ANOTHER Long List of Unwritten Things
New Year, New Notebooks
COPYRIGHT 2024 - JAMES MILLS
I began another new notebook on Jan. 1st and I’ve nearly filled it. Most of these ideas will remain just that-ideas. About 20% of what I write ends up on Substack… and about 50% of that ends up being posted and sent to subscribers.
At some point in the future my mind may be less busy and at that time I may sit down and develop some of these… or not 😂.
If you’re inclined please suggest potential subscribers to me… and I’ll send them a standard email inviting them to my subscriber list OR you can send some piece that I’ve written to them. Substack makes it very easy to post and distribute content but (with the recent business decisions at X, and other tech platforms) it is EXTREMELY difficult to advertise my writing once it’s here. I rely upon you to lengthen my reach.
Thanks for your interest and your support.
On A.I.: “If a drop of water represents one operation than LLM’s execute enough to fill the Pacific Ocean with each iteration…” - Making Sense Podcast
Jim Jarmusch is a director who seems fascinated with the idea of myth and sacredness and wisdom lying among the landscape of the pedestrian world:
Ghost Dog - a samurai living as in a 1980’s Brooklyn ‘hood
Only Lovers Left Alive - two vampires living in the post-modern ruins of exurban Detroit
TASKS:
Ibogaine, Ayahuasca - a modern Eleusis
Soup Kitchens
Israeli consulate, writers, etc: Hamas atrocities compilation video…
Wellbutrin refill
Car battery
LYFT / UBER (?)
Change of Address!
Stop subscriptions: flowers… covenant…
Download App: ‘My Spiritual Toolkit’
‘Dynamics of a Witch Trial’
Salem Witch Trials
Matthew Hopkins - ‘witchfinder general’…
It is a sobering reflection that, despite having no firm textual basis in Judeo-Christianity the firm and bloody certainty in the existence of witches was universal. The occasional wildfire spread of witch trials…
Many Shades of Black - The OBVIOUS contrasts between authenticity (John McWhorter) and its converse (Ibram X. Kendi, nee Henry Rogers)
I love John McWhorter. he’s like a living refutation of the angry band that is the modern group of ‘anti-racist’ (similar to its academic cousin, Critical Race Theory) speakers and creators. His reasonable and considered rejection of every main idea in the ideology seems like a gaping fissure that the high priests (Ibram X. Kendi, aka ; Robin DeAngelo) would be rushing to repair. Instead they rush to ignore and quiet him, and others like him, down…
The Great Caution of Social Science
I have spent countless strange and meditative hours reading the works of the academic cadre who are known as ‘Critical Theorists’ (plus its antecedents and motely progeny)-from Marcuse to Rubin, from Gramsci to DeAngelo. I have wandered widely in these deeply weird territories…. (bad writing, both logical and stylistically)
The Well-marked Palimpsest; Faith in the idea of ‘the blank slate’ (tabula rasa) and its implications
DREAMS (night of Jan. 2nd, 2024) - I’m in a townhouse with friends, mingling and taking it easy. I peak to one man who’s standing close to the wall. Something draws me into the basement and I see that the bottom part of his body (which has broken through the wall and the floor) has been transformed into a huge dragon-like monstrosity. Water drips from the floorboards and I’m standing in a pool, shin-deep. Parts of his human form lie torn and discarded on the floor. I trip over something and he draws his head through the opening and stares at me, a terrible grimace. I dive into a dumbwaiter-sized aperture in the wall and close the door behind me and sit in the dark, reflecting that I will have no way of knowing when the monster will have left, and resolving to stay in there until I simply cannot any longer.
BOOK RECOMMENDATION: ‘The Dionysian Gospel’ - Dennis R. Macdonald
APP IDEA: ‘SCROLL’ - A constantly-running feed of small posts (300 characters of text/short audio & video/photos/links). Users are only allowed 1 post per 24 hours and all users are identity-verified and all posts are human-approved (by moderators). This is not to filter or control content but to remove threats/spam/ads/trolling.
This is a way to disseminate information to the world which is restricted on other platforms.
There can be a ‘checkmark’ system in which users instantly note their approval… and then the most-checked posts can be searched for and easily found, that day and later.
Will attitudes toward immigration shift? There are two factors, in tension: natural xenophobia and dislike of change and competition… versus the benefits of young people (and workers) for an increasingly aging world
At some point I can see countries like South Korea or Germany positively competing for immigrants… although obviously immigrants with a minimum level of associated cultural tension and a maximal level of economic value
The lessons of death: Near Death Experiences (NDE’s) and Psychedelics - what kinds of truths are often emphasized in these experiences? How do they change the viewers? SCIENTIFIC DATA?
Notes about fungus
Notes about fungus
STONED APE THEORY - Paul Stamets, Terence McKenna
PAUL STAMETS - ‘THE UNIQUE VALUE OF THE AUTODIDACT’
JAN. 2024: SOBRIETY PRAYER - My God: help me contain and direct my desires and energies. Help me to radiate your peace and wisdom in all that I say and do.
I ask this on behalf of the man I could be and will be. I ask this on behalf of my loved ones and children yet unborn. I ask this on behalf of all of my family and friends-all those, near and far, linked to me through blood or history or affection. Amen.
A NEW THEORY OF SOCIAL JUSTICE - Critical Theory might be a bid by the powerful to erode checks on institutions… checks which they will need weakened or gone in order to flourish and retain power in the future. Possible checks:
institutional mission, rigor
objectivity
merit-based selection and promotion
CRITICAL THEORY IN FILM PRODUCTION? - The choices (or lack thereof) of certain franchises selected for production and new seasons could be suspicious. A Terminal List film would be a huge success, for example… yet terrible ideas keep getting made about stories which no one seems interested in…
BAD WRITING TRENDS:
Confused (intentionally) sex/gender roles
‘Subverting expectations’
De-emphasizing and creating negative subtexts around heterosexual romance
Over-individualizing
Disrespect toward, contradictions with, and conflicts between projects and the body of lore
New (distorted/didactic) lensing regarding: history (racism/colonialism/marriage, etc.), development…
Glorification/romanticization of nonwhite/indigenous/ ‘exotic’ cultures (a new orientalism + ‘the noble savage’ trope)… and stigmatization of American/European development and histories
Theories of Consciousness / Existence: References
Thomas Nagel
John Wheeler
Donald Hoffman
Pansychism
Dr. Pim Van Lommel - the brain and electrical activity therein do not create thought or consciousness (NDE studies)
STORY IDEA: Contact with an intelligent, sentient alien civilization which (1) doesn’t appear to even be alive or (2) complex or (3) intelligent… until our perspective changes: the species is like a huge web of metabolically very inactive mold or fungal myelin fibers stretched everywhere, creating connections and subjectivities which we cannot even imagine.
STORY IDEA: 'Transfer Student' In a near future America FL, MS, LA, and TX have nearly seceded. They are still part of the country formally but they run their own border policy and conduct their own taxation and only begrudgingly surrender what taxes the federal government can collect. Culturally they are quite distinct too, reacting to the sharp progressive shift in 'the North' with a conservative, even reactionary set of policies. However, their economy is relatively flourishing... to the extent that people and businesses who move South are beginning to face recriminations and financial penalties, as an increasingly worried federal/northern state government tries to staunch the bleeding.
Alex H is a transfer student in New York. He was born in MS to MS parents, but raised in South FL. He's easy-going and fairly non-political (an electrical engineering major) and so he's first amused, and then amazed, and then worried by the beliefs about the South (the Gulf crescent?) he encounters. People have very dark views about poverty and race and policing and instead of reacting with acceptance or curiosity his attempts to educate them usually provoke hostility, even anger. It isn't long before Alex discovers that a petition has been started against him in one of his engineering survey courses...Origins: equity versus equality
HUMANS = NATURE
reverse naturalistic fallacy
fungi eat radiation / plastics
CO2 help plants
CO2 absorbed by turned soil
nature is resilient ; we are nature
MALE / FEMALE Tendencies: GENERALIZATIONS!!!
women struggle with expressing (accepting their own) anger/frustration/disappointment/irritation
passive aggression
toxic friendships - covert competition, ill will, distress at personal fortune or advancement; ENVY
Dr. Jordan Peterson “a friend is one who… feels happy when good things happen to you and sincerely upset when… bad… “
When power corrupts science:
Psychedelics and therapeutic applications (drug war research pause, 1970’s)
Trans and gender dysphoria in minors - hormone treatments and surgery - validity of the affirmation model
THE VALUE OF STEREOTYPES - Stereotypes have fallen out of favor (hard)… they’ve acquired a negative valence but this hasn’t stopped their deployment. It has only limited the application of stereotypes (subjects and contexts in which is it acceptable).
Stereotypes are an essential feature of human psychology and a great tool in a world with limited information
… not necessarily impolite or malign (or, in general, inaccurate)
Required for good fiction!!! Caravans by James Michener is full of value judgemental stereotypes about Afghans and Westerners and it greatly enhances the story
Women reliably underestimate the extent to which emn’s lust and its associated ‘motivated reasoning’ affects their reactions. Many women really seem to believe that they are considered brave/ or competent/ or formidable because they have been told these things by men for years.
Instead, they are merely attractive, and when men learn that they value these attributes especially they rush to form an impression of them. Women can sometimes be fooled by campaigns of this sort and…
Women generally seem to underestimate the sexual motivations of men and the power they can hold over their words and actions
What Big Pharma ads teach us about real value and the deepest priorities:
friends / outdoors / activity / fun / music / dogs / parties
mixed-age, healthy, smiling, not-rich but not-poor
dancing and big trees are popular (?)
‘a modern vision of heaven’