The evolution of emotion

sus

Well-known member
You'd make a great Rogan guest
I like that idea, I'll take it as a compliment. I can back it up too. I have a book-length exegesis of Clones halfway done. I've really thought this one through. I'm sure that when you guys read it you'll be convinced.
 

pattycakes_

Can turn naughty
I like that idea, I'll take it as a compliment. I can back it up too. I have a book-length exegesis of Clones halfway done. I've really thought this one through. I'm sure that when you guys read it you'll be convinced.

You two would get on well
 

version

Well-known member
Finally read Byung-Chul Han's book, Psychopolitics, the other night. Wasn't hugely impressed as about half of it felt like a primer on Foucault's biopolitics and Deleuze's control society and another chunk seemed too credulous re: 'Big Data', but something which did make an impression was his claim as production's become increasingly immaterial, i.e. digital, emotion's opened up as a field of limitless consumption. This is why you see the pivot to mental health in company policy, corporate 'wellness' and so on. There's been a shift from bio to psychopolitics as capital increasingly focuses on exploiting the psyche.

He didn't mention them, but the first thing I thought of was reaction videos. Also, any clip where someone cries or gets angry. These seem to be massive drivers of engagement. People want to watch other people emote. Clickbait too. All of these things designed to make you angry. Emotion's more of a business model than ever. You may have bought a dress or sweater in the past because it made you feel good and there was a certain psychological factor that came with buying it, but it also had a use in the sense of being an item of clothing. A podcast subscription is a purely psychological thing. You can't do anything with it. You don't own anything. You pay for how it makes you feel. Because you have an emotional connection to the host.

The huge market for self-optimisation's another facet. All these products and services geared towards 'healing', motivation, shifting your thinking. You're being molded to the constraints of the market in order to maximise 'efficiency' and 'productivity' in a way that convinces you you're doing it for yourself and feeling good.

According to him, this is one reason ailments like depression and burnout are on the rise. The current environment exhausts the psyche the way manual labour does the body. We're being broken down and coerced into doing it to ourselves.

People who fail in the neoliberal achievement-society see themselves as
responsible for their lot and feel shame instead of questioning society or the
system. Herein lies the particular intelligence defining the neoliberal
regime: no resistance to the system can emerge in the first place. In
contrast, when allo-exploitation prevails, the exploited are still able to show
solidarity and unite against those who exploit them. Such is the logic on
which Marx’s idea of a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ is based. However,
this vision presupposes that relations of repression and domination hold.
Now, under the neoliberal regime of auto-exploitation, people are turning
their aggression against themselves. This auto-aggressivity means that the
exploited are not inclined to revolution so much as depression.
 

version

Well-known member
Wonder whether the increased value of emotion partly contributes to the frequency of autism being used as an insult these days.
 

linebaugh

Well-known member
Also its use as a point of pride. There are people out there who perform autism the same way ADHD was performed 10 years ago
 

sus

Well-known member
This is core Marxist thinking (third will tell you) all about building a system of care where we raise babies together, full surrogacy. There’s been a lot of talk on Twitter about it in last few weeks after this was posted

"Abolish biology" is the ultimate, alchemical aspiration of some leftist strains. This where "trans" enters "transhumanism" etc
 

version

Well-known member
NEW YORK, Oct 13 (Reuters Breakingviews) - JPMorgan’s (JPM.N) boss serves his quarterly earnings with a side of brimstone. The mega-bank Jamie Dimon runs is performing strongly, and yet he openly frets and rants about what’s coming: higher interest rates, smothering regulation, recession, war. The pessimism is something of a schtick that doubles as an asset.
 
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