Token & Taboo
This is a developing story.
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Since we will be clearly discussing NFTs for a long time to come, I will be cataloguing and shaping some first thoughts on the matter here.
To start with: Dean Kissick’s great and latest features both Charlie Curran and me going about our business, which is interesting, and welcome.
Dean’s analysis is almost all you need to get up to date at this point, but you need to read it now. Things are moving quickly as this whole thing gets rolled up into the larger culture war.
Matters pending:
—art that is bad, qua art / art that is bad, or evil / degenerate art: the whole moral quandary around this is painful, largely unrewarding and culturo-civilisationally important, because
I once said Bataille would have been all over crypto, and NFTs are why. This is peak civilisational performance. You may not like it, but you don’t have to.
—the question of aura, which has necromancy written all over it and is just too perverted for me to forthrightly reject, especially with the assistance of fellow magicians Charlie Curran and John T. Connor. Can we do to Benjamin what Deleuze did to Leibniz? Maybe, maybe not; we shall see. Will the gods forgive us? Probably not (though I’ve seen gods do stranger things). In any case: do not try this at home, kids—or not until we have a working proof of concept.
Ladran Sancho, señal que cabalgamos. 1
More soon.
Your accursed shareholder,
MB.
Which is spuriously adjudicated to Cervantes via Goethe, I know—that’s the point. [Flings “apocrypha” into Matters pending].
I am working out more of this too. We're all tag-teaming. To 'accursed shareholders' we can maybe add, at least, 'angel investors'. A theatrical term, obviously! There are now thousands of these 'angels' worldwide. Whoever sponsors the 'bad' and takes their unfair share would set up a kind of *duh* ex machina.
Etc etc. This one's on me:
'Confidence, in the end, has no ulterior derivation. It is miraculous. Half a millennium of demystification has led to this, clearing the stage for business-suited new magicians. The performance is underway. A tranquillized collective economic sphere is to be conjured into existence. As it entered its advanced maturity, The Great Moderation named it well. The Great Moderator – Mighty Macro – is a more valuable name still, for the One at the End who Looks Both Ways to Make Peace. That’s the Magician-God in the Bitcoin cross-hairs.'
Crypto-Current, https://etscrivner.github.io/cryptocurrent/.
Going forward, "the question of aura, which has necromancy written all over it and is just too perverted for me to forthrightly reject" got me most interested in what you have to say about this trend. I'm having FOMO induced anxiety attacks... Your analysis is appreciated.