Hey, in about 3 hours, at 8pm ET, we're going to get together to talk about chapter 6 of Techno-Negative.

I'm glad Dekeyser wrote about the MOVE bombing, a subject that surprisingly few people know about considering the many (and in some cases ongoing) scandals and gross transgressions involving - for instance, the University of Pennsylvania's use and sharing of the skeletal remains of a 12-year-old girl who was killed in the bombing to teach undergraduate anthropology classes as recently as 2021.

I feel like this chapter finally addresses the cliché of being called "techno-phobic" and offers a few new terms to the conversation that give me a lot more precise control over the things I'm trying to write/talk/think about (namely, techno-mysia and techno-rationalist - although I'd heard that last word before) (techno-mysia specifically comes up on page 118). I thought it was helpful to read some quasi-psycho-analysis on why techno-rationalists assign "techno-phobia" to people who refuse technologies, and especially the reflection on the circular reasoning (it's immoral because it's wrong; and it's wrong because it's immoral, also page 118).

I'm going to spend some time between now and our video chat later today reflecting on the suprarationality section about the presumed dominance or superiority of digital reason. I feel like this is unlocking something that I needed, but as he moves into questions around humanity and oneness I think I started to lose the thread again. As before, if people feel like they have any insight into the chapter, please join us and school us for a few minutes :)

I think my last thought is that I'm intrigued by the thing Dekeyser leaves us with near the end (around 127/128), where he writes about the techno-rationalist fear of "the possibility of the nonhuman sneaking up on them, piercing them, engulfing them or, simply, withdrawing from them" (pg 128, emphasis added). I have really preliminary thoughts about what I think he means, but I'd really like to bounce some thoughts around.

When you're ready to join at 8p ET, you can click on this link or you can go here:

https://al2.in/ReadingGroupRoom

See you then.

(This email should be arriving a little earlier in the day than usual; I'm experimenting with giving people more time to read my reflections, vs running the risk that people will read the email and then go do other things and forget that we're doing our video chat. I'm trying sending this earlier because someone suggested it - if you have suggestions, please let me know!)