ȘȈǤƝȘ 77: Water in the Desert

March 31, 2022

Illustrated depiction of North Africa by British Orientalist artist Augustus Osborne Lamplough

Illustrated depiction of North Africa by British Orientalist artist Augustus Osborne Lamplough

Welcome to Signs of Life, a periodic roundup letter from Other Life, the coolest newsletter in the world. If someone sent you this, subscribe for yourself here. 

In this edition, you'll learn about:

  • Milady

  • China’s ‘unrestricted warfare’

  • The meaning of Bhad Bhabie

  • The Deep Tech State

  • A community member building Arduino for DNA

Upcoming Events

I’ll be in New York City for a few days around the weekend of May 20th. Save the dates because there will be things for you to attend. Wife has approved my first “business trip” away from the new kiddo… I have some official business I’ll share with you soon, but I’d like to do a lot there. I’m open to giving talks, doing your podcast, doing your LSD, etc. Hit reply and let me know. There might be some kind of official Other Life meetup or party (if you want to host, that’d be amazing), or might not, depending on what other engagements shake out. More soon.

What is IndieThinkers? April 13 at 12pm Central. This will be an open meetup/information session for anyone who is thinking about joining the next cohort of IndieThinkers.org starting on April 25. I’ll just give an overview of what we actually do, who is likely to benefit, who is unlikely to benefit, etc. Register here (free).

Other Life x Urbit Meetup in East Austin. Saturday April 9 at 7pm. OtherLife.co and the Urbit Austin Meetup will join forces for an imperceptible early-Spring mixer next weekend. RSVP even if we're friends, so I can confirm a venue of the right size. Register here (free).

Milady

The Milady NFT collection is the only properly accelerationist digital art project in the world right now.

I despise the smugly saccharine tenor of today’s still infantile crypto culture. Hell is a smiling venture capitalist saying “gm” and “wgmi” every day forever.

I want an army of schizos to read Nick Land and make millions of dollars by short-circuiting Big Tech's cyborg theocracy with an auto-escalating neolemurian insurgency.

Milady is too powerful to “support”, or “like,” or “agree” with Milady.

Milady is dangerous, you’d be a fool to “endorse” it. I fear there will be violence and possibly death. It's truly unhinged.

But Milady is the dark truth of crypto culture.

And I always bet on the truth.

I bought a Milady after learning about Remilia in this episode of the Other Life podcast (video, podcast).

My Milady #5572 is a hypebeast with western jacket.

Bhad Bhabie

I've studied hundreds of commercially successful creators to understand all the different paths to power.

One of the craziest stories I've ever studied is the story of female rapper Bhad Bhabie.

In 2016, Danielle Bregoli was a poor, delinquent, 13-year-old Jewish-Italian girl with no musical talent, interest, or experience.

Today she's a multi-millionaire with multiple platinum records.

How is that even possible?

In 2016, Barbara Bregoli dragged her awesome 13-year-old onto Dr. Phil, for a segment entitled I Want to Give Up My Car-Stealing, Knife-Wielding, Twerking 13-Year-Old Daughter Who Tried to Frame Me for a Crime. It's worth 4 minutes of your day.

One clip of the segment went mega-viral. When she says, threatening the audience laughing at her:

"Catch me outside, how bout dat?"

DJ Suede The Remix God released a hit single based on that segment.

Then Danielle got a phone call.

Danielle received a phone call from Atlantic Records. She had never made music or rapped before, but it didn't matter. They signed her.

She went back on Dr. Phil and told him:

"I made you... You were nothing before me."

She doubled down on the Dr. Phil beef. Then she tripled down.

He tried to humiliate her for profit, and she knew it.

So she humiliated him for profit—and she never quit.

Years later, she accused Dr. Phil of knowingly sending her to an abusive wilderness camp for kids. She’s never stopped owning Dr. Phil.

There are some important lessons here. True rebellion is unstoppable. If someone tries to cage you, destroy them. If the walls start closing in, go up a level. Double down, triple down, infinity down.

The extraordinary rise of Bhad Bhabie marked the threshold at which Zoomer social intelligence definitively exceeded Boomer social intelligence.

From Phil to Karen, it's been nothing but L's in the Boomer mediascape.

I stan Bhad Bhabie.

The Deep Tech State

The “Deep State” and “Big Tech” are merging.

Call it the Deep Tech State.

The FBI orders Google to provide data on individuals searching for certain terms. These orders are called Keyword Warrants.

The FBI also orders Google to provide data on invidiuals who are physically in certain areas at certain times. These orders are called Geofence Warrants.

Many people think that searching for controversial topics will put you on the Feds’ radar, but there’s not much evidence of this (yet). Keyword Warrants, thus far, have mostly been applied to searches for individual names. For instance, if there is a crime against a certain individual, the feds may force Google to provide data on everyone who searched for that person’s name.

These cases are fully documented, but what about the cases that haven’t leaked yet?

Don’t be confused by congressional hearings where you see boomer gerontocrats grilling tech CEOs.

They’re all playing to control the inside, and they’ll cooperate where it’s rational to do so.

We play for the outside.

China’s Unrestricted Warfare

Unrestricted Warfare is a book written by two senior colonels in the Chinese military and published by the People’s Liberation Army in 1999.

The book has recently drawn the attention of both the Chinese and Western press for its advocacy of a multitude of means, both military and particularly non-military, to strike at the United States during times of conflict. Hacking into websites, targeting financial institutions, terrorism, using the media, and conducting urban warfare are among the methods propose….

“The first rule of unrestricted warfare is that there are no rules, with nothing forbidden."

Elaborating on this idea, he asserted that strong countries would not use the same approach against weak countries because "strong countries make the rules while rising ones break them and exploit loopholes… The United States breaks [UN rules] and makes new ones when these rules don't suit [its purposes], but it has to observe its own rules or the whole world will not trust it."

Interesting throughout, you can read an edited English-language version here.

From the Imperceptible Country

The Other Life community is seeding a new sovereign country owned by its members

Are We Building a New Bell System?

"I've taken notice following [The Imperceptible Country] here that it bears striking resemblance to an interpretation of the life of the Bell System as portrayed in a very rare book, The Rape of Ma Bell, by Constantine Raymond Krauss...

The Bell System existed as almost a separate universe, teeming with a life of its own, all in the service of providing communications services to the outside world. The amount of organizational capital amassed, the social problems conquered, the intense dedication of field workers, and perhaps most strikingly, the extreme creativity and innovation of Bell Laboratories.

I want to suggest that this is an incredible lens in which to view [The Imperceptible Country] Justin is attempting to put together..."

By ~lontus-racref on the Open Group Blog. Read more and reply in the city.

Metabolic Mainframe: The First Hobbyist Bio-Computer

"There is a need for an accessible synthetic biology platform. The solution: An open source metabolic mainframe which allows DIY biologists to tinker at home.

Important reagents can be freeze-dried and stored at room temperature for long periods, then re-hydrated for use. Instead of transforming DNA constructs into cells, “biochemical breadboards” (cell-free lysates) are now commonly used to rapidly test pathways. Open source hardware projects can cut equipment costs down 2-50x and projects such as FreeGenes are making needed sequences freely available to all. A metabolic mainframe, similar to the Arduino or Altair 8800, will grow an ecosystem which is decentralized, hacker-friendly and freely shares scientific results."

By Nicholas White. Read more and reply in the town.

Into the Water

"She is such a good friend that she would throw all her acquaintances into the water for the pleasure of fishing them out." —Talleyrand