Since “everybody” is getting doxxed right now, I might as well reveal for all the world to see who I really am… that’s right, I’m a socks-and-sandals-wearer!i
Criminal behaviour in many times and places as this is, it’s true, I beseech my dear readers ii to allow me a few moments to explain just a few of the myriad benefits of this unholiest of combinations. It actually makes sense! Socks and sandals provide:
- Better sun protection than bare feet and sandals
- Less skin chaffing than bare feet and sandals
- Better breathability than socks and shoes
- More “specialness” than socks and shoes
While you might think that I’m refering to “specialness” in the sense I usually strive for, this last point is moreso the feeling of “otherplaceness” that helps to activate holiday mode; a mode that is, as you may’ve noticed based on my less than perfectly optimistic mood lately, very much what the doctor ordered.iii
Furthermore, while I mostly approach my day-to-day fashion with all the conviction of a man at play, in tropical climates such as the one I now find myself with my wonderful family, I feel relatively more out-of-sorts. But not by accident. Out here, it’s more Zen and less Kenzo, if you catch my drift.iv As it turns out, resetting the novelty-seeking parts of our beings has its advantages for recharging the spirit.
Who knew that socks and sandals could bring one such comfort, beyond even the physical?
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- Not even crazy avant-garde trendy new ones either! These socks are run-of-the-mill as they come and I’m pretty sure I bought these Teva sandals back in 2011, also here in Maui as it happens. ↩
- You know I’m just being self-deprecating, right? You’re not (totally) alone! ↩
- In defence of my most recent critique of our presently declining form of western modernism, Nietzsche actually hit the nail on the head, via a fellow named Peter Ryan, and contra Sam Altman:
Nietzsche viewed modern technology’s conclusion as an “open question”. He saw the potential for good and bad, but he emphasized the lack of nuance of his contemporary utopians.
This techno-utopianism was the Apollonian nature of man to not accept tragedy. If tragedy is not possible then technological growth must not end badly. Nietzsche respected the potential for tragedy in the “open question”.
Nietzsche appreciated technology only in its encouragement of creativity and spiritual growth.
Nietzsche is disturbed by modernity’s willingness to materialize the human being in the aggrandizement of the machine.
Nietzsche’s view of modern individualism was, in one sense, ironic. The division of labor and individualization molds many into “one machine” for “one purpose”.
Nietzsche dislikes the loss of true individualism and the nature of being.
For Nietzsche, a certain type of technological activity took ppl away from the “highest powers of thought”. It causes ppl to lose the will to power and substitute with nihilistic variety.Nietzsche believed that increasing reliance on technology leads to the depersonalization of life. Pride, respect, and social connection with work disappear.
Nietzsche noticed that as technology (thus econ production) becomes greater and more complex quality goes down and is replaced with “appearance”. The ppl are necessarily more ignorant and those more susceptible to “illusion and deceit”.
Nietzsche considered how technology and technologists violated “nature”. He also expressed concern on the mental models infected into the population to make these machines work.
Nietzsche considers a factory works (but could extend to tech worker generally) as a highly paid slave but with less ability for *being* human. Thus we see the transvaluating slave morality of his employed.
Nietzsche calls out the materialist machine slaves and what “inner value” they sacrifice for “external aim”. He even criticizes socialist desires as another form of the same capitalist system.
One of Nietzsche’s solutions to the problem of modernity is to have everyone disperse to the far reaches of the world. They would not have to be part of a machine system. They could be individuals and masters. They may “forget” modernity’s “wants”.
Here again, we see that Nietzsche was no socialist. He saw it as the same process of spiritual impoverishment. Even worse, it explicitly sought to mechanize history and humans. This erased “consciousness” as authentic and the driving force of history and humans.
We see here that spirituality was the primary focus of Nietzsche. The pursuit of efficiency and work divorces humans from their spirit.
Leisure for spiritual growth was replaced by needs of relaxation to facilitate the continuation and expansion of more work. Thus all aspects of the human experience, even those not involved with the machine system, became part of that system.
Nietzsche rejected the “cult of the new” because it replaced creativity with crude novelness. Technology could be antithetical to spiritual growth and thus no matter its material advantages was definitively *bad*.
Nietzche viewed technology through the duality of the creative and inertial forces of human nature. Technology was bad if it alienated humans from the creative force and removed struggle. The enlightenment or impoverishment of the human spirit was his main concern.
In conclusion, Silicon Valley’s last men pervert Nietzschian philosophy. They transvalue his spiritual emphasis for a materialist one. They justify their hubris as ubermenschian when it’s really the rock bottom of untermenschism.
- Can you see the whales slapping their tails in timeless joy? It’s quite the sight!
