Japanese Wallpaper- "Arrival"

Very pretty

The Religion of Science

"With this metaphysical confidence—I wouldn’t want to call it faith—in rationality comes an implicit hierarchy of logical rigor. First comes mathematics, then theoretical physics as the shining achievement of empirical applications of mathematical rigor, then the other “hard” sciences, like applied physics, chemistry, and perhaps, biology. Straggling far behind are the dubious ambiguities of the social sciences and the humanities.

"Atheists, as devotees of rationalism, point to the reason and empiricism of science as the foundation of their catechism. A compelling positive formulation of atheism, therefore, more than simply the denial of theism, is the affirmation of science and the promise it holds to lay bare all the mysteries of the universe. Michael Shermer defines the “scientific worldview” as the one “that encompasses natural explanations for all phenomena, eschews supernatural and paranormal speculations, and embraces empiricism and reason as the twin pillars of a philosophy of life appropriate for an Age of Science.” If atheism inherits its moral compass from humanism, it gets its sanctimony from a scientific worldview, or to be more precise, from scientism.

"Here’s the rub. Science doesn’t exist. Which is to say, science as a unity doesn’t exist. Scientific activity is a plurality that the word science neatly obscures as a unity. There is no scientific method, per se, only a hodgepodge of scientific methods. Scientists interact with the world in a proscribed, yet flexible way to arrive at relatively stable conclusions about cause and effect. Yet even with those razor-sharp minds, scientists are people too. Like the rest of us, they struggle to bring to bear on their work clumsy bodies and messy relationships.

"Here’s another one of science’s dirty little secrets: its purpose is to predict the effects of causes, but it works best when its methods of inquiry are used on relatively simple, isolated systems. That’s, in part, why theoretical physics enjoys such a privileged position in the scientistic pantheon. Take Newtonian mechanics—so elegant, so pure, so mind-bogglingly predictive. We’ve used its insights to put a man on the moon. However, as any physicist will tell you, even Newtonian mechanics becomes a nonlinear farrago with no predictive power when it tries to accommodate more than two or three massive bodies interacting via the single force of gravity.

"The sad truth of scientism is that the more complex a system under scrutiny, or the less isolated that system, the less predictive scientific methods become. In these frequently occurring scenarios, scientists must abandon the steely comforts of causation. They’re reduced to quibbling over the strength or weakness of correlations between ever more ornate abstractions and their real-world consequences."- Sean Miller, What's So Funny About Atheism

Some interesting arguments in an article that overall brings to bear many flippant generalizations about atheists, who are a broad and disparate group. The main thrust seems to pertain mainly to nu-atheism of the Harris/Hitchens/Dawkins sort.  I've even found myself clinging to this kind of limp rationale that "I believe in science" rather than faith, but he does make a good point that science is rarely an exact science and that faith still maintains the foundation position of any scientific belief system.  I'm not going out and testing theses myself. I'm putting faith into pedagogy with the implicit understanding that the experts know what they are talking about.  Likewise, I'm sure churchgoing folk things ministers, pastors, popes, dead relatives know what they're talking about, even if they're haunted by recurring evidence of god's non-existence.

youBik- "The Abstract Artist and the Coloring Book"

Unofficial Version

And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make

Arrows- "A2"

RIP James Horner

A composer who in the same year as his moody, atmospheric score for Aliens, composed "Somewhere Out There" for Fievel's American Tale

Polymorphous Cult-ure

Emilie Friedland at the Fader has her own take on why there are so many Cults all of the sudden, particularly how they reflect postmodern culture's pastische ideologies:

When we watch a TV show like Aquarius, we’re transported back to a time before people necessarily “knew better” than to think that other worlds, and other homes, were possible; even in watching Manson’s most sinister moments, we experience the vicarious thrill of living life completely according to one's own, made-up rules—of breaking with consensus reality as we know it, of starting with utopian intentions and going way too far.

...Back when I interviewed Isis Aquarian, I asked her about the foundation of Father Yod’s belief system. “We took from everything,” she said. “We took from every religion. We took from past lives. We took from the mystery teachings. We took from the yogis. We took from the Buddha. We took from whatever made sense and worked to us and distilled it into our own uniqueness.” That pick-and-choose, take-what-you-like-and-leave-the-rest eclecticism remains a core facet of new age culture; it’s an idea I’d say that I adhere to in my own spiritual life, only I can’t help noticing how perfectly it dovetails with our behavior as 21st century consumers. We express our view of the world—and even our desire to drop out of it—with the objects and experiences that we choose to spend our money on. But when escape becomes something that you buy, it ceases to be a real escape. Maybe it ensnares us even further in the world that we’re escaping.

I read this early Saturday and, sure enough, later that day my wife and I saw an episode on the new season of Orange is the New Black where the mute character of Norma's back story is explored through her many years as a loyal cult member.

This episode also brought to mind one of the other things about cults that also falls outside of the cultural norms Friedlander talks about; polygamy, which can serve both that patriarchal domination/submission wish fulfillment fantasy and also incriminate it.  Polygamy as subject matter ensnares all of our contradictory feelings towards sexual liberation and allows an avenue to filter anxieties about commitment, as well as how both sexual freedom and the bonds of marriage feed into the continued superstructural subjugation of women.  Likewise to the Fader piece, polygamy is both something available reflected in the world we're escaping (multiple partners, infidelity, open relationships, et al.) and something completely taboo or outside the bounds of acceptance.

I had totally forgotten about Big Love too- I think many people have, to be honest.  Big Love (about a particularly fundamentalist strain of Mormonism) was a massive success when it first aired and probably even lead to the similar reality TV spinoff Sister Wives, which was even bigger.  

Incidentally, it turns out OITNB's Annie Golden, who plays Norma, has a 20 year history in music.  Starting out in the new wave/punk end of things and then veering into pop later on.

Jonas Reinhardt- "Noctornum"

off the forthcoming Palace Savant

Mocki- "Weekend (Jai Wolf Mix)"

Perimeter- "Sublet"

RIP Rick Ducommon

Who had bit parts in nearly every movie I loved as a kid. I believe I included the above in one of my halloween mixes too.

Teklife15

A bit of a shame how focus has meandered off Footwork after DJ Rashad's passing, as it really does seem to have inspired many of his cohorts to step up their collective games




DJ Taso- "Teklife Til Tha Next Life"





DJ Manny- "Would U Mind"




Taye Teklife- "What You Think"

Sadsynthsummer

Silk Road Assassins- "3M Kunai"



Visionist x Roxanne Farahmand



Keyboard Kid 206- "Namor's Amazing"

Ready for Answers

"The incoming president will have to address an open and passionate national movement around anti-black state violence. The most loyal and consistent Democratic support base is marching in the streets and organizing in hopes of dying less and no longer being sent to prison for minor crimes. The state violence in question is directly related to policies that President Bill Clinton enacted during his tenure, especially under the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which ended inmate education while building more prisons. This is the same tenure that Secretary Clinton is highly credited for shepherding. The color-blind future we were promised then, as a cover for anti-black policies, is not even close to coming true. Can the constituency that has routinely saved and supported the Democratic Party—Black voters—survive another Clinton turn? Especially considering that Hillary Clinton’s reflections on the havoc the previous Clinton presidency rained on that constituency barely go further than “oops, my bad, vote for me anyway”?

A presumed candidate since her defeat in the primaries, and ordained the frontrunner as early as November, Clinton has had time to work on issues of race and has chosen not to. White feminism as a whole has made the same mistake. That an experienced stateswoman is campaigning on the basis of her entitlement to the position and symbolic value is deeply strange. It also shows the gap between the candidates we have, the ones we think will win, and the ones we want. This is exemplified by the constant refusal to believe Elizabeth Warren or Michelle Obama when they say they do not want to run. That their imaginary campaigns are constantly positioned against the very real Clinton campaign seems to be a roundabout way of admitting that the symbolic woman we have is not giving us the politics we hoped for." 

- "I'm Not Ready" by Sydette Harris, The New Inquiry