On Turning Left into Darkness

April 19, 2017 2:31 PM

It is very difficult for the few revolutionary leftists still alive to confront this, because it’s genuinly so vertiginous and horrifying that it really approaches what is cognitively and emotionally unsurvivable for genuinely caring people: there are at least some objective reasons to believe the human species may be genuinely crossing the threshold at which exponentially increasing technological efficiency makes the absolute end of humanity an objective and irreversible empirical reality. I think it’s debatable where we are at in that process, but it seems undeniable this question is now genuinely at stake and I simply don’t see a single person on the revolutionary left seriously considering this with the radical honesty it requires.
posted by R.F.Simpson (3 comments total)

Oh whatever point he's making gets completely lost in his overwrought and lingwinded writing style.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:46 PM on April 19, 2017

This is a parody, right? No one actually writes like this, do they?
posted by Frayed Knot at 2:48 PM on April 19, 2017

This post is framed a bit oddly - the rather apocalyptic pull quote is taken from waaaaaaay far down in an essay that seems to essentially be about the importance of engaging with the “intellectual right” in debate instead of outright rejecting their framing of a particular issue as objectionable and refusing to have a discussion.

And yeah, this is a pretty dry text written for folks who are following the discussion already. Might be a smart take, but too dense for me.
posted by Going To Maine at 2:50 PM on April 19, 2017