Kerim's Triptych for Sunday May 28th, 2023

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Item 1: Time is an object

According to Albert Einstein, our experience of the past, present and future is nothing more than ‘a stubbornly persistent illusion’. According to Isaac Newton, time is nothing more than backdrop, outside of life. And according to the laws of thermodynamics, time is nothing more than entropy and heat . . . [but] a new form of physics called assembly theory suggests that a moving, directional sense of time is real and fundamental. It suggests that the complex objects in our Universe that have been made by life, including microbes, computers and cities, do not exist outside of time: they are impossible without the movement of time. From this perspective, the passing of time is not only intrinsic to the evolution of life or our experience of the Universe. It is also the ever-moving material fabric of the Universe itself. Time is an object. It has a physical size, like space. And it can be measured at a molecular level in laboratories.

Item 2: Alt-Right Neoliberal Racism

I haven't yet had the time to read Quinn Slobodian's new book, Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy, but I greatly enjoyed this long excerpt published in The Baffler. I especially found it edifying to learn how contemporary alt-right racist separatism was built on intellectual and institutional foundations first established to promote neoliberal capitalism.

After showing how "Paleo-libertarians hoped that the spread of secession as an option would help accelerate economic reform away from social democracy and toward a more stripped-down version of capitalism," he then cuts to Richard Spencer whose racial-separatist agenda "looked a lot like the paleo alliance’s vision."

Item 3: Reunion's Stolen Children

Born into a destitute family in France's overseas territory of Reunion in the Indian Ocean, he lost his father at the age of six. His mother struggled to provide for him, his brother and his two sisters. And so at the age of nine, in 1954, the French government took him away from his family as part of a program to repopulate deserted areas in mainland France, départements such as Creuse in the region of Limousin. In return, the government promised their families the children would enjoy a good education and a better future. . . But for many of them, it was the beginning of a seemingly never-ending nightmare.

Endnote

Important: Kerim's Triptych now has its own domain: triptych.oxus.net. I had too many issues with TinyLetter, and so I've moved everything here. Even though the newsletter will always remain free, the hosting is not. With that in mind I now have a paid tier for $3 a month or $30 a year. If even a handful of subscribers choose to upgrade it will greatly encourage me to keep going with this. Thank you!