Category Archives: Nihilism

(Spoilers for Rick And Morty ahead, squanchers).

With all the talk about the golden age of television, people often forget the golden age we are actually in: The golden age of cartoons. Adult cartoons that is. The likes of The Simpsons, Family Guy, and Futurama have broken ground in the mega popular sphere in the last couple of decades, Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Ugly Americans are breaking through with the help of the internet in more cult spheres.

We now have adult cartoons that just offer crazy amounts of fun, like Archer or Bob's Burgers, following the evolution of South Park from fart jokes to the most on-point cultural and political satire, now we are gifted with horrendous examinations of the current human condition (using animals) on Bojack Horseman, deep moments in a kid's cartoon with Adventure Time and finally science fiction and philosophy in Rick And Morty.

There's no denying that Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon's genius #AdultSwim cartoon #RickandMorty is deep. If you've seen the show you've no doubt come to that realisation already, probably very quickly. Season 3 is just around the corner so let's have a look at some of the philosophical concepts in Rick and Morty, squanchers.

Nihilism is, in its simplest terms, the belief that life has no meaning and that there is none to be found. This Nietzschean focus is pretty consistent with a number of the characters, but none better than this little butter-fetching guy above. Rick makes a robot, for some reason bestows it with intelligence and self-awareness and then gives it the one function of passing him butter. Later on the sad little robot lets Rick know that he "is not programmed for friendship" when Rick tries to watch a movie with the clever little guy.

Most of us yearn for a purpose that somehow exceeds our basic functions, so meaning alone doesn't carry enough weight for an intelligent existence. Here, without Rick (God) having assigned the robot meaning that carries something sublime, the poor slave-bot is left only with his tiny purpose and a level of intelligence and emotion that allows him to lament it. Sound familiar?

The shows often swings between nihilism, existentialism, and absurdism, so here's a quick (and super reductive) explanation of some key differences between the concepts: An existentialist will look to make their own meaning of life; a nihilist will simply accept that there is no meaning; and an absurdist will overcome the fact that there is no meaning in life by embracing the absurd relationship between the human mind and the rest of the Universe.

'The Absurd' refers to the dissonance between the human need to seek value in life, and the constant feeling that none is ever found. If we come to understand that there is no intrinsic meaning in life, then we can suggest three possible answers to this problem:

1. Existentialism - To attempt to find meaning through religion, love, nature etc. Or perhaps even your grandkids.

2. Nihilism - Suicide. Rick appears to try this on one occasion (Auto Erotic Assimilation), and seemingly turns to God at a time when he really does think he is going to die (A Rickle in Time).

3. Absurdism - To rebel and embrace the absurdity of life. To become an absurd hero.

The guys over at Wisecrack recently made a video about absurdism and Rick's love affair with Szechuan sauce. At the end of season two there's a touching moment when Rick hands himself into the authorities so his family can head back to earth in peace, rather than life on a strange tiny planet, or a planet where everything is on a cob. This sacrifice and genuine emotion is replaced at the beginning of season three (big spoilers for The Rickshank Rickdemption ahead) with Rick's quest for Szechuan sauce: a dipping sauce McDonald's released to promote Disney's Mulan in the nineties. Rick also dangles an emotional origin story in front of our eyes and then snatches it away, almost laughing at us for daring to care.

From the excellent Jared at Wisecrack: Its not just that Rick and Morty evades meaning, the writers seem to get a perverse joy in playing with our desire to search for hope and meaning. As if Camus was making his point in the style of an internet troll.

Another time, after Rick and Morty's planet has been destroyed (by none other than Rick and Morty, of course) Rick finds them a new planet in the multiverse. Rick chooses a planet where that Earth's Rick and Morty happen to just have died from a science experiment gone wrong, so this Rick and Morty can take their place. They both have to then bury their own dead bodies, in the garden. When Summer has had a bad day (she found out that she was nearly aborted), Morty tells her this story and vocalises the meaningless of life.

This speech, captured in the above GIF, perfectly encapsulates absurdism. There is no point to anything, there is no reason for anyone being here, we're all going to die. So lets embrace the meaninglessness of life. And watch TV, of course.

Free will is one of the most contentious debates in philosophy and has been for centuries. It can also be very hard to discuss or think about because of the knee jerk reaction it can provoke; everybody reacts with indignation if some smug bird-person tries to tell them they don't have control over their actions because everything they'll ever do is pre-determined by external and internal factors.

In Rick And Morty the multiverse means that there are nearly infinite versions of Rick, Morty, every other character, as well as infinite crazy versions of Earth check out Rixty Minutes, where the fam spend most of the episode watching inter-dimensional cable. Rick installs the inter-dimensional cable box so the family can watch all the incredible things that are going on throughout the multiverse. Jerry becomes obsessed when he spots a movie star version of himself famous and being badass, very unlike the pathetic, snivelling Jerry we are used to.

Similarly, in the version of Earth that has been totally Cronenbergerised, Jerry become a badass, patriarchal caveman that threatens to kill Rick. So why can't Jerry always be this impressively tenacious? He's not presented with the circumstances in which he can evolve into the Jerry he would want to be in every Universe. Jerry, like everyone else in the Universe, is determined by the circumstances of the Universe that are hosting his Jerry-like essentialism. Jerry's actions are determined by whichever universe he's in no free will. We don't get badass Jerry, we get pathetic Jerry in our Earth. Sorry other Jerrys, but snivelling Jerry is the best.

I previously wrote about metamodernism and La La Land here. Metamodernism is possibly the cultural and philosophical movement to follow from postmodernism (prevalent since the end of the Second World War).

I previously would have, and did, say that Rick and Morty is a prime example of metamodernism. Since the season three opener (and currently the only episode from season three), The Rickshank Rickdemption, this looks a lot less likely. Rick shuns his emotions in this episode for the worthy pursuit of McDonalds' Mulan Szechuan Sauce (although this may all change shortly when we get the rest of season three).

This is potentially completely defunct after The Rickshank Rickdemption. Metamodernism has all the irony and nihilism of postmodernism, as well as a lot of the characteristics (pastiche, being self aware, etc), but genuine emotion as well. There's a good chance Rick has just been teasing us about the genuine emotion, but we will see.

Long description of postmodernism and metamodernism here:

Metamodernism is the name for the movement that has possibly come after postmodernism. Postmodernism is characterised by irony, self-referentiality, and cynicism. Perfect examples are shows like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, with the gang's never-ending narcissistic exploits without any feeling or sincerity (e.g. the insistent of not dealing with Frank being Charlie's father), and movies like American Psycho, a film that destroys grand concepts like truth using black humour but ending in nihilism. Nothing learned and nothing sincere. Metamodernism calls back to the sentimentality and sincerity from before postmodernism, but keeps the lessons learned from postmodernism (e.g. the destruction of meta-narratives). Metamodernism often speaks with the language of postmodernism irony, self referencing, cynicism but what is said is sincere and affecting. Oscillation is also a defining factor of metamodernism think of every time you've seen something on the internet that would appear truthful and reputable, only to see the exact opposite of that thing a few minutes later.

Popularised by Vanilla Sky (and the much better Spanish original Open Your Eyes), Robert Nozick's thought experiment of the Experience Machine (or the Pleasure Machine) asks the question: if there was a machine that could allow you to have any experience you desire, would this be preferable to real life?

Roy the video game that Rick is obsessed with, is almost a perversion of an experience machine. Instead of anything you could desire, you play out the life of a carpet salesman but the game is immersive to the point that went Morty takes off the headgear (after he has died at the pathetic age of 55) he asks where his wife is. Instead of having any experience you wish, like to Experience Machine thought experiment, you get to try and make the best life within the parameters of a normal world and all the pressures that come with it (hence football star, to husband, to carpet salesman, to dead). Rick of course manages to mix things up, taking Roy "off grid." No surprise there.

What philosophical concepts have you spotted in Rick and Morty?

(Source: Wisecrack (and again), Smash.com, Daniel Miessler, Tom Rowley)

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Butter Robots, Szechuan Sauce & Roy: The Philosophy of 'Rick And ... - moviepilot.com

Glossy nihilism, delivered with a wink: Lana Del Rey. Photograph: Dave J Hogan/Getty Images

Most pop stars innovate every album cycle, a fraught hustle that is of a piece with this eras frantic audio production values. Thats all beneath Lana Del Rey.

The ageless 32-year-old arrived at a languid sound, a detached authorial voice and a set of obsessions on her 2012 debut Born to Die, and her fourth album remains true to them all. One fine track sums up her entire oeuvre: the title of Summer Bummer reflects the consistently high mercury of Del Reys mises-en-scne; and there is usually a worm at the centre of her perfect peach. The rhyme reflects the way all this glossy nihilism is often delivered with a wink.

At least three departures separate Lust for Life from its predecessors. One is the over-abundance of guests, a concession to modernity. The usual attendant menfolk rappers A$AP Rocky and Playboi Carti lend notional grit to Del Reys ultra-glide. You might want to punch the air, however, when Stevie Nicks turns up on Beautiful People, Beautiful Problems Nickss even, level delivery is so obviously a precursor to Del Reys own. The title is almost self-parody; the rest, however, goes deeper than Del Rey songs usually do, combining a fetish for muscular blue-collar men with eco-fear.

Its not the only instance. A number of songs here step outside Del Reys favourite theme wrongness, gilded and tackle the non-solipsistic. The second departure is that this is an album about America today. God Bless America and All the Beautiful Women in It wears its title like a pussy hat; gunshots punctuate the chorus.

The ghostly When the World Was at War We Kept Dancing invokes the 1940s while wondering: Is it the end of an era? Is it the end of America? Del Rey surveys the crowd at Coachella and worries about their children, their childrens children. I said a prayer for the third time, she sighs. And we know what Del Reys prayers are like nowadays in February she encouraged Twitter followers to join a nationwide congregation of witches to put a spell on the US president.

If this is an album about America, it is also an album about Americana, and other venerable source materials: the Coachella song is subtitled Woodstock in My Mind. Despite the rappers, the hip-hop content in Del Reys sound mostly gives way to canonical genres the third departure.

Millennials might find a subscription to Uncut or Mojo useful here, as Del Rey drops retro bombs all over the place. Dont worry baby, she croons on Love (Beach Boys). My boyfriends back, she notes on Lust for Life (the Angels), her strangely unsatisfying hook-up with the Weeknd, which borrows from Iggy Pop. It all gets a little ridiculous when Sean Ono Lennon consents to a Beatles pastiche called Tomorrow Never Came crammed with wide-ranging interpolations. Lay lady lay, Del Rey sings, I would be your tiny dancer. Its a mark of Lana Del Reys persuasive skill that a good song emerges from under all that baggage. Girl meets boy. Boy fails to turn up when he said he would. Love goes wrong. Repeat till fade.

More here:

Lana Del Rey: Lust for Life review topical tunes and retro bombs - The Guardian

This prompts his friends Tess (Jessica Regan) and Joel (You're the Worst's Chris Geere) to bundle their pal off to a country house for a crash course of involuntary chemotherapy. Noble intentions dont make them any easier to root for. Joel is a nostalgia-obsessed man-child recently divorced by his megabucks wife, Tess a frustrated IT drone dabbling in robot porn.

Riley's real-life fiance Lizzy Caplan (Masters of Sex) also pops up as an alcoholic oncologist who furnishes the conspirators with purloined medicines. Caplan is great at playing drop-dead cynics. However, shes jarring here, her hard-nosed performance at odds with a comedy which, serious subject matter notwithstanding, is largely concerned with gross-out gags and puerile back-and-forths.

Episode one, in particular, zipped along but how much of Bains freewheeling nihilism can we stomach before turning green at the gills and requiring a lie-down?

Read this article:

Ill Behaviour, review: the chuckles are broad but the grisly nihilism is rather unpalatable - Telegraph.co.uk

Success in life is about setting appropriate goals, and fighting like hell to achieve them. Luck (or chaos, depending on your amount of nihilism) plays a massive role. Yet, we each control our own destiny to a degree.

This goes double in the workplace. External forces can derail or enhance your ability to achieve success. But the goals you set and the work you do to achieve them are whats most important in the formula.

This is why Derrick Rose should join the Cavaliers. It would be a departure and a role reversal for the former Most Valuable Player, but it would also set a new path for a career that has grown stale.

First, Rose needs to accept that he is no longer the player who captured the MVP six years ago. Even at just the age of 28, Roses body has already betrayed him. He plays like a 34-year-old point guard who still relies on the athleticism of his peak.

Rose still put up numbers in New York because hes still a high-volume lead guard. What was troubling is that Rose put up those numbers despite being paired with Hall of Fame scorer Carmelo Anthony and burgeoning star Kristaps Porzingis last season. Roses goal was to be a star point guard despite his physical ailments and several seasons of anti-glory. In that quest, he put up surprisingly decent, albeit hollow, numbers.

Despite having his best season since 2012 (when he was an All-Star), Rose was still miscast as a featured player. The Knicks record spells out the bottom line: New York was bad, and only won 40 percent of their games with Rose available.

He needs a different goal as he transitions into the next phase of his career. As the free agent market showed, no one wants that old D-Rose anymore, at least not at the salary hes expecting.

But as several aging former stars have shown us, theres hope yet for Rose. He needs set new goals and work to achieve them.

Consider Shaun Livingston, who suffered perhaps the most gruesome injury in NBA history 10 years ago. Unlike Rose, Liv wasnt yet a star. He was on that path, and then his knee blew it all up.

Liv didnt quit, though. After three years playing sparingly and rehabbing religiously, he set new goals and accepted a new role. He changed his game and his mindset. Hes now an important cog on a two-time champion at age 31.

You sense Rose believes hes more than Livingston, that he can be better than an important cog on a champion. What Rose has to do to look within and determine whats truly better than that while being within the realm of possibility.

Is becoming an All-Star again within the realm of possibility? It could be, in the right situation. History shows us that if you score a lot of points, you have an inside track on winning an All-Star spot. But no team (with one exception) has been willing to give Rose an opportunity to be its offensive focal point this summer. Without opportunity there is no achievement.

Is becoming an important cog on a champion possible? That is absolutely what Rose could become for Cleveland, even though the Cavaliers remain massive underdogs against the Warriors.

Rose is a better player right now than Deron Williams, who arrived midseason to serve as the supplemental shot creator needed to let Kyrie rest and LeBron play off the ball. But Williams was wildly overmatched throughout the playoffs. Rose gives Cleveland a better chance as long as he plays within the system, tries hard on defense, and defers to the Cavaliers brighter stars.

Theres no chance hed score 18 a night as a Cav, or sniff an All-Star nod. But hed be on screens across the world in May and June, and he just might get to hoist a trophy in front of the Q.

Perhaps more importantly, LeBron has the standing to help Rose reset his goals. No one in the league is more successful on and off the court than LeBron. He speaks with authority. Plus, when hes on the court, Rose isnt going to be able to take over the offense. LeBron doesnt let that happen. (Ask Kyrie Irving or Dion Waiters.)

Is Rose ready to sacrifice his personal numbers and his narrow potential for a return to stardom -- potential he likely believes to be greater than what we believe it to be to find a new brand of success? Well see.

The Lakers and Bulls are both reportedly knocking on Roses door. Neither will pay much either, making this largely a decision about role.

On the Lakers, Rose will challenge Lonzo Ball, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, and Jordan Clarkson for minutes. Hell get plenty -- not start-level as he did in New York, but more than hed likely get in Cleveland. L.A. wont be good, though, and Lonzo is the future. Theres no runway for Rose with the Lakers. Itd be yet another pit stop.

We can all agree that going back to Chicago would just be plain weird. But heres the thing: that team doesnt have any lead scorers other than Dwyane Wade at the moment. Zach LaVine will almost assuredly miss the beginning of the regular season while recovering from ACL surgery, and odds are Chicago will bring him along slowly given the low likelihood the Bulls will be competitive.

Wade remains an incredibly odd fit, and theres a chance he finds a new home before the season begins through a buy-out or trade. Rose is much better than Kris Dunn at this point, to say nothing of Cameron Payne. Theres no scoring in the frontcourt, even with Nikola Mirotic still unsigned, so Rose would get plenty of minutes and plenty of points. Roses best shot at personal success his best shot at putting up numbers like the Derrick Rose of old -- is returning to Chicago, if the Bulls even truly want him.

But thats not where Roses future lies. He almost assuredly cant be a high-volume player on a good team. This is a critical moment in his transition. How he is remembered in the future and how he gets paid in his 30s depend on what sort of career he molds for himself now.

Its all about finding an achievable role and excelling in it. Cleveland offers that. Well soon find out if Rose agrees, or if he still believes hes capable of being a star.

See the rest here:

How Derrick Rose can find success again - SB Nation

On record, a compelling version darkness is often just a half-step away from ennui. The Atlanta rapper21 Savage managed to stay closer to the former halfon last years excellentSavage Mode, where he sanded off his high-pitch yap into a sneakily melodic growl. Though many haveattributed that projects success to Metro Boomins productionstark and surreal, like glistening kaleidoscope lenses in a caveits cinematic pull was more rooted in the appeal of 21 Savages serrated persona. Yes, that persona islargely one-dimensional, but its unapologetically so in a way that folds the worlds excess into his worldview. The obvious example was No Heart, which found21 wantonly composing faux dialogue, telling his biography with lucid efficiency, and subverting raps come-up trope with his dark humor. Multi-car garages have been linked to his impish grin ever since.

His new recordIssa Albumthe name is a nod to a meme that helped in part to propel his famepeaks when it mines 21 Savages psyche and falters when it attempts to stretch out its breadth. The latter flaw is disheartening because its a needless one:Like No Heart, the debut albums clear standout Bank Accountfeaturing a melancholic acoustic sample produced by 21 himselfworks because of howhe convincingly paintsfame and violence with the same sanguine brush (Got em tennis chains on and they real blingy /Draco make you do the chicken head like Chingy). Hes also strong enough of a writer to strike with pointillistic detail, like he does on the Nothin New, which draws threads from Martin Luther Kings death to fatalistic hopelessness with sharp detail (Lost his faith in Jesus Chris, now he prayin to a bandana). Metro Boomin, who takes up the lions share of the production duties, still demonstrates the naturalabilityillustrate21s calcified reality. With his nefarious keys, 21s Have you ever made a nigga mama cry? on Close My Eyes feels like a lived nightmare.

But Issa Albumtasks itself with having the wide scope of an album, which forces 21 to rap along when he doesnt have much to say. As a result, his threats come across less dead-eyed and more sickly as the LP progresses.Issa Album also takes measures to show 21s romantic side. Theres Facetimea song about Facetimethat fits about as awkwardly as Hey Luv (Anything) would onThe Infamous.Issa Albumis neednt beThe Infamous, but it couldve benefitted from a clearer and tighter direction.

Go here to read the rest:

Review: 21 Savage Hits the Limits of Nihilism on Issa Album - SPIN

When it comes to my personal life philosophy, I tend to start by going straight to nihilism. Right down to the dregs, and then I ask myself, Why cant I stay here?

And I think thats somewhat an important question to ask, for me. Not for everyone, but for me. Lets start out with a clean slate, and see what is left.

Maybe you think this is harder than it looks, and Id agree. First, the idea of a clean slate is, itself, one that we made up; its not clean itself. And the very thought that starting out with a clean slate is a good thing is a product of culture, environment, etc. Therein lies the great paradox of trying to find a clean slate the concept of a clean slate itself is not clean, and so youre doomed to failure from the outset.

But the concept is somewhat helpful, in that it forces me to continually answer the question, Why?

Why is it better to be selfless than selfish? Why is it better to be ambitious than lazy? I know people want you to be more selfless, and I know that, especially in Western culture, ambition and the amount you contribute is prized. But why? Why is that important?

Ive found it a rather interesting feature of my education that, at every turn, what I learned deconstructed the value of education in various ways. The more I learned about the structure behind our patterns of thought and our values, the more I saw that things I took for granted or set in stone as good or bad werent that simple; they were constructs, made-up concepts, that at several points in the history of their construction could have been built one way or the other, although, after several generations, we take them for granted.

The disconcerting thing about knowing this is that the things you once knew as objective fact become accidents of subjective preferences that largely depended on happenstance. So you become less confident about a lot of things, which makes you curious about what else you dont know. And so much of what we take advantage of reality seems so constructed that you get tempted to peak behind the curtain.

But there is no objective behind the curtain, Ive found theres always, it seems, one more construction, one more why youve jumped down the rabbit hole, and it seems like youre going to falling forever, and theres nothing, necessarily, to hold onto on the way down.

And so sometimes, in my case, I have to think, Whats next? What do I hold onto to keep from falling?

You might say, People.

Heres the thing, though: People are fickle. And I think they have a right to be. No person should be there just to prop me up, to make me feel good, to take the emotional burden that is my life. Help them? Sure, I can. Depend on them? No, I cant. And Im not saying I should be able to; they have their own lives, and I should respect that. And altruism isnt something to really hold onto, either, because its outside yourself; if you are altruistic for your own salvation, youre not being altruistic, and sooner or later thatll be exposed in an ugly way.

So, yeah. Maybe here you think Im selfish. Maybe you think that existential angst is silly that while Im here questioning things, youre working. Maybe you think less of me. Maybe, Maybe, Maybe

How to respond? I could say, F**k you, this is my life. That has a certain utility to it. But the fact is that even though it IS my life, your judgment is your judgment, and you can think of me as you see fit. You can judge me and say about me what you like. Its your life, its your right. Although it does make me uncomfortablewhich puts me right back into the existential angst

Why does it make me feel uncomfortable? Why do I care about what people think?

And you say, Stop caring about what people think. I dont, and it solves a ton of problems.

I find it hard to believe that people dont care what people think, although I think its awfully important to some people that other people THINK they dont care about what other people think. I think, honestly, that most people who say they dont care about what people think are either lying or are so privileged they dont have to worry about what others think in their position of power.

Maybe thats reflective of my own personal experience with trying not to care what people think, and at times thinking I succeeded. Anyways, my answer is no. I dont care enough about what you think to impress you by trying to show off that I dont care about what you think.

Anywayswere getting off topic. I was explaining how Im falling down this abyss of constructed subjectivity and the accidents of circumstance that lies behind objective values, trying to get to the bottom of it. How I was trying to argue all the way down to nihilism.

And there have been moments in my life whereI think I glimpse it. Its not the construct of the things its what makes me want the construct of the things.

That desire.

Yeah, I know thats all still constructed by circumstances and the brain and blah, blah, blah. Im not talking about that part. Im talking about the raw experience. That feeling. Everything else taken away, so far as I can see I want to live because I feel desire, and I love the experience of having a desire fulfilled. The classic answer to, Should I kill myself or get a cup of coffee, for me is simply that the coffee tastes better.

And so from that basis, that feeling, I build my entire moral system, because I want to. Its an openly selfish enterprise; I make no pretense about it being purely altruistic. And therein lies my hedonistic philosophy; I see morality as a thing I can help build to make as many people able to freely embrace their freely chosen desires as possible, simply because I love doing it. Same with social justice. Same with human relationships. These are all tools to help us achieve and realize desire, because my desire is AWESOME and fulfilling it feels great, and knowing that Im causing others to fulfill it feels even better.

Thats been my view increasingly over the last few years. Its the main reason I became an anti-theist and relaxed my own views on spirituality. I thought I wanted a perfect worldbut then I realized that I just wanted everyone to be as happy and openly accepted in the past, present, and future as possible, and religion was only a problem when it was in the way of that, and that fighting directly against religion wasnt really accomplishing my goal of encouraging or fostering happiness. So I shifted my position, a bit.

Its what I hold onto in the face of constant learning and constantly shifting constructions its what keeps me going. The reason Im not a nihilist. Maybe its different for you. Thats OK.

I just hope its what you want.

Finding my way through the darkness, guided by a beating heart

PS: I want to thank all 32 of my patrons who make posts like this possible.

Read more:

I'd Be A Nihilist If I Weren't A Hedonist - Patheos (blog)

Altstadt Echo - Reposed In Nihilism It's not surprising that Altstadt Echo's music found its way into Regis's DJ sets, including his Blackest Ever Black mixtape The Boys Are Here. Altstadt Echo's riffs on the sparse, stepping style explored by the Downwards boss a few years back, before Sandwell District disintegrated and post-punk took over. The drums are crisp and meticulously arranged in loping broken-beat rhythms, the sound design cavernous and the mood elegantly gothic. (Modern Cathedrals, the name of Altstadt Echo's label and party in his Detroit hometown, describes it nicely.) The goth streak extends to the titlesjust recently he was experiencing "Gentle Indifference." This EP for Eye Teeth, a sub-label of Interdimensional Transmissions, finds him Reposed In Nihilism.

This disaffected pose doesn't always lead to compelling music. The title track is neatly put together, but its careful accretions of field recordings, scuzzy drones and flecks of downpitched voice lack a certain spark. Altstadt Echo finds more striking contrasts elsewhere. Bouncing percussion gives "Ersatz" more urgency, while bright synth stabs work as a counterbalance to the abyssal dub chords weighing down the end of each bar. On "The Necessary Facade," uncanny pristine rave chords ping-pong around the sombre space, like flashes of light in the churchly gloom.

Read the original:

Altstadt Echo - Reposed In Nihilism - Resident Advisor

A great thing about hacking, if you're Vladimir Putin, is it's so hard to prove. Just look at the recent "NotPetya" attacks that fried computers in the Ukraine and around the world: It's two weeks later and still there's no consensus among security experts if responsibility lies with Russia, vigilante hackers, or someone else.

This attribution issue offers tactical advantages for the Kremlin such as letting Russia use hacking to make mischief in ways that are even more subtle than its assassins' signature polonium tea . But hacking also lets Russia further its strategic goal of spreading "dezinformatsiya."

As the New York Times explained last summer, "The fundamental purpose of dezinformatsiya, or Russian disinformation, experts said, is to undermine the official version of events even the very idea that there is a true version of events and foster a kind of policy paralysis."

Hacking is an ideal vehicle for "dezinformatsiya" because in many cases it really is hard to establish a "true version of events." And in a stroke of good fortune for the Russians, the U.S. has elected a President who seems to believe, when it comes to cyber attribution, that hard is the same as impossible.

"Nobody really knows," President Trump said in Poland this week, casting doubt on whether Russia had indeed meddled in the U.S. electoral process. He made the statement despite stacks of intelligence reports that the Kremlin did exactly that, and even though Congressional leaders from both parties don't dispute the meddling either.

Trump's behavior amounts to a kind of intellectual nihilism that holds that, if even a few people deny a fact, it's impossible to say it's true. By this logic, we should also respect those who say 9/11 was an inside job, the moon landing was staged and creationism is real. Except that those people are flat-out wrongand so is Trump when it comes to Russia's election hacking.

But for Putin, the former KGB man, Trump's eagerness to dive down Russia's rabbit holes of lies and doubt (on display again in the screwy statements that followed Trump and Putin's two-hour meeting) are a giant strategic success. Russia's dezinformatsiya campaign couldn't be going any better.

Jeff John Roberts

@jeffjohnroberts

jeff.roberts@fortune.com

Welcome to the Cyber Saturday edition of Data Sheet, Fortune' s daily tech newsletter. You may reach Robert Hackett via Twitter , Cryptocat , Jabber (see OTR fingerprint on my about.me ), PGP encrypted email (see public key on my Keybase.io ), Wickr , Signal , or however you (securely) prefer. Feedback welcome.

Apple's bug bounty a bust: It turns out $200,000 isn't enough. That's the top amount Apple offered to pay hackers to disclose critical iOS exploits under the iPhone maker's bug bounty program, yet no one is coming forward to claim the reward. The likely explanations are that iOS vulnerabilities can fetch more than $1 million on the black market, and that Apple is unwilling to provide white hat hackers with "developer devices" to tinker with. ( Motherboard )

Power plants in peril! A pair of reports suggest hackers from a nation state (likely Russia) have breached the computer systems of more than a dozen power stations, including nuclear facilities, across the U.S. The breaches are believed to have been carried out with malware that compromised engineers' passwords. All this raises the specter of a major attack that could shut down portions of the U.S. power grid and damage surrounding infrastructure. ( Bloomberg , New York Times )

Android ad scam alert : Why are bad guys so attracted to the online ad industry? Presumably because there's good money it. The latest example comes via reports of CopyCat, a form of malware that spread to 14 million Android devices last year. The criminals cashed out by installing the malware and then pocketing revenue tied to millions of ad displays and commissions for app installations. ( Fortune )

A cool scene & poor hygiene: That's a very short summary of an advice guide for women who plan to attend DEF CON in Vegas (the advice could apply to this month's other Vegas hacker convention, Black Hat). Key phrase: "How I, a woman, an engineer, and a hard introvert with a low tolerance for dickheads, recommend approaching DEF CON." (Breanne Boland blog)

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So what exactly happened to all those computers during Petya/NotPetya's recent rampage? Fortune's Robert Hackett has a nice summary of a cartographer's video that shows just how the malware munches up the code of a victim machine and then injects others nearby. It's kinda like the Walking Dead - but with Windows machines.

Within minutes of setting the malware into motion on one of the machines, the infection spreads across the network and runs its destructive course. One by one, White's dummy files are encrypted, rendering them into inaccessible, alphanumeric gobbledygook. Read more on Fortune.com .

What School has the Best Cyber Security Program? Universities are revamping curriculums to reflect the growing importance of cyber skills in the world and the workplace. CSO has a nice rundown of what Carnegie Mellon, Johns Hopkins and others are offering. (CSO)

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Data SheetSaturday, July 8, 2017 - Fortune

When Bob Dylan tells the story of Bob Dylan, he often starts at a concert by rock n roll pioneer Buddy Holly in the winter of 1959.

At least, thats where he started in his recent Nobel Prize for Literature lecture.

Something mysterious about Holly filled me with conviction, said Dylan. He looked me right straight dead in the eye and he transmitted something. Something, I didnt know what. And it gave me the chills.

Days later, Holly died in a plane crash. Right after that, someone gave Dylan a recording of Cotton Fields by folk legend Leadbelly. It was like Id been walking in darkness and all of the sudden the darkness was illuminated. It was like somebody laid hands on me, said Dylan.

That story probably sounded rather strange to lots of people, said Scott Marshall, author of the new book Bob Dylan: A Spiritual Life.

What happens when somebody lays hands on you? If people dont know the Bible, then who knows what theyll think that means? Dylan is saying he felt called to some new work, like he was being ordained. Thats just the way Dylan talks. Thats who he is.

For millions of true believers, Dylan was a prophetic voice of the 1960s and all that followed. Then his intense embrace of Christianity in the late 1970s infuriated many fans and critics. Ever since, Dylan has been surrounded by arguments often heated about the state of his soul.

The facts reveal that Dylan had God on his mind long before his gospel-rock trilogy, Slow Train Coming, Saved and Shot of Love.

One civil rights activist, the Rev. Bert Cartwright, cataloged all the religious references in Dylans 1961-78 works, before the born-again years. In all, 89 out of 246 Dylan songs or liner notes 36 percent contained Bible references. Cartwright found 190 Hebrew Bible allusions and 197 to Christian scriptures.

Also, Dylan told People magazine in 1975: I didnt consciously pursue the Bob Dylan myth. It was given to me by God. I dont care what people expect of me. It doesnt concern me. Im doing Gods work. Thats all I know.

What does that mean? Marshall collected material from stacks of published interviews and has concluded that two words perfectly describe Dylans approach to answering these questions inscrutability and irascibility. Plus, its hard to know when Dylan is being serious, cranky or playful.

Nevertheless, faith language always plays a central role. Marshall cites waves of examples, including a time when Dylan was asked if his raucous Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 with its Everybody must get stoned chant was code for getting high. Dylan wryly noted that many critics arent familiar with the Book of Acts.

In his Nobel lecture, Dylan also stressed the role great literature has played in his life, dating back to grammar school days. Once again, there were religious themes.

Moby-Dick, for example, combined all the myths: the Judeo-Christian Bible, Hindu myths, British legends, Saint George, Perseus, Hercules theyre all whalers. All Quiet on the Western Front mixed politics, nihilism and horror, and Dylan noted that he has never read another war novel. In that book, Youre on the real iron cross, and a Roman soldiers putting a sponge of vinegar to your lips.

With The Odyssey, he said readers have to live the tale, wrestling with gods and goddesses. Some of these same things have happened to you. You too have had drugs dropped into your wine. You too have shared a bed with the wrong woman. You too have been spellbound by magical voices, sweet voices with strange melodies.

In the end, a songs impact on each person is what matters. I dont have to know what a song means. Ive written all kinds of things into my songs. And Im not going to worry about it what it all means, said Dylan.

Marshall believes one thing should be obvious: If Dylanologists want to understand Dylans life and art they will have to wrestle with all of his songs, including those drenched in Godtalk. Biblical literacy is an essential skill in that work.

The bottom line is clear, according to Hollywood director Scott Derrickson, writing in the books foreward: Dylan has never recanted a single line from a single song.

Terry Mattingly (tmatt.net) writes the nationally syndicated On Religion column for the Universal Uclick Syndicate and is Senior Fellow for Media and Religion at The Kings College in New York City.

Excerpt from:

Re-visiting gospel of Bob Dylan - Kearney Hub

The bestselling bookHomo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrowby Yuval Noah Harari argues that our species homo sapiens (man the wise) is evolving into homo deus (man the god).

Our technology is progressing at such a rate that human beings will merge with our machines. The resulting cyborgs will be omnipotent.

So far, this is just more fantasizing towards the new cyber-religion. But then Harari gets more original and more interesting: He says that the alliance between science and humanism that has held ever since the Enlightenment will break down.

The era of Homo Deus will no longer have a basis for justice, freedom, human rights, or any kind of moral ideals. So we will have to learn to live without them.

Harari takes for grantedthat religion has been disproven by science. Not only that there is no God, but that there is no soul, just the physical brain. And not only is there no soul, but there is no free will, no moral agency, and no meaning to existence.

That science has proven all of this is completely unfounded. But, as Michael Gerson points out in his review of the book (after the jump), Harari is at least intellectually honest in facing up to the implications of his ideas, which lead to utter nihilism: Omnipotence is in front of us, almost within our reach, Harari says, but below us yawns the abyss of complete nothingness.

From Michael Gerson, Humans reach for godhood and leave their humanity behind The Washington Post:

Much analysis of Yuval Noah Hararis brilliant new book, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, focuses on the harrowing dystopia he anticipates. In this vision, a small, geeky elite gains the ability to use biological and cyborg engineering to become something beyond human. It may upgrade itself step by step, merging with robots and computers in the process, until our descendants will look back and realize that they are no longer the kind of animal that wrote the Bible [or] built the Great Wall of China.. . .

Yet the predictions are not the most interesting bits of the book. It is important primarily for what it says about the present. For the past few hundred years, in Hararis telling, there has been a successful alliance between scientific thought and humanism a philosophy placing human feelings, happiness and choice at the center of the ethical universe. With the death of God and the denial of transcendent rules, some predicted social chaos and collapse. Instead, science and humanism (with an assist from capitalism) delivered unprecedented health and comfort. And now they promise immortality and bliss.

This progress has involved an implicit agreement, In exchange for power, says Harari, the modern deal expects us to give up meaning. Many (at least in the West) have been willing to choose antibiotics and flat-screen TVs over the mysticism and morality behind door No. 2.

It is Hararis thesis, however, that the alliance of science and humanism is breaking down, with the former consuming the latter. The reason is reductionism in various forms. Science, argues Harari, revealed humans as animals on the mental spectrum, then as biochemical processes and now as outdated organic algorithms. We have opened up the Sapiens black box and discovered there neither soul, nor free will, nor self but only genes, hormones and neurons.. . .

But Harari has one great virtue: intellectual honesty. Unlike some of the new atheists, he recognizes that science is incapable of providing values, including the humanistic values of Locke, Rousseau and Jefferson. Even Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker and the other champions of the new scientific worldview refuse to abandon liberalism, Harari observes. After dedicating hundreds of erudite pages to deconstructing the self and the freedom of will, they perform breathtaking intellectual somersaults that miraculously land them back in the 18th century.

Harari relentlessly follows the logic of reductionism as it sweeps away individualism, equality, justice, democracy and human rights even human imagination. . . .

This is the paradox and trial of modernity. As humans reach for godhood, they are devaluing what is human. Omnipotence is in front of us, almost within our reach, Harari says, but below us yawns the abyss of complete nothingness.

[Keep reading. . .]

Illustration 2014 Luna Sea.Medusa Cyborg Vampire from Space. Licensed underCC-BY. Unchanged. via Sketchport.

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Omnipotence at the price of nihilism - Patheos (blog)