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How Renaissance Rationalization and Oceanic Navigation Lock Into Commodotization Takeoff
Regatta on the Canale Grande (1740) by Canaletto
In the most underrated work of social theory from the 1990s, Nick Land presents a sweeping theory of modernity.
With about 3,500 words and only 4 citations, Meltdown seems to comprehend—and arguably foretell—a range of momentous historical developments that will only arrive decades later. From cryptocurrency to the Covid pandemic, Meltdown sees it all coming.
And yet, few social scientists have ever deigned to take this work seriously.
The time is nigh.
Let us start at the beginning with the first sentence.
"The story goes like this: Earth is captured by a technocapital singularity as renaissance rationalization and oceanic navigation lock into commoditization take-off." —Nick Land, Meltdown
Many readers will dismiss this text already, "postmodern mumbo-jumbo!"
But the discerning reader will quickly find—if they are willing to do the work—that here we have something far more empirically sophisticated than the average Deriddean, post-marxist social theory that was fashionable in Anglophone universities at the time.