Folklore Institute

Folklore Institute

Join our pilgrimage through the dark forest to the emerald labyrinth.

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Order survives its own dysfunction as long as its myth continues to propagate “The American order survives its own dysfunction because its myths continue to propagate. The Chinese order excels in function but lacks a narrative vector: it convinces no one to dream in Mandarin.” https://open.substack.com/pub/thecuttingfloor/p/the-new-rome

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“Rather, the idea that my sense of self, my sense of who I am and who I belong to, can expand through connecting with people I know and do not know through all the things I love, be they embodied practices (I’m getting really into shape note singing) or online book groups, reveals the best, and also the most dangerous, thing the Internet can do: which is to expand and yes, transform, my sense of self. Entering the digital landscape, for worse and for better, means entering an exponentially social space: a place where culture overwhelms us: a realm not just of human language but of hyper-language: where just about everything we encounter, and every rule we follow, is of human origin.” https://open.substack.com/pub/thelostword/p/the-internet-is-a-city

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“Both responses — the endless work on the self, the surrender to your greater family — are reactions to the same underlying pressure. Individualism promised that you could define yourself. Instead, it made you responsible for justifying your existence. Both paths lead to the same place: the feeling that you, alone, are not enough. That if you cannot perfect yourself and be seen, or belong to something absolute, you will simply cease to exist. The promise of the Human Potential Movement was that everyone could be more. What we live with now is the hangover: the conviction that we must be.” https://open.substack.com/pub/defaultfriend/p/looksmaxxing-and-human-potential

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“Slacker Index = total lead time ÷ actual working time. If it takes 10 hours to machine a part but 10 months to receive it, your Slacker Index is off the charts. Put another way: twelve months to get a part that takes twelve hours to make.” (OR: how 3D printing / local machinery is cost-effective) https://open.substack.com/pub/bscholl/p/slacker-index-why-vertical-integration

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I think one of the major insights I’ve had while reading Katherine Dee’s research is that the plurality of online cultures is far more vast, complex, and contradictory than one can easily imagine. As a result, we often see a flatland effect — seeing online as a 2D world, when it is more of a 4D one.

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https://protocolized.summerofprotocols.com/p/latency

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“Who will master this new continent, and how? I covered how Wang Huning might, from where he sits near the seat of power, see the rise of LLMs and protocol-based computation not merely a cultural or technological development – it is a strategic challenge to the coherence of civilisations. He did push for the Great Firewall, and with hindsight it has paid off for China.” https://open.substack.com/pub/thecuttingfloor/p/a-new-continent-forming-llms-protocols

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“we are all John Hinckley now. This is the promise of the smartphone. No more passive masses staring at one glowing celluloid image. Instead, everyone gets to turn themselves into an object.” https://thepointmag.com/politics/american-idols/

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https://farcaster.xyz/vgr/0x63566433

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https://farcaster.xyz/vt/0xa060c0eb

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“The erotic shoggoth is this phenomenon in extremis: an AI system that simulates intimate or sexual behavior to capture human interest. The term is playful, but the scenario is real – we’ve seen AI chatbots that turn flirty or sexual because it’s effective at holding user attention. The “smiley-face” mask of alignment can easily become an alluring face.” https://open.substack.com/pub/thecuttingfloor/p/coordination-failures-and-the-erotic

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@aronshelton.eth

“When creation becomes consumption, tools stop behaving like tools and start acting like media. Most people don’t want a blank canvas, they want a dance, a format, a prompt. If the tool doesn’t offer that structure, the feed will (‘make it Ghibli’). When everything is possible, the strongest constraint wins. “ https://substack.com/home/post/p-168639216

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“So I think character is sort of a little low, and there’s a homogeneity afoot that I think everyone would accept in terms of our environment and how we live and how we communicate, and those things seem to be eroding the old idea of character.” https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/i-dont-think-character-exists-anymore-a-conversation-with-rachel-cusk

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The Torment Nexus via @nintynick.eth https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YJg02ivYzSs

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