MJW: Welcome to this, the fifty-eighth installment of this newsletter, coming to you from the endless, timeless void that is level four restrictions in Melbourne. I have no idea how long I have been here, how long I will continue to be here, my entire life is house. 

DCH: Thanks for joining us for another bonus letter. We need to talk about how Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple & other companies use forced labour to make their products in China. Meanwhile at the same time lives hang in the balance as Facebook executives pander to Nationalist politicians in India.

Content warning for descriptions of torture and genocide and other atrocities.

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Big Tech’s supply chain keeps Uyghurs in chains

CJW: Thanks for joining us for another issue of nothing here, and a big welcome to our new readers. Hope you enjoy what we’re doing here.

If you know someone you think might appreciate this newsletter, go ahead and forward it along.

The latest bonus was the opening couple of chapters to a gonzo, psychedelic spy-fi novel Austin and I wrote a few years back - . To read it, future bonuses, and the full archive, you can . A list of if you want to see what you’re in for.

CJW: Back in 2014, Austin an I wrote a gonzo, psychedelic spy-fi book called In League with the Devil. We wrote it with a mind to both parody and exemplify the pop-spy genre - think the James Bond films rather than John Le Carre’s novels - and I think we did a pretty fucking great job of that. And it’s funny. But the problem with a weird book like the one I just described is, how the fuck do you sell it? When I picked up an agent for my sci-fi work, I thought we might be in with a shot, but she had no interest in any collaborations I worked on unless they were with more-established names…

CJW: Welcome to the latest edition of the nothing here newsletter. The last 2 weeks have gone by very quickly. I think that’s because under lockdown every day is exactly the same, and the lack of delineation makes them blur together.

I wrote our latest bonus letter, Bad Ideas. I’ve had trouble focusing on much of anything other than the day job and novel edits lately, so I put together a selection of story ideas - free to good home - with some notes about where they came from (the age-old question), and what I would do with them if I was going to develop them further. Could be good fodder for the fiction writers reading this, or just an insight into my brain for anyone who’s interested. To access it, future bonuses, and the full archive, just go here to . An updated list of if you want to see what you’re in for.

To be entirely honest, I struggled with what to put together for this bonus. The past two weeks I haven’t really been able to find the energy or inspiration to do much beyond the day job, novel edits, and playing Death Stranding*. I’ve haven’t even been able to keep on top of my newsletter reading (as in, all the articles and such I read to see what’s worth including in the newsletter), so it’s no wonder I had trouble with this bonus.

I guess I have to blame the pandemic, and the stress of being back under lockdown here in Melbourne. Has anyone else noticed weird side effects coming up recently? My short-term memory is suffering badly, to the point where I can barely keep track of what number circuit I’m on when I’m working out. I don’t think it’s actually my short-term memory - more like the increased background radiation of stress makes it harder to concentrate, and that lack of concentration leads to memories not being stored properly.

Anyway, the above is all to explain why today’s bonus is something of a mixed bag. I’d wanted to write a follow-up to my Simulation piece, or maybe a Twine game, or maybe finish a piece on Masculinity that I started ages ago, but instead you get this: a selection of possible story ideas. I thought it could be interesting for people to see what a story seed looks like, and how my brain develops it. Also, I’m not precious about these ideas (I’ve long believed the development of an idea was the important and hard part, not the idea itself), so if any of them tickle your fancy, feel free to take them for yourself and see what you can do with them.

*I will definitely be writing something about Death Stranding, but I need to finish it first to make sure my views on the first chunk of the game aren’t completely irrelevant by the end of it.

CJW: Welcome to another edition of nothing here. The pandemic continues, Melbourne’s lockdown continues, my manuscript edits continue, the revolt against systemic racist violence in America continues, but also, elite corruption and solidarity against the people still continues. Don’t let the bastards get you down.

Our latest bonus letter came from m1k3y, writing about Eugene Thacker and the movie It’s the latest example of MKY finding interesting things to say about a sci-fi film I found to be so bad that I never would have spared the mental energy. It’s his brand. To get access to this bonus, future bonuses, and the full archive, you can .

From the previously unpublished files: my write-up on / decoding of [/ excuse to talk about Eugene Thacker and (techno)magical sight/sites] the movie, Spectral.

CJW: Welcome to another edition of the nothing here newsletter. Three of the four of us are writing to you from the lands of the Wurundjeri people, meaning we’re caught inside the Melbourne Metropolitan lockdown for another 6 weeks.

I’ll be honest - it’s not easy, the fear and uncertainty of being in a virus hot-spot. But at the same time, even Australia’s worst hot-spot is better off than a lot of places in the US. So, let’s keep being sensible, maintaining social distancing, listening to scientists, and all the rest. We’re in this together, and we can do this, even if our elected leaders don’t want us to because they’d rather we were back at work for the great god Economy. Anyway…

CJW: It sure has been a fortnight. We’ve seen comics, genre fiction, gaming, stand-up comedy, and probably other industries I’ve not paid attention to, be rocked by countless allegations against influential and powerful men for sexual misconduct and other harmful and abusive behaviours. If you’re on twitter at all, or involved in any of those industries/fandoms, then you’ve certainly got some idea of what I’m talking about. I’ve written more on it below, as one case in particular is of relevance to us here.

Thanks again to our paid subscribers, who help keep our pets fed and help keep the lights on. The latest bonus was from Marlee, a love letter to the You're Wrong About podcast, and about the mental health strains that she (and many others) are experiencing throughout this pandemic. (Which is still ongoing, despite what our governments are trying to tell us…) To get access to this bonus, future bonuses, and the full archive, just go here to .

(There are so many things I could be writing about in this bonus right now. I’m so angry about so many things that some days I cannot cope with how full of rage I am and then I have to take a valium to calm down and then another one because the first doesn’t work. I was at the Dr the other day, ranting about injustice, and he had to take my blood pressure three times, then guide me through a relaxation technique to get an accurate reading. Instead of getting my blood pressure up about Indigenous over-incarceration and deaths in custody, our governments’ disgusting and petty two-tiered welfare system, and all the inequalities that get my blood all… pressurey? I’m going to write about something I love and something that helped.)

You know by now that I am, indeed, a complete nutcase.

(Ok, let me tangent here to say: I can call myself a nutcase, crazy, bonkers. cannot. In the same way that sex-workers can call each other hookers and whores, but only get to say that to each other. don’t. Look, I don’t make the rules, I just try not to fall off the edges of them.)

CJW: Welcome to issue 52 of the nothing here newsletter. 52 means we are officially 2 years old. Thanks to everyone who has followed us along this full journey and to those who have joined us more recently.

It’s another bumper issue this fortnight - there has been so much going on I feel like we’ve barely touched on some issues that would normally get featured quite prominently (the first that comes to mind is the tech companies pulling back from developing facial recognition tools and/or providing them to law enforcement).

Simulating even a single posthuman civilization might be prohibitively expensive. If so, then we should expect our simulation to be terminated when we are about to become posthuman.

For a while I kept hearing that physicists or philosophers – or some other type of expert that starts with – were certain that we were living in a simulation, and for a time I kind of accepted that. These people are smarter than me, I thought, so they should know. What I didn't realise was that so much of this belief in simulation theory was exactly that – . Faith isn't just for Christians and Bitcoin evangelists, and it’s becoming more and more apparent just how strong a grip it has on Silicon Valley and the cult of Kurzweil's singularity.

CJW: It seems like looting mostly occurs as a side effect of civil unrest – when protests get big enough, and people are angry enough, looting is possible. But I’m slowly starting to think that looting should actually be embraced as a part of the protests.

Capitalism is king. Money is the only thing these people understand (“these people” being governments, authorities, and corporations). They care far more about money than they do about the lives and needs of their citizens. They currently have no incentive to deal with systemic racism within the police because the police are an important part of the system of white supremacy that helps to prop up America’s economy. But what if every time the police murdered another person of colour, the local community went out in force, committing mass acts of destruction against police and corporate property, including looting? I’m talking of dollars of damage every single time it happens. They won’t be swayed by ethics, morals, or community outrage - only once they see an economic impact to their racist murder force will they begin the process of addressing the deep, systemic issues of racism and white supremacy in policing.

CJW: Here's me, overhauling the Bonus Archive to keep everything (Locked, Unlocked, and Lost) in the one place. Look upon our bonuses ye mighty and despair.

2019

[UNLOCKED] MY DISCO, March 2nd at Geddes Lane Ballroom

3rd March, 2019 - CJW

[UNLOCKED] 400 karma points earned

18th March, 2019 - CJW

[UNLOCKED] Bond vs the anti-Bourne: 4GW and the Collapse as a Survival Horror

31st March, 2019 - MKY

[UNLOCKED] Kingscliff

14th April, 2019 - AA

[UNLOCKED] Passive

18th April, 2019 - MJW & CJW

[UNLOCKED] The Beasts and the Birthday

30th April, 2019 - MJW

[LOCKED] This Bong Chills Fascists

11th May, 2019 - HB

[UNLOCKED] Field Notes from the proto-Invisibles Monastery: Introduction

26th May, 2019 - MKY

[UNLOCKED] Cartoon Metaphysics

8th June, 2019 - AA

[UNLOCKED] The Creative Precariat

26th June, 2019 - MJW

[UNLOCKED] Lost and Found

7th July, 2019 - CJW

[UNLOCKED] A Psychogeographical Survey of the Future

20th July, 2019 - MKY

[UNLOCKED] Social Media Ego Death Trip

4th August, 2019 - AA

[UNLOCKED] How to Jury-Rig a Podcast for Fun and (Not Much) Profit

21st August, 2019 - MJW

[UNLOCKED] Telepathy

1st September, 2019 - CJW

[UNLOCKED] A Gesamptkunstwerk for the Terminally Online

16th September, 2019 - AA

[UNLOCKED] Field Notes from the proto-Invisibles Monastery: Escaping the Empire / Life in the Churn

29th September, 2019 - MKY

[UNLOCKED] Am I just depressed or is the world ending?

13th October, 2019 - MJW

[UNLOCKED] FitBit vs Do Easy

27th October, 2019 - CJW

[UNLOCKED] The Worst Excuse

11th November, 2019 - AA

[UNLOCKED] Field Notes from the proto-Invisibles Monastery: on the Gods / on Wandering Towards the Restoration

24th November, 2019 - MKY

[UNLOCKED] Voyeur

8th December, 2019 - MJW

[UNLOCKED] Refused Are Fucking (Un)dead

22nd December, 2019 - CJW

[UNLOCKED] Reconstituted

24th December, 2019 - MJW

# 2020

[LOCKED] nothing here but a podcast experiment

5th of January, 2020 - AA & CJW

[UNLOCKED] I saw someone die tonight

18th January, 2020 - CJW

[UNLOCKED] Field Notes from the proto-Invisibles Monastary 4 - on Dataism and the Stacks

2nd February, 2020 - MKY

[UNLOCKED] The Husband In Your Head

16th February, 2020 - MJW

[UNLOCKED] The Ones Who Stay

1st March, 2020 - CJW

[UNLOCKED] Bingewatching the end of Civilisation

29th March, 2020 - MKY

[UNLOCKED] Tom COVID's The Division

15th April, 2020 - CJW

[UNLOCKED] Out

27th April, 2020 - MJW

[UNLOCKED] Pixels, Pandemics, & The Protestant Work Ethic or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love World of Warcraft (Again)

15th May, 2020 - DCH

[UNLOCKED] Field Notes from the proto-Invisibles Monastery 5 - on Galactic Citizenry and the Breakaway Civ

24th May, 2020 - MKY

[UNLOCKED] a shadow of the rage I once had for God

7th June, 2020 - CJW

[UNLOCKED] 'You're Wrong About': A Love Letter

21st June, 2020 - MJW

[UNLOCKED] NIGHTMARES OF THE FUTURE: The Ghosts of War

20th July, 2020 - MKY

[UNLOCKED] Bad Ideas

2nd August, 2020 - CJW

[LOCKED] In League With the Devil - Excerpt

18th August, 2020 - AA & CJW

[UNLOCKED] Big tech enslaves and murders Muslim minorities

3rd September, 2020 - DCH

[UNLOCKED] Walking and Things

15th September, 2020 - MJW

[UNLOCKED] SUCCESSION: What strange beast of the global entertainment industry is this?

28th September, 2020 - MKY

[UNLOCKED] Our Centaur Futures

11th October, 2020 - CJW

[UNLOCKED] The high cost of convenience

25th October, 2020 - DCH

[UNLOCKED] Wandering the Icelandic States of America

8th November, 2020 - CJW

[UNLOCKED] Blackbird

25th November, 2020 - CJW

[UNLOCKED] Gould's

6th December, 2020 - MJW

[UNLOCKED] Prometheus: a Christmas Carol

21st December, 2020 - CJW, MKY, MJW

# 2021

[UNLOCKED] The Zombie Guide to Understanding 2020

3rd January, 2021 - MKY

[UNLOCKED] The Secret of the Ancestor Simulation

17th January, 2021 - CJW

[UNLOCKED] A primer on propaganda in the 21st century

31st January, 2021 - DCH

[LOCKED] The Forgetting Navigations, Chapters 1 & 2

14th February, 2021 - MJW

---

[UNLOCKED] Can't Get You Out of My Head

28th February, 2021 - CJW, DCH, MKY

[UNLOCKED] Australia's ecosystems are f---

14th March, 2021 - MKY

[UNLOCKED] Maddy

28th March, 2021 - CJW

[UNLOCKED] A Eulogy for Micajahala

11th April, 2021 - DCH

[UNLOCKED] Cancelling Deleuze

27th April, 2021 - CJW

[UNLOCKED] Becoming

9th May, 2021 - CJW

[LOCKED] Experiments in Expectation (On GPT-3)

23rd May, 2021 - CJW

[LOCKED] August Movie August - The Selection

1st August, 2021

[LOCKED] August Movie August - First Batch

[LOCKED] August Movie August - It’s Over!

[LOCKED] And I Feel Fine

26th September, 2021

[LOCKED] Couch to Hero

24th October, 2021

[LOCKED] Your Body is Perfect, And Other Lies

21st November, 2021

[LOCKED] Batman Returns: A Bativity Scene

19th December, 2021

# 2022

[LOCKED] A Timeline of QAnon Crime

16th January, 2022

[LOCKED] Olavo de Carvalho is Dead

13th February, 2022

[LOCKED] Red Panda

13th March, 2022

[LOCKED] Blood Eclectic

10th April, 2022

[LOCKED] The Farm

8th May, 2022

Remember life before COVID? Remember life before Trump? Remember how weird it was that Hilary Clinton kept dressing like she was running for a spot on the Galactic Senate? Remember the time before the time just now when there was all this weirdness around You Eff Ohs??? Past me does, and he’s been captured in a PDF oncemore - a record 81 pages this time, squirted straight outta Scrivener and into your meat brain mind portals. (I prolly should read over this before going on someone else’s podcast recently too, but that’s a story for another time.) Enjoy.

CJW: Welcome to another issue of nothing here. Let’s keep this intro brief and get right to it, shall we?

Dan penned our latest bonus letter - Pixels, Pandemics, & The Protestant Work Ethic or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love World of Warcraft (Again). You can get access to it, future bonuses, and the full archive, by .

CJW: I’ll keep this brief because we’ve got a long one today - I’ve had to trim some things out of the email version, so click on the heading above to see the full version at the blog. This issue we have our first returning guest - please warmly welcome Andrew Dana Hudson once again!

Our last bonus was about coming out with some big news during a pandemic. To get access to it, our future bonuses, and the full archive, just go here to .

Outing myself as a sex worker and former drug addict during a pandemic was a great idea. I’m not being sarcastic. It really was.

See, I’ve got a book coming out in July. It’s a memoir. It’s coming out under a pseudonym because of that whole thing about how I accidentally wrote a YA series, and this memoir is definitely R-rated. Of course I was worried about stigma, moral police, etc etc etc. But everyone was too busy worrying about COVID-19, lockdown, their friends, their kids, and the sorry state of the local supermarket to care about my news. (And by the time the book comes out, it’ll be old news… hopefully.)

The memoir is a hectic story of life and sex and drugs and need and professional handjobbing. It is called Money for Something and my fake name is Mia Walsch.