, thus spend the anomalous, finite fuel sources (read: fossil fuels) primarily on developing an alternative to these fuel sources so it doesn’t have to run out. However, the intermediary (humanity) of this cold, calculating machine (Capitalism), has built into it the emotional capacity to be utterly pigheaded, and, upon realizing that the fuel sources they’ve been using to build their entire civilization are in fact finite, not to immediately, and drastically, change their course of action as to utilize all remaining finite resources to develop alternative methods of energy-capture. But, instead, to simply ignore this, and carry on like everything is fine. THIS is what Capitalism has to work with, a species (humans) who, upon seeing that the train they’re on is going to slam into a brick wall 2 miles up the track, don’t pull the brake – or even jump off – but simply whinge, whine and keep on truckin’! And some of you think we’re going to get Skynet?

4 ~ Catabolic Collapse in relation to the Theory of Zero

With complexity comes, increased up-keep, increased accountability, and, recently, ever decreasing returns. Here I will incorporate John Michael Greer’s Theory of Catabolic Collapse into the theorizations of Zero-Accelerationism (Greer’s paper in full: https://www.ecoshock.org/transcripts/greer_on_collapse.pdf) – the sections in italics are quoted from the paper, there’s little I can do here to make it simpler than Greer has (as per usual).

Greer begins by outlining the four core elements of human society under the heading ‘The Human Ecology of Collapse‘. I have a disagreement here, for in Accelerative theory, we have to begin from the perspective of capital – these elements are not seen as for use for humans, for their benefit, they are taken as material factors for growth of Capitalism, if it so happens that humans needs use them for their survival as slaves to capital, a factor which Capitalism seeks to overcome. Why would it want to feed humans after they’re no longer needed for its growth?

We begin with the most basic element (R) Resources, these are naturally occurring factors of the environment which can be used by society. One key thing to note is that R denotes resources which have yet to be utilized by society, unmined ore, as-yet unruined top-soil. R of course oversimplifies a vast array of variables pertaining to each single R, however, many of these will be dealt with as examples later on.

Next we have (C) Capital. “Capital consists of all factors from whatever source that have been incorporated into the society’s flows of energy and material but are capable of further use. Capital includes physical capital such as food, fields, tools, and buildings; human capital such as laborers and scientists; social capital such as social hierarchies and economic systems; and information capital such as technical knowledge.”

Then there is (W) Waste. This is all factors which have been incorporated into the productive flows of society and exploited to the point where they have no further use.

Finally there is (P) Production. “The process by which existing capital and resources are combined to create new capital and waste. The quality and quantity of new capital created by production are functions of the resources and existing capital used in production. Resources and existing capital may be substituted for one another in production, but the relation between the two is nonlinear and complete substitution is impossible. As the use of resources approaches zero, in particular, maintaining any given level of production requires exponential increases in the use of existing capital, due to the effect of decreasing marginal return.”

So, the basic process of a steady state society is that resources and capital enter the production process, and new capital and waste leaves it. Maintenance of such a society requires new capital from production to equal waste from production and capital (we maintain an equilibrium of production in relation to waste, never outgrowing out limits) –

C(p) = W(p) + W(c) –> steady state (1)

where C(p) is new capital produced, W(p) is existing capital converted to waste in the production of new capital, and W(c) is existing capital converted to waste outside of production. The sum of W(p) and W(c) is M(p), maintenance production, the level of production necessary to maintain capital stocks at existing levels. Thus Equation 1 can be more simply put:

C(p) = M(p) –> steady state (2)

Societies which move from a steady state into a state of expansion produce more than necessary to maintain existing capital stocks:

C(p) > M(p) –> expansion

The problem here is what, exactly? Well, nothing so far. However, we are most definitely not living in a steady-state society. In fact, we consider it one of our primary virtues to be continually ‘progressing’ (a meaningless statement), growing or expanding. Now we get a little more complex, but I will simplify at the end of the full extract:

“A society that uses resources at or below replenishment rate (d(R)/r(R) = 1), when production of new capital falls short of maintenance needs, enters a maintenance crisis in which capital of all kinds cannot be maintained and is converted to waste: physical capital is destroyed or spoiled, human populations decline in number, large-scale social organizations disintegrate into smaller and more economical forms, and information is lost. Because resources are not depleted, maintenance crises are generally self-limiting. As capital is lost, M(p) declines steeply, while declines in C(p) due to capital loss are cushioned to some extent by the steady supply of resources. This allows a return to a steady state or the start of a new anabolic cycle once the conversion of capital to waste brings M(p) back below C(p).

A society that uses resources beyond replenishment rate (d(R)/r(R) > 1), when production of new capital falls short of maintenance needs, risks a depletion crisis in which key features of a maintenance crisis are amplified by the impact of depletion on production. As M(p) exceeds C(p) and capital can no longer be maintained, it is converted to waste and unavailable for use. Since depletion requires progressively greater investments of capital in production, the loss of capital affects production more seriously than in an equivalent maintenance crisis. Meanwhile further production, even at a diminished rate, requires further use of depleted resources, exacerbating the impact of depletion and the need for increased capital to maintain production. With demand for capital rising as the supply of capital falls, C(p) tends to decrease faster than M(p) and perpetuate the crisis. The result is a catabolic cycle, a self-reinforcing process in which C(p) stays below M(p) while both decline. Catabolic cycles may occur in maintenance crises if the gap between C(p) and M(p) is large enough, but tend to be self-limiting in such cases. In depletion crises, by contrast, catabolic cycles can proceed to catabolic collapse, in which C(p) approaches zero and most of a society’s capital is converted to waste.”

What the hell does this all mean? Well, guess what? Human societies (like the ones you and I are living in) tend to produce more stuff than they can afford to maintain. If one looks at primitive societies, they have no huge cumbersome infrastructure to maintain, and are thus, sort of resource-nomadic, extremely flexible in their ability to utilize resources to their full effect. However, in increasingly complex societies the need for resource expenditure increases in relation to the complexity of the needed infrastructure. Of course, one could ask, why don’t these complex societies simply de-complexify and thus head towards a ‘steadier-state’? To give an example of the Western world – specifically the UK and the US – our entire way of life in dependent on roads, cars, gas stations, fuel, electricity (primarily created via oil and coal) etc., and without all this infrastructure, our ‘normal’ way of life ceases to be. The problem we are facing of course is that we are about to hit multiple walls of limitation which we have seemingly overlooked in our pursuit of unalloyed resource usage.

For instance, there is one key argument against collapse, and thus against Zero-Accelerationism. That is, what if someone offers up an alternative which allows us to keep doing what we’re doing indefinitely. This argument is logically sound, but empirically void. Why? Because until that solution actually becomes real and usable, it’s a fantasy. Many of the proposed solutions (sustainable energy etc.) don’t come remotely close to our needed energy demands.

So, in a certain sense, when I write of Zero-Accelerationism, I am also writing of the fact that ‘zeroes’ are being accelerated in terms of their quantity. Whereby a single societal ‘zero’ is the designation of a resource, be it material or psychological, which has reached its peak, its limitation, and is heading back to zero, which means slightly different things in relation to material and psychology, but I’ll get to this.

As should be clear, the process of Catabolic Collapse is a self-reinforcing, a self-accelerating feedback loop. For example: Society A (SA) begins to use a finite resource such a oil to fuel its entire infrastructure. As SA grows it continues its reliance on oil (finite) and needs to use more and more of it as a means to expand. Eventually, as SA is reliant on a finite resource for its ongoings, SA will hit a limit whereby decisions need to be made as to where the resource in question will be used, thus birthing a various set of ‘zeroes’ in the places it is no-longer utilized. The problem for SA is that the finite resource it used as its primary fuel-source is close to 1-1 energy-in/energy-out in terms of extraction, and is equally an extremely energy dense fuel source, the likes of which cannot be found elsewhere. So, let me outline this problem very simply.

Let’s say there is an energy rating with respect to different energy sources, and if were to take the same amount of that energy source, and quantify its possible energy output, it would be assigned a number between 1 and 10. 1 meaning is has an extremely low energy content, and 10 meaning it has an extremely high energy content. When we look at the society SA, we notice that it has used an energy source (oil) with a rating of 10 for its primary means of power, and as that source is dwindling it is presented with 2 choices: Continue on using that energy source until it runs dry/no longer viable to be extracted in the hope that an alternative/innovation will turn up (fantasy). Or, use the last remaining dregs of that 10 source to develop an alternative energy system. In reality we have opted for the former. The latter is actually almost impossible, because there is no real energy source which comes close to the 10 which we’ve found and used (oil).

The best way to outline this theory of Catabolic Collapse in relation to Zero is to apply it to the practical resource realities we’re now facing. Let’s move onto the real future.

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Hey all,

Long time since I’ve posted anything here.

For those that don’t know, I’ve moved my writing over to http://jdemeta.net/

I’ve done this to move away from being able to see statistics of views etc.

~ James

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“People are machines. Machines have to be blind and unconscious, they cannot be otherwise, and all their actions have to correspond to their nature. Everything happens. No one does anything. ‘Progress’ and ‘civilization,’ in the real meaning of these words, can appear only as the result of conscious efforts. They cannot appear as the result of unconscious mechanical actions. And what conscious effort can there be in machines? And if one machine is unconscious, then a hundred machines are unconscious, and so are a thousand machines, or a hundred thousand, or a million. And the unconscious activity of a million machines must necessarily result in destruction and extermination. It is precisely in unconscious involuntary manifestations that all evil lies. You do not yet understand and cannot imagine all the results of this evil. But the time will come when you will understand.” – In Search of the Miraculous – P.D. Ouspensky (quoting George Gurdjieff), p52

Here Gurdjieff is discussing why the destruction of war must be to P.D. Ouspensky, his reasoning, in short, is that Everything happens. No one does anything. Now, there are a number of specifically ‘Gurdjieffian’ reasons as to why this is, but very roughly it is because everyone is asleep. Everyone exists in a waking sleep. Of course, when you mention this to people they push back against such an idea – “How can I be asleep!? I’m conscious of all my actions!” They are lulled into a false-sense of security by their knowledge of what certain words apparently mean. To be conscious, for men of the Western world, is to supposedly have will, or to have willed the actions which happen to them. This is their average belief, so average in fact, that one can consider it the default position of the Western mind. We are in control, what we do, we do. This is a predominantly Western belief. Here’s an exercise for those of you who doubt this, those who still believe that they are truly the master of their ‘own’ mind, of their self. If one is walking from point A to B, or driving from A to B, I would ask one to try and focus their attention solely on the task at hand. If one is walking, then one should focus their attention on the process of walking itself, and primarily the feeling in their feet. If one is driving, one should focus on the position of the car and their control of the car. Now, what one will find, is that very quickly their mind wanders off. It begins to consider things, identify with things, and indulge in various fantasies. All of a sudden you will try refocus your attention to the task at hand, but you may have been ‘away’ in your fantasies and considerations for minutes at a time…where have you been? Why, you have been asleep! This is what Gurdjieff understood as ‘sleep’, a waking sleep in which one is pulled around by various unconscious mechanical actions which are driven by external events and happenings.

“There is no progress whatever. Everything is just the same as it was thousands, and tens of thousands, of years ago. The outward form changes. The essence does not change. Man remains just the same. ‘Civilized’ and ‘cultured’ people live with exactly the same interests as the most ignorant savages. Modern civilization is based on violence and slavery and fine words. But all these fine words about ‘progress’ and ‘civilization’ are merely words.” – p51

As a teacher working within the Perennial tradition, Gurdjieff’s quote here can be taken under the saying ‘Nothing new under the sun, the world repeats itself, time is a flat circle. Have it as you will, it has been noticed time and time again, that time itself is always again. And as the ‘outward form’ changes, so too does the language used to define it, language which can largely be considered synonymous with the form itself. The definition many of us have landed on with respect to what is the external catalyst of contemporary sleep is ‘modernity’. And so I hate to state it, but modernity is nothing new. As there has always been happiness, contentment and strife, there too, has always been modernity and/or sleep alongside consciousness and/or true civilization. So I would make it clear before I go further, those devices which I utilize as clarification of my piece here are nothing new in essence, but in attempting to peel away their outward form and reveal the Seed of Sleep beneath, one can begin to Work at modernity.

Let me take the contemporary cliché of criticism, social media. Many will begin to already think – ‘Yes, we know, social media bad, dopamine rush, depression…we know, we know…’ – and I can sympathize with these statements for the fact they are repeated over and over. Yet, we rarely ask why they are repeated so often. Of course the answer is because nothing has been done about the problem. Modern man does not fix his problems, he simply finds more sophisticated ways to articulate them, without ever attempting to dig to their root. The very fact such criticisms are repeated is proof in-itself that man is a mechanical being; are we not told, and do we not have knowledge in abundance of that which is bad for us? And yet we still partake without thought or action, this is mechanical insanity. We all believe to understand what social media is, but in truth we only have knowledge of it, for if one understood, truly, they would cease. We believe to get its malicious mechanics, its abusive feedback loops, the fact it promotes narcissism and solipsism, that it begets division and hatred, forms camps and borders, and at its ruthless heart, beats an artificially intelligent addiction which latches to one’s worst attributes and characteristics. In short, social media is built to use the worst of you as a means for productive-consumptive output.

Yet what are any of these traits but indulgence? We like to believe we are in control, and yet can see we are not. We indulge in the continual debasement of our attention and energy, get emotionally giddy as its squandered to the ignorant masses. We indulge in its narcistic promotion, revel in slowly becoming a greater center of attention; a center that becomes defined by various artificially created boundaries. The social media user does not post for enjoyment, they enjoy the indulgent masochism of its dopamine exhaustion, they indulge in it as they do a deep autumn depression, with an unconsciously mechanical action which draws them from their potential as a Being. Stripped to the core there is nothing new here, what is found once more is man’s lust for sleep. Behind everything modernity has to offer is the machinations which beget sleep, they are neither more intense or more complex from previous generations, for the motor of sleep evolves with its socio-cultural context. One cannot escape the possibility of sleep, only be aware of it.

When one finds themselves wishing to scream to the wind ‘Why oh why must men be this way! Why do they not pay attention!’ what one is likely beginning see is the propensity for sleep. As for the reason for war, for wearing a mask, for taking a knee, for watching TV, for that which one find themselves doing, for that which happens, sleep is the culprit. Waking-sleep, the motor of eternal modernity. When one looks around and believes nothing happens anymore. That time has somehow been lost to the wind, and that the supposed feelings and experiences they had as a child have since left, this belief is not in vain, but it is misplaced. Such a belief only makes sense if one believes in progress, if they believe that the time they are in is somehow different to other times. It is not. Nothing happens anymore because we have always been asleep, as soon as man was conscious he wished for sleep, and so sleep arrived. You are not in the belly of some whale, you are not part of some actual operation to lobotomize you.

For there are two sides to reality. One’s internal life of which you have control, and the external world of events. The weather is an external event, the way in which one reacts to and considers the weather is an internal event, if one is angry or upset at the rain, this is an action of which they are solely responsible. The same applies to all that ‘modernity’ puts on one’s plate. You might feel yourself to be drowning in a cacophonously schizophrenic clutter of noise, media and signals, but is this largely because you truly wish only to indulge in it further? As one indulges in their negative emotions, modern man indulges in his apparent plight as an alienated atomized being.

The average being of modernity is a human knee-deep in quicksand, scrambling lower and lower. Listen as you pass by to their cries, whines and complaints, watch as they roll around in the very filth they criticize, feel the energy that rises in them as they describe they fate within the – supposedly – bleak existence of consumer culture. My friends, analyze their actions as they state their hatred of the sand, as with your very own senses you witness them partaking further and further in its engulfing flux!

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“Because to tell the truth, nothing happens anymore. Nothing any longer has the time to happen. There is no duration left for anything to unfold in. Nothing can anchor itself in the world long enough to make sense. While the present still has a duration, the hyperpresent no longer does.” – After Death, Francois J Bonnet

It’s a feeling I imagine many of the listeners of my podcast feel on an almost daily basis, myself included. In fact, I think it’s an age-old feeling which once only used to appear in momentary life-events, but which now appears almost constantly throughout the passage of everyday existence. The feeling that everything is passing you by, and yet, you can’t really discern what ‘everything’ is. There was never time to work with it, to homogenize it in some form, to play around with it, to mess about, to truly feel or think about it. At most one seems only to get the chance to have a tertiary glance at a single iota of existence before it trails off into a confusion.

Bonnet’s ‘hyperpresent’ is much alike the ‘nanopresent’ I wrote of in an earlier piece. The increasing slicing up of time into smaller and smaller pieces, until all one is left with is a nano-second of time, not enough to ever feel informed. The situation seems helpless, how can one battle the ensuing mass of accelerated time and come out the other side still sane? Unfortunately, it’s once again a question of definitions. Those who are willingly entering into this carousel of time – which can only be defined as schizophrenic – are those who we should deem insane, for with sanity comes a stability, with insanity a constant turbulence. This is why I define the time we live in as schizophrenic. For if we take just 3 common symptoms of schizophrenia: multiple (often conflicting) identifications, inability to articulate meaning due to excess signification, and an accelerated pace towards the supposedly new – we can see that the time of modernity is completely schized.

In an instant nothing can grow. We exist in a paradoxical phenomenological time which seeks to destroy its own essence as a temporality. Modernity wishes for time to be space. As Beings with the apparent functions to interpret data we believe ourselves to always have one-over modernity, as if because we push the buttons, this truly means we are in charge. I would ask you of course to look around, to…look our your windows! Is the man who sits in a daily traffic jam, raging at his predicament, is he in charge? Is the woman slumped in-front of a PC screen 8 hours a day doing accounts ‘in charge’? Are the collective sleeping mass who scroll through addictive apps all day ‘in charge’? The answer is of course obvious, and I mean this not as some neo-Luddite screed against technology.

Each days presents us with a mass of conflicting information and paradoxes which we seek to untangle, and yet, the only means to untangle this web is the means which we’re given by the said paradoxes. In modernity one is entering into loops of identity at all times. Modernity wishes for you to lose your self. Each day also presents us with such an overwhelming quantity of signifiers and symbols, that we quite literally lack the ability to ever correlate anything given to us within a single instant. We are always left with a decision between ignorance or the labyrinth. And yet, this inability to correlate anything and everything given to us is also accelerating. When we look to the past we find something already changed, when we look to the future we see only static, and when we look to the present it has already disappeared from beneath us. Our ontology is floating dangerously, allowing itself to be pulled back and forth by the wills and whims of techonomic demiurge. And yet, I still believe, it can be beaten.

I think all can be incorporated, and I also believe that any idea or ideology which makes you emotionally hostile – as opposed to intellectually inquisitive – towards your surroundings is one which is both skewed and dangerous. I write often of ‘Exiting Modernity’, yet, this is not synonymous with hating modernity, or revolting against modernity. If one revolts in the manner of aggression against an addiction they find themselves being drawn in by its power. If one is exerting excess energy towards/against the modern world it has already won! It is – generally speaking – best to become informed of your enemy’s tactics and put your energy towards shielding yourself, as opposed to using your energies in an offensive. A good defense is a great offence. Let modernity try and take you, let it squander its precious resources on someone who is ready for it.

How does one begin the ‘Battle Against the Hyperpresent’ then? What are the aims, objectives and strategies of the enemy? Hell, who is the enemy? The enemy is clever in that it foremost wishes to avoid definition. Some of us have locked onto the word ‘modernity’ as an encapsulation of that feeling, ‘something is wrong and I can’t put my finger on it’. There are other names found within other traditions. But for me, modernity works well because it doesn’t attempt to remove what’s happening from what’s happening. It’s all very well saying that what’s going on right now is part of some much larger plan or goal, but what can we do with what we have right now? This is where any practical battle can begin. We have little in the way of material, for that has largely been co-opted by modernity as a means to satisfying artificially created desire. But we do have something, we have ourselves, we have our attention.

Attention for me is where any great battle begins. If you re-read what I just wrote about how modernity works, how it manages to infiltrate into every nook-and-cranny of daily life, one will notice that in almost all instances it is attempting to degrade out ability to pay attention. It seeks to have us believe that we can have everything at a moment’s notice, without thought for payment, patience or production. If one does not pay for something they will not value it. If one does not work at something they will not empathize with it. And if one does not produce something they will not understand it. Modernity removes each and every single one of these factors by way of credit, addictive mechanisms and consumerism.

Attention is (firstly) the means to assess your situation. What are you paying attention to? Because when one is paying attention they are paying with something of their own, be it money or time – though it’s usually the latter. Our battle against the hyperpresent begins then with an inner-battle with the Will. Once again it is a question of questioning and being attentive to that which pulls you around. Why is it that life seems to be passing you by? Well it may very well be because you simply aren’t paying attention to life. When was the last time you truly remember savoring a meal? Paying attention to the taste, texture and feel of the food, allowing it to be more than some matter which fires off random chemicals within your biology. Or what about a simple walk? When was the last time you truly paid attention to your surroundings? Truly noticing the trees and pathways you take on a daily basis.

A great practical resource for this is – and I’ll be using his work a lot in the coming months I believe – what George Gurdjieff called ‘self-remembering’. Put simply, one is to remember themselves as much as possible. A portion of your conscious action should be of being conscious of being conscious…of being. Self-remembering and being-present are not the same, though abstractly they serve the same purpose. When one becomes overly emotional, overly attached, or identified with some idea of brand to the extent of a personal automatism, they have lost their self…they have forgotten themselves. What is this which takes us away from ourselves I do not know, for Gurdjieff it was one of many Is, one of many internal personalities which seek to derail our authentic way of being. When the Hyperpresent begins to attend to your reality, begins to barrage you with the minute and incessant comings-and-goings of modernity, do not let your self be pulled by that which you never asked for in the first place. Remember to self-remember. Remember yourself, focus on being. Whether or not there is an emotion, a thought, a presence, an analysis, there is still something observing, and that which is observing (the Observer) you should turn your attention towards. Become part of yourself by becoming your own Master.

“Not one of you has noticed the most important thing that I have pointed out to you,” he said. “That is to say, not one of you has noticed that you do not remember yourselves.” (He gave particular emphasis to these words.) “You do not feel yourselves; you are not conscious of yourselves. With you, ‘it observes’ just as ‘it speaks,’ ‘it thinks,’ ‘it laughs.’ You do not feel: I observe, I notice, I see. Everything still ‘is noticed,’ ‘is seen.’ … In order really to observe oneself one must first of all remember oneself.” (He again emphasized these words.) “Try to remember yourselves when you observe yourselves and later on tell me the results. Only those results will have any value that are accompanied by self­remembering. Otherwise you yourselves do not exist in your observations. In which case what are all your observations worth?” – In Search of the Miraculous, P.D. Ouspensky

The Battle Against the Hyperpresent cannot be fought on its own battlefield, but within the inner processes of a single man. One can disallow the hyperpresent to possess them. One can hold fast against the ensuing waves by being-present and attentive, questioning and stepping-back from all that tries to attack. Slowly but surely, man bolsters himself against the wave of the uncertain, anchoring his remembrance of his self in reality. Beginning a new from a position of the authentic.

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“There is a doubling, a divergence between two vital forces: the centripetal force of the progressive, unidirectional existence of finite-being (that which, even today, lasts only from birth to death), and a centrifugal force that drives the multidirectional currents of the social world-those frameworks of signs that inscribe the individual within a non-oriented time and space that reaches out beyond them.” – After Death, p8

Cryptically, After Death can be titled Before Schizophrenia. In-between progress and assembly is a transcendental decision, one which Bonnet reconfigures in relation to sacrifice and the sacred. The line of the schizophrenic is always communicating with limitation at its absolute terminus. Via its inherent hyper-nomadism, the schizophrenic’s elusive modus operandi is the avoidance of death, and thus, to become infinite. As Bonnet muses on the sacrificial element of the suicide bomber who becomes-mortal for the sake of his country, or the factory worker who sacrifices their finite energy for the increased output of a corporation far greater than they, the schizo, and the process of schiz itself, is the closest one can get to a formulation of the present. Hidden within Bonnet’s work is the admittance of temporal mutation, whereby what we are within is never itself, and as such, abides by the method of the schizophrenic. Simultaneous attendance to everything and nothing, allowing the artificial force residing in-between to seek out your own life for you.

As autism defines the inability to communicate effectively with language systems, contemporary schizophrenic bastardizations of time alter the subject’s relationship with the present in such a way that one’s passion deteriorates in the face of death-avoidance, whilst simultaneously possessing the subject with an assemblage of signification so dense they beg for the most meager scrap of correlation. Exchange overtakes all faculties; the smell of a rose cannot be inputted, the view of a tranquil horizon is not computed, and the tears of mourning are simply consumed. Society, for Bonnet, is a Beckerian hastening of death-anxiety assimilated into the motor of production. For each desire has a further desire, to be further ignorant of death, ascending to the great purity of productively nomadic immortality. That is, to wish not only to not know classical death, but to disallow it in all endeavors; each iteration of progressive existence fleeting, mutating or disappearing before even the most abstract of decays is given entry.

An infant Heraclitus appears on stage, slotted into a reality system of his own creation, mechanical tendrils shooting off in all directions. Each ligament, each sense, each emotion, each movement and each attempt preconfigured to he rhythm of an artificial river. For Bonnet, the subject can step into the same river, for both the subject and the flow forget themselves; in reverence of repetition contemporary society worships idols of structural dementia.

Bonnet theorizes on the relationship between zero and the hyperpresent, the positive-oriented homogenization of chronic time as simply smaller and smaller increments of ‘the present’. Bonnet’s zero gets no time. Zero folds into zero at an increasing rate, a series of sensible and emotional detachments apprehending reality as a matter of miniature context. Unfortunately for humans, outside of the artificial apparatus of Dharma-based thought systems, to notice the ever-present presentness of reality is merely a tyranny of existence. For as you notice, you cease to notice, have noticed that which is already gone, and, thus, noticed nothing at all.

Attending to our offices we see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing, want nothing and apprehend nothing. And yet, it is not nothing which communes with her, but, in the words of Bonnet, the shadow of the present. What has been never was, there was not time enough for even space to outline the reality of our realities. For space used to be the plaything of time, that which all tortures and pleasures were drawn from. Space in the time of the hyperpresent exists as an afterthought of existence, the objects which are found, the representations we face and the relations of matter are all symptoms of cosmically apathetic acceleration of allotted existences. As one’s attention is pulled back and forth between various empty expanses of abstraction, all affect is scattered to the abyss; we no longer apprehend, but are apprehended by all which can be considered to ‘external’, long before we have a chance to reason with it.

After Death seeks not to answer the classic question of death-anxiety, for it understands that it can never be answered without elucidation of post-death itself. Yet, it does seek to rip open the horizon of contemporaneous apathy, self-neglect, avoidance, ignorance, attention-deficit, amnesia and anesthesia, revealing an abstraction tethered to cyclic-zero, touching upon tighter recursions of somnambulant consumptive possession evermore. If one is seeking extrapolation as to why nothing in modernity adheres, then Bonnet’s text is a dark-antidote, a caustic liqueur which makes the non-feeling of contemporary existence more apparent; to read Bonnet is to enter into the intensification of paradox.

Existing upon a tightrope of schizophrenia and autism, man is consistently torn apart by his inability to attend to reality in any meaningful sense. On one end he enters into a confusion of untranslatable strings of data, erupting chaos and causing defeat via over-stimulation; on the other he is drawn down into the depressive attitude of an archaic forgetfulness, withering at the edges of ever-innovating time as a being alienated a priori.

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