As far as reading Capital goes, I’m going at a pretty glacial pace, so you probably don’t want to read along with me. I’ll be a dead weight around your neck. I just finished Chapter 1, which I had read a long time ago, but I finally forced myself to get through it again. The part on commodity fetishism is still the only section I like out of it.

But, this may all motivate me to read it faster. I need to finish Chapter 2 and re-watch David Harvey’s lecture on it, then it’s on to 3, which is supposed to be the hardest part. I’m not looking forward to it, honestly, but I suppose it’s important. Have you been keeping up with the lectures?

I’ve been trying to think about it in terms of technology as well, but I haven’t come to any solid conclusions yet. Let me know how far along you are and I’ll try to catch up.

You have in turn given me a ton here, I found th3e illpop blog, and I lov3ed your post on rejection of theory as a mode of laziness. And your discussion here of Deleuze examination of power and ideology, as it relatyes to science and memes. This is great stuff, and is inspiring a post coming up soon, that you can critique freely because you have actually read this stuff

Actually, which reminds me, let me know your reading schedule for capital, I am going to try and post this weekend, and would love to read along with you, you have some amazing stuff to frame the ideas and relations to technology, which is a real specific goal of my reading and research into Capital and how we conceptualize these new technologies. Thanks for the article in the comments, it is so very kind, and I hope more collaboration to come.

The only way that I can still see any value in the use of the “meme” concept, and I tried to get this across in my paper, is to literally equate it with a digital file (or a part of one). In other words, I think the concept is useful in the way that people use it to describe internet phenomena. (That article has now had its title changed to “internet meme” since I last looked at it…weird). But, to use it to describe all human thought is ridiculous and reductionist.

I actually have a different opinion of Jared Diamond’s work, though. I actually think it’s a decent example of the neomaterialism I’m trying to describe (although probably not the best example). What I find useful in it is the idea of historical contingency (as opposed to a fatalistic determinism).

This is all probably the result of my Deleuzian influences. Deleuze and Guattari say that, “universal history is the history of contingencies, and not the history of necessity.” What I take from that is them is that the history of technology, capitalism, society, etc., could have played out an infinite number of ways, and we just happen to have wound up with this one.

As my understanding of D&G has matured, I would say that the “coevolution” and “meme” concepts in my previous work need a serious revision. I still think that there is a clash between control and unpredictability (DIY? bricolage? hacking?) that drives them both to new adaptations, but it isn’t nearly as simple as I’ve made it out to be. Trying to fit memetics into a Deleuzian framework was difficult, and I now realize that it’s probably because they don’t fit together well.

One final thought about ideology, from my reading of your post on memes and ideology, comes again from my Deleuzian influence. To put it simply, D&G find the concept of ideology to be much less important than the organization of power, which was a question in my paper that I tried to focus on (not “What is the content of what is shared?” but “How are filesharing networks organized?”).

Deleuze uses the example of Christianity when talking about ideology here that:

The church is perfectly pleased to be treated as an ideology. This can be argued; it feeds ecumenism. But Christianity has never been an ideology; it’s a very specific organization of power that has assumed diverse forms since the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages, and which was able to invent the idea of international power. It’s far more important than ideology.

So, hopefully that’s a more helpful way of thinking about ideology, memes, and organization. I think A Thousand Plateaus would be a great choice to read after Capital, although it’s just as difficult to understand, if not more so.

Thanks for getting me thinking as well. I feel like I’ve just written an entire article here. But yes, I’d really like to collaborate on a conversation about all of this.

That is fascinating stuff, and I love the way you describe Deleuze and Guattari’s idea of materialist networks, I am going to have to pick up A Thousand Plateaus, after reading capital –much like you

You bring up some interesting issues in that paper that have been on my mind lately, namely the grafting of scientific principles like evolution onto these technologies. The meme in particular always sits uncomfortably with me (I wrote about it here) and I was wondering if taking these scientific theories and bending them to the analysis of what I see as a predominantly metaphorical space is useful.

Now, I understand the figure of the virus in the meme is powerful and effective, but the idea that some kind of scientific selection and adaption happens with a space fused by the social and economic realities of file-sharing, or the internet more broadly, isn’t in many ways framing a deterministic notion of this technology. I always think of Jared Diamond’s Guns Steel and Germs as the ultimate example of the kind of scientific/historical explanation of the decimation of the North American native populations. It all seems so rational and sterile. Same with the meme as a social phenomenon with language, it guts it of its poetry and power, and meaning becomes far more arbitrary than it needs be.

Now these are initial reactions, and I’d be interested in a more focused discussion about these ideas because I think they are important and you do an excellent job of framing th co-evolutionary formation of something like a bitTorrent network, I just want know how such a rationale explanation compares to the kind of multivalent figure of a Greek myth monster. Perhapss we can come up with a series of posts about it grom illop and the bava?

Thanks for the link, and for getting me thinking about this again.

The piece is somewhat dated now, but I touched on filesharing, BitTorrent, Deleuze and Guattari, Marx, Hardt and Negri, etc., with a specific focus on the ways in which our digital artifacts form networks within and throughout our human social networks.

Much of it, after re-skimming it just now, isn’t just dated in terms of technology, but more so in that my own ideas have evolved since then. Nevertheless, I think there are kernels in there worth developing. I just have to figure out which ones and how.

I’m trying to read Capital now, and I’m wondering if it will shed light on this problem and give me some new ideas.

@Andy
Thanks for that lead on the Sanders book, I haven’t read it yet. I am currently reading Marcus Rediker’s Villains of All Nations, which is a short, insightful, and quite fun look at the Pirates from the 17th and 18th century. I recommend it highly.

Also, I’m a huge fan of that area of history and must recommend a recent book “If a Pirate I must be” by Richard Sanders, an excellent comparison of the hype of the time, popular stories, and the actual truth from the records.

In my research, I was doing my best to attract, or establish, one of each of the so called “cosmic creatures”, to determine the different properties between them all… a ghost, a demon, a thought form, an archetype, a hallucination, and illusion, a mind form, an angel, a god, a spirit, a beast, and various un-named beasts…

In a waking dream, while in deep selftrance, I found my way to a cliff, part way up jagged mountain.. at a huge wooden double door… Suddenly a huge three headed dog beast blocked my path.. screaming and growling at me as if it were in serious pain and vicious anger.. and snapping at me with all it had… In the dream, I turned invisible momentarily, and reappeared behind the beast, unbeknown to it.. I hauled my foot back, and kicked the beast as hard as I could upon its rectum, so hard and swift that I had kicked it right off the ledge… It turned its 3-heads at me, to see me grinning, and waving a little byebye with my fingers, my hand at shoulder level… Then I turned and kicked the door into slivers, and entered…

What was that beast’s name?.. What or who created that beast, for what purpose..? It was such a stupid creature…
I wonder how far it fell..?
What did it hit..? Would it survive the fall..?
Where would it be now..?
Could it have somehow returned to the ledge, guarding the door that isn’t..?

Was it a dream..? or was it “cosmic reality”..?