#technology primitivism

[paperw0rmz]

I <3 CRT

[kazimirkharza]

Had a little chat with Artxmis from the Uncivilized Podcast recently. We discussed my thoughts on Kaczynski's idea of the anti-tech revolution, my "Myth of Human Weakness" essay, and the sociopolitical state of the Balkans. Give it a listen.

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

I don't like Kevin Tucker as a person but this is his band and his writing.

[scarubaru]

Hnng I love the marriage of modern medical technology and process and manufacturing engineering. I love having cheap and abundant supplies of antibiotics, I love vaccine stockpiles, I love being able to buy 12 boxes sterilized gauze at the supermarket, I love slathering Neosporin all over my clumsy body.

[carl-tabora]

The Necron and the Baby

An-nakhrimun awkwardly stares at the tiny human in her hand, confused and unsure. The human stares back, extending tiny hands towards her while making incoherent noises, clearly unafraid of the soulless Necron.

What is she supposed to do, is she supposed to eat her? She quickly glances up, seeking instruction from the mature human couple, yet to her dismay only receiving their smiles.

Ever since awoke from the Great Sleep and subsequent exile by Illuminor Szeras, she has been drowning in despair and sadness, wallowing at the memory of her failing her entire species and the terrible fate upon herself and her mother. Landing her ship on this nameless planet, she sat upon the top of her ship's exterior and fell into unmoving catatonia, with only the maintenance of her mother, now a mindless warrior, drove her to act slightly.

Not even herself realized how long it had been, but before she realized, an alien race that called themselves “human” appeared. Time has been hard to grasp for An-nakhrimun, as the humans have been in a completely different state each time she paid attention to them. From colonizing the planet, building gleaming cities, fighting among themselves against their robotic servants, collapsing into primitivism, and rebuilding their society with even more inferior technology. She is the only unchanged constant on this planet.

Humans have long used to her presence, sometimes even scaling her ship to try to communicate with her. Now, with her ship buried under dirt, humans have built a park around her seat, these interactions only became more frequent. Sometimes when she pays attention, she could even see humans sketching her figure with primitive pen and papers.

Most of the interaction has been quiet and distanced, but only once, she was forced into physical confrontation.

On a heavy snowy night, two tiny humans, male and female, wearing tattered clothes, stumbled to her seat, cold and shaking. They have no home to return to, and in the winter’s chill, they will not see tomorrow’s sunrise. They embraced the metal alien lady, waiting to die, instead, they found a warm energy dome around her. An-nakhrimun, frozen in confusion and flustered at the tiny humans grabbing onto her, channeled a deflection shield to repel the coldness, in order to try scaring them away.

She sighed a silent relief when they finally left when the sun rise, and didn’t even realize just for that night, she paid so much attention to those two humans, she even forgot to wallow in her own sadness.

Since then, An-nakhrimun sometimes would find small trinkets and items on herself and her mother, scarf, small flower, sachet. She does not understand the purpose, yet keeps them as it might be of some significance she doesn’t get.

Now the two humans have matured, and they came to her with their own offspring, like a female feline eager to show its master what she produced, and asked her to join them on a “family dinner”.

The word sounds so foreign, yet so familiar. Though she lacks the flesh to consume food anymore, she remembers how her mother used to be smiling at the dinner table even with barely any food. She glances at her mindless mother, and allows both of them to be dragged out of the park.

The interaction with humans has distracted her from her own sadness, and she doesn’t hate it.

Yet, such a time would be short lived, as the current Terra time is 850.M30, and the 16th legion of power armoured genetic soldiers, serving the self-proclaimed Emperor of Mankind, will be arriving into the system in less than a year…

Scene art for my tabletop campaign, depicting the pre-campaign story of Lone Cryptek An-Nakhrimun, who sat on a planet being depressed for 10k+ years until Great Crusade came knocking. And the baby that would become the origin of her fake human face.

Reddit Source

[bimboficationblues]

☕️ adorno, also ☕️anti civ gooo

Adorno is the real Uncle Ted. one of the more prescient thinkers of the last century who gets unfairly maligned sometimes.

anti-civ goo is superior to pro-civ goo

"civilization" is a nebulous term that you can fill with whatever content you want (admittedly, all words are like this, but some have a greater track record historically) which I do think makes it a bit of a non-starter for discussion. a lot of arguments about it are actually arguing about primitivism/industrialization which is both narrow and uninteresting.

for me the term "civilization" within the history of political thought doesn't refer to any single social technology or manifestation of social power but a complex convergence of them, produced in a specific context and turned to specific ends (particularly the maintenance/social reproduction of the society, and the maintenance of it as a class society), and qualitatively mutating from their interactions in the process. Rousseau, in the Second Discourse:

The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows, “Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.” But there is great probability that things had then already come to such a pitch, that they could no longer continue as they were; for the idea of property depends on many prior ideas, which could only be acquired successively, and cannot have been formed all at once in the human mind.

another way I tend to look at it is the reuptake of different manifestations of domination or oppression, as described by Marx in the preface to Capital Vol. I: "We are oppressed not only by new dire circumstances but also by an array of inherited ones that still occur because antiquated, out-of-date modes of production have managed to keep limping along, accompanied by their entourage of anachronistic social and political relations. The living make us suffer, and the dead do, too. The dead grasp the living!"

(I want to revisit how crucial the idea of social death, or a society ruled by death, was to Marx and Engels. That's another topic I guess.)

I think the "crude Marxist" has decided that the category of civilization is purely ideological, that it has no referent beyond an invocation of the supposed superiority of whiteness and coloniality. I don't reject that claim necessarily. But I think it is noteworthy how the idea of civilization is so fundamentally embedded in the political thought of our enemies, common to liberals and fascists (and increasingly many socialists), the task of saving or preserving civilization. And the development, spread, and refinement of these different technologies of power - the state, education, health infrastructure, industrialization, racecraft, reproductive control and familialism, monoculture - often act as foundational elements or "happy coincidences" for a society of domination (e.g. the increased centralization of state power, or legal positivism and the refinement of legal systems to have an internal "logic"), and thus none of them are uncomplicated goods that can be left untouched by a process of revolutionary social transformation.

However, what exactly that will look like - what it might mean to make agriculture, education, cities, and public health no longer subordinate to capital and nation such that they might promote greater freedom and power to act - is a lot more ambiguous and difficult to visualize than a prepper apocalypse scenario. so it's easier to just post the blurry tiger meme

[transmutationisms]

can you expand on the ted kaczynski stuff 💀

ted k was an ecofascist, historical change is not a linear process of either progress or regression, the nature–technology dichotomy is artificial, the 'industrial revolution' is a highly contested term temporally and philosophically, technology is not determinative of social forms or historical change and its adoption depends on a dizzying array of social and economic factors and motives. every time kaczynski's name comes up i see nominal leftists semi-ironically valorising him because they, like, think that twitter is causing cultural degeneracy. these are fascist ideas and facile historical thinking. once again, primitivism engages in the same narrativising and myth-making as the most chauvinistic, whiggish, positivist anglo histories of the 19th and 20th centuries, only with the valences imputed to 'civilisation' inverted.

[dailyanarchistposts]

What are the main threads of anarchist thinking?

What do they disagree with each other about? What do they agree on?

a23

Here’s how I break down what I consider the main trends in an Intro to Anarchism talk I do.

Anarchist Communism Anarchist communism proposes that the freest form of social organisation would be a society composed of self-managing communes with collective use of the means of production, organised democratically and using consenus decision-making, and related to other communes through federation. In anarchist communism there would be no money but everyone would have free access to the resources and surplus of the commune. Anarchist communism is thus said to operate on a gift economy.

Collectivism Collectivist anarchism is similar to anarchist communism, except for the fact that in collectivism workers would be compensated for their work on the basis of the amount of time they contributed to production, rather than goods being distributed “according to need” as in anarcho-communism. Some collectivist anarchists do not oppose the use of currency. Some support workers being paid based on the amount of time they contributed to production. These salaries would be used to purchase commodities in a communal market.

Anarcho-syndicalism Syndicalism focuses on radical trade unions as a potential force for revolutionary social change, seeking to replace capitalism and the state with a new society that is democratically self-managed by the workers. Important principles include workers’ solidarity, direct action (such as general strikes and workplace recuperations) and workers’ self-management. Syndicalism is sometimes seen as simply a specific strategic focus within communist or collectivist anarchism as opposed to a distinct type of anarchism in itself.

Insurrectionary Anarchism On the other hand, Insurrectionary Anarchism opposes formal organizations such as labor unions and federations that are based on a political programme and periodic congresses. Instead, insurrectionary anarchists support informal organization and small affinity group-based organization. Insurrectionary anarchists put value in attack, permanent class conflict, and a refusal to negotiate or compromise with class enemies.

Contemporary insurrectionary anarchism most often inherits the views and tactics of anti-organizationalist anarcho-communism.

Anarcha-feminism Anarcha-feminism is a form of anarchism that synthesizes radical feminism and anarchism and views patriarchy (male domination over women) as one of the (or the) primary dominations. Anarcha-feminism was inspired in the late 19th century by the writings of early feminist anarchists such as Lucy Parsons, Emma Goldman and Voltairine de Cleyre. Anarcha-feminists, like other radical feminists, criticize and advocate the abolition of traditional conceptions of family, education and gender roles and believe that the feminist struggle against sexism and patriarchy is an essential component of the anarchist struggle. Susan Brown put it: “as anarchism is a political philosophy that opposes all relationships of power, it is inherently feminist”.

Green Anarchism Green anarchism (or eco-anarchism) is a school of thought within anarchism that puts an emphasis on environmental issues. Green anarchists often criticize the main currents of anarchism for their focus and debates about politics and economics instead of a focus on ecosystems.

Anarcho-primitivism Anarcho-primitivism is an anarchist critique of the origins and progress of civilization. According to anarcho-primitivism, the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural subsistence gave rise to social stratification, coercion, and alienation. Anarcho-primitivists advocate a return to non-civilized ways of life through deindustrialisation, abolition of the division of labour or specialization, and abandonment of large-scale organization technologies. There are other non-anarchist forms of primitivism, and not all primitivists point to the same phenomenon as the source of modern, civilized problems.

Primitivism is seem as extreme by some anarchists, but it does provide a useful counterbalance to the cheerful Industrial Revolution optimism expressed by the late 19th and early 20th Century anarchists like Peter Kropotkin that technology and technological progress are inherently liberatory and should be pursued by anarchists in a post-revolutionary society.

Synthesism/Anarchism without Adjectives/Type 3 Anarchism Anarchism without adjectives is an attitude that tolerates the coexistence of different anarchist schools. It emphasizes harmony between various anarchist factions and attempts to unite them around their shared anti-authoritarian beliefs. Rudolf Rocker said that the different types of anarchism presented “only different methods of economy, the practical possibilities of which have yet to be tested, and that the first objective is to secure the personal and social freedom of men no matter upon which economics basis this is to be accomplished.”

It is important to note that a large number of self-defined anarchists might use more than one of these labels to describe themselves depending on what they were doing or what kinds of group structures they find themselves operating in: some anarchists prefer durable, structured groups where members commit to certain ideological and tactical principles; others prefer more flexible, small-scale affinity groups that come and go as needed. Often, members of these latter groups express concerns about how formal organisation can tend towards bureaucracy and the perpetuation of the life of the group for its own sake. There are a number of other types of so-called anarchism that are problematic. Perhaps the worst of these is anarcho-capitalism—an oxy-moronic view stemming from the belief expressed by some, that personal freedom entails being free to compete in a capitalist-type market.

dot

and individualist anarchism: the idea that the individual is the real base for all decisions (although society tries to hide that fact), and that society (as understood through law, education, morality, religion, ideology, etc) has either little use or no use (except as a hindrance to the desires of individuals). Individualists de-emphasize the importance of revolution (as a single event that radically changes everything for the better), since revolutions tend to just install new leaders, and recommend slow, experientially based change instead. This covers wide territory, and many individualists disagree with each other.

Also, post-left anarchy and post-anarchy have real similarities, since both are updating classical anarchist thinking using the work of philosophers like Stirner, Nietzsche, the Frankfurt School, etc.

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

How would you suggest that people who are reliant upon products created by industrial society be taken care of without industrial technology? I'm referring to people with diabetes who need insulin or trans ppl like me who need hrt. If you have zines of this information I would like those, but I want your input as well.

Also what the fuck is "bathtub insulin." Sometimes I hear leftists use the phrase to shit talk anti-civ anarchists.

[veganterrorist]

Vegan Primitivism (Veg-Primitive)

Related to but wholly separate from veganarchism (total liberation), vegan primitivism is a form of veganism dedicated to primitivity and strength. Focusing on a 'return to nature' ethos in combination with the raw physicality that a primitive lifestyle entails, this is a strength based return to man's roots, one where man lives in harmony and symbiosis with the natural world. Man was always supposed to live in harmony with mother nature, not exploit or take advantage of her. In order to defend mother nature from the agents of its total destruction it stands to reason that man must be strong enough to defend her with his life. Contrary to the typically non-violent and/or pacifist approach many standard vegans adopt, vegan primitives are ready for the violent defence of their ideals towards an oppressive, opportunistic population that seeks to dismantle the very foundations of the natural world, exploiting her until there's nothing left. Violence isn't the aim but there are few greater tools in your arsenal. If violence must be employed, this necessitates that one be as strong as humanly possible in order to defend yourself and challenge the oppressors which all too often face little opposition themselves. The only way to combat strength is through superior strength. The vegan primitivist's body is a well-honed tool—or weapon—used in overcoming any obstacle or ideological hurdle one may face. Intelligence, strength, and will, some of man's greatest traits, are of paramount importance, all in the protection of the natural world. Liberated from the exploitation of other species, we can then focus on peace and harmony, small communities, or 'tribes', of people that are united in the shared goal of a simple life, emancipated from the slavery of other species, and the promotion of life and liberty for the common weal and wellbeing of each tribe. There is no social media, no advanced technology, etc., no pollutants that would otherwise poison an healthy population. Outdoor activity like hiking and mountaineering, foraging, indoor activity like simple cookery and reading, and combat training, are then emphasised as hobbies and undertakings. There is joy to be found in simplicity and we need only choose to return to a simpler way of life to achieve this happiness and relocate our once human connection to mother nature and the natural world.

This is just a series of initial thoughts about vegan primitivism and I will expand on these as a practicable lifestyle and philosophy when I'm able to.

[elbiotipo]

whats your perspective on anarcho-primitivism?

I dislike it.

When I think of a better society, I don't think to return to hunter-gatherer tribes or breaking our backs working in pseudo-medieval village communes. I think of education, medicine, housing, food, being available to everyone and without anyone hoarding them. This can be accomplished by the right implementation of politics and technology, which does imply a state and industrial civilization. Anarcho-primitivism is reactionary, it's just a 'leftist' version of "everyone should go to church" fantasizing of the Middle Ages. Luckily, it's only the domain of some boring writers and some 'humanity is a cancer' people on Twitter (lol) but I think it's worth discussing because it reveals some biases.

Industry is not inherently bad. People can have decent, comfortable lifestyles if industry, instead of being guided towards profit, is guided towards the welfare of people: avoiding waste, planned obsolescence, consumerism, enviromental destruction. To accomplish this, you must have something (a state) that controls what is done and how (the means of production). To make the state works for the welfare of the people and the planet, it needs to be built on those principles. I'm sure you can figure out where I'm going with this.

Every human activity has an enviromental impact, from mining to agriculture. I simply do not believe this is inmoral, like many anprims seem to believe. I think it is harmful and yes, possibly inmoral that our current rates of consumption are damaging the global ecosystem, but I do not think farming or mining or using electronics is inmoral, when all those things can be done in ways that reduce impact as much as possible and allow people to have comfortable lives. And, this is key, industrial civilization and a state that provides for the common benefit of the people is what allows people to live good lives, to not worry about spending all their time doing farming and leaving other pursuits to a very privileged class, and importantly, not to die from disease or suffer by the abuses of a feudal class that would develop in such a situation.

Because let's face this: if anarcho-primitivism is implement, billions would die. You cannot feed the current human population without industrial farming (and I'm not even talking about GMOs or agrochemicals here, I'm saying stuff like tractors), and a transition to subsistence farmer civilization will only cause untold suffering and death. I do not even need to tell you that people who depend in modern medicine would die without the very complex industries that produce current medications and treatment. And if we go all the way to the extreme and abolish agriculture itself, not only humanity would be reduced to hunter-gatherer bands, but the enviromental devastation would be untold. An anprim society would be a decline on human quality of life like we've seen in the worst episodes of human history. All this for what? A moralistic, pure version of the past that not even far-righters have dreamed of? A medieval village but with D&D night instead of church? Thank you, I'll pass.

Also, and this is personal: I love space exploration, and I think humanity's future is among the stars. Any ideology that does not allow for that is worthless to me. Yuri Gagarin didn't touch the skies for people to tell me that it's proper leftism to stay down here in feudal farms forever.

[caprice-nisei-enjoyer]

Unfortunately anarcho-primitivism is completely untenable because, I would simply re-invent Government and Technology.

[sophie-frm-mars]

I'm curious about your thoughts on anti-civ politics. You had some nice things to say about anarcho-nihilists in "the World Is Not Ending" and obvi that venn diagram is basically a circle but I know your position is very different vis a vi technology and industrialism writ large

I think if you want my take on technology, my most recent essay The Endings Machine is the best thing to look at.

Idk, this is tricky because there are a few adjacent things here. Like anarcho-nihilists believe that any history given any direction is a progression toward authoritarian hell. Anti-civ and anti-technology or what people call anarcho-primitivism aren't technically the same afaik, and besides anarcho-primitivism there has been a strong tradition of organized labour opposing the introduction of new technology because the way it is being introduced by the ruling class is oppressive, the classic example being the luddites.

Anarcho-primitivists are, in my view, just roleplaying. They're not doing anything serious for class struggle and they're welcome to prove me wrong about this by doing more but I'm a trans woman and I actually need some of the benefits of modern medicine to survive.

Anti-civ on the other hand I think has an interesting and somewhat worthwhile perspective, though flawed. The thing I like about it is that I do think we always have to be sceptical of any idea that we are on historical rails, locked onto one path only which is a path toward progress. This is a nonsense. The fact that every brutal and violent empire in history has insisted it brings "civilisation" to the people it enslaves is a good demonstration of how aligning yourself against the concept of civilisation can align you against imperialism. The flaw for me is in a lack of utopianism. Ruth Levitas argues in her book "Utopia As Method" that the expression of our desires through imagining a better world is an essential form of knowledge and truth. All the anti-civ and anarcho-nihilist writing I've read falls into the ditch of accusing any attempt at broad top-down change, no matter how well-intentioned, of leading to totalitarianism. This is a view which always leads us back to inaction.

And so, as in The World Is Not Ending I'll say again, I have no problem with these people as long as their beliefs lead them to actually take part in the struggle

[prettycottonmouthlamia]

So I replayed Mother 3 very recently. Had a good time with it. Beyond everything else, I think that Mother 3 is actually a pretty good game, and one of Nintendo's better games in its line-up. Despite a lot of what I am going to say about it down below, coming from a perspective that has learned a lot since I originally played the game, this remains a very distinctive title for Nintendo. It is both intensely political and has some of the most prominent queer characters in their library, and in many ways, it is the type of game I want Nintendo to be making. It is a game that is actually saying something.

But, I think that I've found myself more critical of what exactly it's saying now than I have in the past.

The Politics of Mother 3

This is an interesting point to start off with, because Mother 3 is pretty transparently a very anti-capitalist work. It directly associates the introduction of money and capitalism to Tazmily Village by Porky and the Pigmask Army with the illness in society that takes root afterwards. This does immediately though beg the question of what exactly is the solution to the issue? If not a capitalist society, what is the best way for society to be ordered?

In strict accordance with its canon, the answer is an unknown. The climax of the game involves pulling the seventh and final needle, and causing the rebirth of the world. However, we the player are not given any indication as to what this rebirth of the world actually entails, merely being told during the fake-out end screen that everything is going to be okay. Lucas, the boy with the good and pure heart, pulled the final needle, so everything is going to be okay. Of course, we are only told this. Lucas, as a silent protagonist, is given no real motivations of his own, merely acting as a vessel for the other characters with moral statements: Alec, Wess, Kumatora, and the Ma[*******]. Lucas can really be argued to not be much different than Claus is. Lucas is given no real motivation to pull out the needles, and as a result, the end result of the world is similarly empty. You, the Player, Lucas's Porky Minch, are asked to imagine what a world that might look like.

Except. That's not really the whole story, is it?

After you beat the game, you get the title you see at the beginning of the post, replacing this one in the end card. On some level, this is obviously intended to be a callback to the titles of both Mother 1 and Mother 2, in particular with the image of the Earth acting as the O. But one must contrast it with the original title and there's an obvious message. By the end of the game, your rebirth has healed the world, removing its metallic pieces and allowing the natural world to flourish again.

Mother 3 is anti-capitalist, but it is also pastoralist, and I would even argue flirts with primitivism quite often. The replacement of the metal in the logo with wood here is not accidental, and it resonates with the themes and ideas that the game has been telling you for quite some time. While the fate of the world is ambiguous in the narrative, thematically speaking, Mother 3 has an idea of what the world should look like.

Life in Tazmily Village is quite simply by the time that Fassad and the Pigmask Army show up. There's very little in the ways of modern technology, and there's also no sense of money or a market. The items that you find in Thomas's Bazaar are all free of charge, and can be taken freely. This is deliberate, as is revealed very late into the story, as the village is full of survivors of an apocalyptic scenario and blamed their current lifestyles for causing it. They choose then to take on the role of a small, quiet village, the kind of lives they all wanted. While it is not clear whether that society was capitalist to the same extent as what would come afterwards, the message is pretty clear. The pastoral lifestyle that Tazmily exists in is considered the ideal, it is what several characters, including Lucas, fight for.

This, by itself, puts a bit of a conservative spin on the work as a whole. Mother 3 is not anti-capitalist in the same way that a communist or a socialist would be. It is not concerned with the plight of the workers, or even generally for society's well-being. You perform no meaningful anti-capitalist action in the entire game. You cannot improve the lives of the elderly that were placed in Old Man's Paradise, a decrepit and falling down nursing home. You cannot stand up for the exploitation of the workers of Tazmily Village. You engage with the capitalist system of shops and labor with no real alarm.

But where this gets really interesting is in the social messaging. A conversation that initially struck me as quite odd replaying this game was the conversation in Chapter 4 involving Mike in the nursing home.

Mike: I can't keep burdening Lisa forever, but I do have a Happy Box and nice-bodied girls like Nan and Linda here to keep me company, so I'm pretty happy in my own way. Linda: I'm sorry, Mike, but that's called sexual harassment these days. Mike: This is a hard world we live in now. How disappointing.

This scene is obviously meant as a joke at Mike's expense here. You're not really supposed to take his side here, but let's break this down a bit more here given the context of the entire game.

Mother 3 gives literally nothing to the Pigmask Army what so ever. The game never, ever, tries to play anything they do as a positive. The encroaching of capitalism and suburbanization is not presented as a net zero, it is presented as entirely negative. Nothing good came out of it, the world is worse off for it. Wildlife is mutilated for sport, people become engrossed in their pursuit of happiness (another point we'll get into shortly), and the people of Tazmily drift away from each other, becoming more rude and more curt to each other, especially towards those deemed "undesirable".

But the scene reads strangely in this context. The constant here is Mike's inappropriate comments about women's bodies, not their nonacceptance. It is explicitly marked as a change to the world that the concept of sexual harassment even exists, and there's no other source for it than the Pigmasks. The Pigmasks introduced feminism to Tazmily, and in the overarching narrative of the story, that's a bad thing. The game makes no concessions towards any good result happening, so every impact must be bad. While in a vacuum, the butt of the joke is Mike, the narrative actually vindicates him.

To give another example of the game's conservative bent, let's look at family structures that are present in the game. One might expect that family structures would be much more loose in the pastoral Tazmily Village than in the suburbanized Tazmily Village. After all, the nuclear family as it exists today is entirely an invention of capitalism, and specifically, came about because of cultural shifts after WWII in response to the growing Cold War.

But if you paid attention, the family dynamics don't actually shift at all. Families in Tazmily remain nuclear the entire time. This makes sense given the canonical explanation, that Tazmily was a rush job and these people were probably coming from a culture that had nuclear family dynamics, but it grates roughly with the idea that Tazmily Village is an ideal. What goes unstated is that the nuclear family is inherently a part of that. Sure, the gender roles become more clear past Chapter 4, where men go off to work and the women stay home, but in truth, it really wasn't that much different in the past.

Then there is the Happy Boxes. In the narrative of the story, the Happy Boxes are dubiously brainwashing devices. They emit odd lights and noises, and at least a couple of characters are enraptured with them to the exclusion of all else. They are the devices planted in Tazmily to begin its metamorphosis into a suburban town. But, there is actual brainwashing later on in the game, so I'm hesitant to merely take them at that. Rather, what do the Happy Boxes represent thematically? I believe the answer to that is propaganda.

Visually, the Happy Boxes resemble CRT screens, either TVs or computer monitors, and this is pretty consistent with their placement in homes as well, often being central to living areas. The introduction of television revolutionized the ability to disseminate propaganda to people, as now the same message could be sent to millions of people worldwide with basically no downside. in addition, there's no direct changes as a result of the Happy Boxes existing. People are more rude, more dismissive, and a bit meaner than they were previously, but they maintain their dominant personalities. Some people, such as Abbot and Abbey, are remarkably similar. The message in the Happy Boxes is a more subtextual one. The Happy Boxes are supposed to bring happiness to you, so the act of getting one is the desire for happiness.

This, to Mother 3, is a key poison. It is Fassad who sells the Happy Boxes to the people of Tazmily on the idea that we want to be happy, and there's nothing wrong with wanting happiness. This of course being Fassad, we are inclined to as the viewers see their words as deceptive in nature. Since the core part of Mother 3's politics is pastoralism and anti-capitalism, it makes pursuing happiness a moral ill. This is probably why there's no real sympathy given to any of the workers in the story. They were the ones who chose to pursue happiness, chose to get a Happy Box, and chose to listen to Fassad's words. They should have remained resolute in not getting a Happy Box. Working in the system is being part of it. It's being complicit.

(In a way that is, of course, separate from the ways in which the main party are also working in and complicit in the system.)

This isn't to say to end this that Mother 3's politics are wholly bad. It provides, for example, the important connotation that suburbanization comes at a cost. The happy, suburban lifestyle comes at the mistreatment of the elderly, the outsiders, and of queer people.

Oh yeah we haven't talked about that hu-

QUEERNESS AND MOTHER 3

So we're going to have to talk about the Magypsies. For the remainder of this post I am not going to call them that, because their name just straight out includes a slur used against the Roma, and given that they play into the mysticism tropes of them in media. This post isn't about that, but it is worth bringing up here and it's why I censored their name earlier.

(As an aside, there's an entire post to be made talking about specifically Fassad, and the ways in which he is coded quite bizarrely as Islamic, from Fassad's dress and name, to his focus on bananas, and his proper introductory chapter taking place in a desert and being in charge of a pair of monkeys. In addition, the fact that Fassad is associated with the introduction of money and being a propaganda mouthpiece is...concerning. This isn't strictly the point of this section but it would feel remiss to not include this in some place, and this felt like the best.)

What specifically the Ma[*******] are in the narrative is never defined. They are left somewhat gender ambiguous, although undeniably queer.

This, to me however, is limiting to an understanding of them, and honestly I think we should just say it here.

They're meant to be a facsimile of trans women.

Now, whether or not specifically they are trans women or are meant to merely be in drag is up in the air, and I don't think either option is actually good. Any claims of gender ambiguity go out the window given that they are all effeminate looking men, refer to each other as women, and face either general ambivalence or outright derision by other characters in the story. "Is it a he or a she?" is not really meant kindly. They are also in a whirlpool of homoerotic innuendo, and when discussing them being facsimiles, whether or not they are actually trans women or men in drag is pointless. Those are the same things when presented this way.

Mother 3 also doesn't really know what to do with them or how it even really feels about them. They are both intended to be comedic and also magical protectors of the land. They are part of the protagonist faction but are entirely passive, figures that merely guide and help awaken powers in the actual protagonists before being pre-determinately fridged as the story progresses. There is one exception.

Locria, or really, Fassad, the con-artist formerly known as Locria. The game reveals very, very late into the story through a floor in the Porky Tower and in Miracle Fassad's use of PK Starstorm that Fassad is very likely Locria, a traitor to her other friends and assistant of the Porky Empire. At no point ever is Fassad's gender or sex ever in question. He is referred to entirely with male pronouns, is discussed as a guy, and even once his identity is revealed as Locria, the mouse that he lived with still refers to him with male pronouns. This to me is kind of critical to my distinction of them as facsimiles of trans women, because there would be no reason to make Fassad explicitly always male. Fassad betrayed the others, and assimilated into what the capitalist army needed of him.

Or, well, that's a nice way of thinking about it. The Ma[*******] existed on the Nowhere Islands for much longer than the people of Tazmily Village. In Mother 3, there is basically no other meaningful signifier of queerness to be seen in the entire game. There are no gay men, there are no gay women, and there is no other gender ambiguity. Even Kumatora, who was raised by Ionia, is basically a tomboy in her appearance.

The people of Tazmily Village are seemingly completely unaware of their presence until later in the game, as it seems to be that they are completely unaware of queerness. The message the game tells here is that queerness essentially exists outside both the pastoral idealism and the capitalist dystopia that exist as the two main points of reference. They willingly self-sacrifice to see the world change, but while they are invested in the world not being destroyed, the time will come no matter what. They aren't shown to be reborn in the new world either, as none of the textboxes can be attributed to them.

Is it positive? Is it negative!? Who knows! I don't think I have come to particularly like their depiction in this game as a trans woman, they aren't really uniquely hated or loved by the game's narrative. If anything, the game just seems to regard them as existing, and pretty okay people, if not very weird in their queerness.

Conclusions I guess, I don't know, I wasn't intended for this post to essentially become an ess-

While I have a lot to say about how Mother 3 gives its messaging and what messaging that is, it is still a good game from the fundamentals. The characters are well written, the game has a good sense of tension and delivery, etc. I think the game makes missteps, and I do want to be clear here, I think this is a game with good intentions but limited by writers who are probably somewhat conservative and couldn't imagine what a better world would be. But it still takes a pretty massive risk by talking about what it does. In a gaming climate where Nintendo games often try to talk about as little as possible, in order to be consumable vessels for entertainment, I think Mother 3 stands out in a good way. This post isn't even going into the ideas of grief, loss, and motherhood that are central to the story as well. I just wanted to talk politics lmao.

[darkmaga-returns]

Industrial Society and Its Future begins with Kaczynski’s assertion: “The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.”

He wrote that technology has had a destabilizing effect on society, has made life unfulfilling, and has caused widespread psychological suffering.

Kaczynski argued that most people spend their time engaged in ultimately unfulfilling pursuits because of technological advances; he called these “surrogate activities”, wherein people strive toward artificial goals, including scientific work, consumption of entertainment, political activism, and following sports teams. He states people do “surrogate activities” to satisfy the “power process” in which people strive to be independent and to achieve power over themselves.

He predicted that technological advances would lead to extensive and ultimately oppressive forms of human control, including genetic engineering, and that human beings would be adjusted to meet the needs of social systems rather than vice versa.

Kaczynski stated that technological progress can be stopped, in contrast to the viewpoint of people who he said understand technology’s negative effects yet passively accept technology as inevitable.

He called for a revolution to force the collapse of the worldwide technological system, and held a life close to nature, in particular primitivist lifestyles, as an ultimate ideal.

Kaczynski’s critiques of civilization bore some similarities to anarcho-primitivism, but he rejected and criticized anarcho-primitivist views.

Kaczynski argued that the erosion of human freedom is a natural product of an industrial society because, in his words, “the system has to regulate human behavior closely in order to function”, and that reform of the system is impossible.

He said that the system has not yet fully achieved control over all human behavior and is in the midst of a struggle to gain that control. Kaczynski predicted that the system would break down if it cannot achieve significant control, and that it is likely this issue would be decided within the next 40 to 100 years.

[classic-vintage-bmw]

1991 Z1 Art Car by A. R. Penck

In 1991, the BMW Z1 became a canvas for German artist A. R. Penck, resulting in the eleventh installment of BMW’s iconic Art Car series. The Z1, a rare roadster with vertically sliding doors and a futuristic design, was already a standout with only 8,000 units produced between 1988 and 1991. Penck transformed the last Z1 produced into a rolling masterpiece, adorning its bright red body with his signature abstract symbols and stick figures. His design, inspired by prehistoric cave paintings and modern graffiti, turned the car into a dialogue between technology and primal art. Unlike other Art Cars meant for racing, Penck’s Z1 was crafted solely as an exhibition piece, never driven on roads or tracks, preserving its status as a pure artistic statement.

Penck viewed the BMW Z1 itself as a “work of art,” a product of the creativity and imagination of BMW’s engineers and designers. His approach was to challenge this technical marvel with his own visual language, a complex system of ciphers that invite viewers to decode their meaning. The car’s surface is covered with bold, black-and-white pictographs, including his famous “Matchstick Man” silhouette, alongside totemic forms and graphic icons reminiscent of Neolithic art. This fusion of high-tech automotive design and neo-primitivist imagery creates a striking contrast, making the Z1 a three-dimensional exploration of art’s relationship with technology. Penck’s work on the car reflects his fascination with mathematics, physics, and Asian calligraphy, blending intellectual rigor with raw, expressive energy.

The Z1 Art Car has since become a celebrated piece in BMW’s Art Car Collection, displayed at exhibitions like “Art Drive!” in London in 2012. Its uniqueness lies not only in Penck’s artistry but also in its status as the only convertible in the Art Car series and the last Z1 ever produced. The car’s design continues to captivate audiences, challenging them to interpret its abstract symbols while admiring the Z1’s innovative engineering, such as its removable thermoplastic panels and steel monocoque frame. As part of BMW’s ongoing commitment to merging art and mobility, Penck’s Z1 remains a testament to the power of interdisciplinary creativity, bridging the worlds of automotive design and fine art in a way that feels both timeless and avant-garde.

A. R. Penck, born Ralf Winkler in Dresden in 1939, was a self-taught artist whose career spanned decades and defied easy categorization. Emerging in East Germany, he held his first exhibition at age 17 in 1956, showcasing a precocious talent. Influenced by Picasso, Rembrandt, and prehistoric cave paintings, Penck developed a distinctive style that blended neo-primitivism with modern abstraction. His “Matchstick Man,” created in the early 1960s, became a hallmark of his work, symbolizing human struggle and communication. During the 1980s, he gained international acclaim as a leading figure in New Figuration, with his art exhibited in major Western museums. Penck’s fascination with systems—mathematics, cybernetics, and physics—infused his work with intellectual depth, making him a fitting choice for the BMW Art Car project. He passed away in 2017, leaving a legacy as one of Germany’s most innovative and enigmatic artists.