As the year comes to a close, it is time to assess the past twelve months. There were many tragedies, but there was also new chances for hope. Things such as Wikileaks and other attempts to subvert power in this stage of late capitalism has shown that power can never be truly seamless. There is always the possibility of enacting justice, and these possibilities can be amplified in the upcoming years of the next decade.

 
The relationship between an economic base and a political superstructure has usually been interpreted as the base being more material than the superstructure. But the formation of either objects or ideas are both processes, and these processes are inherently material without being objective. Therefore the distinction between the base and superstructure is an artificial divide.

 
Here is a great brain teaser that involves a little bit of math. The answer is easier than it may at first seem.

 
Here is an interesting card placed within an early Robert Fripp album. Fripp was one of the founders of the progressive rock group King Crimson, and these set of aphorisms on this card is both philosophical and enigmatic.

 
One way to analyze the modern phenomenon of biopolitics is to look at the interaction between community and immunity. Community is a collective situation of absolute reciprocity where there is a continuous obligation on every member of the community. Immunity is when individuals are separated from this continuity and exempted from this obligation as a way to protect the individual identity. This process of immunity can be used to preserve life at the expense of the social body, and to impose various techniques that define life regardless of free will. In other words, immunity has the possibility of destroying what it was meant to protect.

 
The rise in the power of the general intellect in an economy allows for other material costs to be lower. Since the general intellect is the aggregate of ideas and knowledge in a society, it removes itself from the economy which is based on the allocation of scarce resources only. This results in lower prices and the ability to produce more effectively by everyone using the commons of ideas. The use of the commons also requires a new way for individuals to gain an income that is beyond the wage system.

 
Jacques Ranciere gives a very effective definition of democracy. Democracy requires an equality that precedes freedom. The democratic form allows for a contingency of the sovereign position of authority, where anyone in the society can take on this position of authority. The equality of democratic participation is the general background, while the freedom of human desire is the particular expression. Freedom and equality are not contradictory elements, but in fact have a direct reciprocal relationship.

 
Here is a illustrated progression of Western civilization, usually depicting the negative aspects of human nature in history, and featuring the magnificent artwork of Milo Manara.

 
The use of Facebook has allowed people to connect with old friends and classmates, in a way that is much easier than just an occasional E-mail. But it is also possible for people to be Facebook friends in large quantities with people who one has never met or associated with. The ability to form community is thus stunted, and isolation can be increased inadvertently.

 
November 2nd is election day, and the state of New York has the chance to choose a real alternative to business as usual. Howie Hawkins is the Green Party candidate for Governor of New York, along with Gloria Mattera for Lieutenant Governor, Colia Clark and Cecile Lawrence for U.S. Senate, and Julia Willebrand for Comptroller. They are all part of the Green New Deal which includes:

1. enforcing the stock transfer tax to generate a $7 billion budget surplus

2. creating a state bank to invest in local businesses

3. establishing employment offices in each community to provide public sector jobs

4. directing job creation in renewable energy and sustainable infrastructure

5. initiating a statewide ban on hydrofracking of the Marcellus Shale

Don't forget to vote, and vote Green for a change!

 
The actual practice of democracy has certain basic qualities. When democracy is the equality of freedom, it is also an equality of power in the public realm. This equality of power is a distribution of ownership through public participation. Democracy can exist inside of the state or outside of the state and is most effective when it engages in a decentralization of power. Individuals and collectives exist simultaneously in the democratic structure, with the form of democracy as individual choice and the content of democracy as collective action. Those who engage in a democracy are co-owners of that democracy, and their ownership is equal based on the equality of their public participation.

 
The idea and statement made by proponents of the free market that only the rich or corporations can provide jobs is a full support of political and economic hierarchy. Those who have a monopoly on access to the means of production will provide jobs, but they are jobs that the worker can not freely choose because they are not in a position to seek alternatives. The fact that those in power offer precluded choices does not make it the right course of action, because it is a blatant restriction of freedom.

 
Peter Kropotkin was an anarchist who was unique in his use of a study of nature to support his ideas. By looking at the behavior of animals and comparing it to the structures of premodern societies, he concluded that cooperation was a vital aspect of evolution rather than the entire process being only "survival of the fittest".

 
The character of the Doctor from Doctor Who has gone through eleven incarnations, and through the course of the television series it has been implied that he can have up to thirteen incarnations. Here is an unofficial contest to design what the Doctor's final incarnation will look like. Various artists have already submitted designs.

 
An interesting way to approach the ideal libertarian society may be to understand the characteristics of power. Instead of theories about liberty and rights, it must be understood that self interest is expressed through group interest as an equality of power. Human desire is internal determination of the self and society is the external determination of the self. Individuals strive for power by way of desire and this results in hierarchy. If self interest is achieved through collective power there ends up being an equality of power. An inequality of power is a hierarchy between those who have a lack of power and a surplus of power. There is an equality of power between individuals with a lack of power just as there is an equality of power between individuals with a surplus of power. People can go from a lack of power to a surplus of power through human desire, and this transition from lack of power to surplus of power expands an equality of power shared by more people.

 
The creation of the Consumer Protection Agency is a positive step toward protecting everyday people from the abuses of Wall Street, but the fact that Elizabeth Warren will not head the agency is a major setback. Warren is possibly the best member of the Obama administration, able and willing to do more than even the president himself. This is a major flashpoint in the battle against corporate power.

 
Here is a very interesting and intriguing short story. It makes use of the way people now communicate online as the framework of the story, showing that it is possible to tell a compelling narrative with limited means on purpose.

 
Here is a very cogent review of a book detailing the history of cooperatives in America. What is revealed is the fact that wage slavery in the early years of the United States was considered inferior to artisans and farmers owning their own means of production. In many cases, when workers went on strike, they would form competing cooperatives until their working conditions improved to such an extent that they would be willing to work for someone else. The cooperative model was marginalized severely by the rise of corporations and their increasing power after the Civil War. But this model still shows that there are viable alternatives to capitalism within the American economy.

 
Before the coup that overthrew the Allende government, Chile engaged in an experiment that could be called a "socialist Internet". Multiple telex machines were installed in various factories, schools, and offices. A communication network was established in order to coordinate economic and political action without centralization. It used technology that existed before the personal computer to allow for a bottom-up system of social organization that one would not see until the public use of the Internet.

 
The alienation that occurs in capitalism begins with the alienation of labor and its product. This was predominant during the industrial stage, but now during the postindustrial stage one will find the commodification of culture. Our lives and experiences are taken from us and given back at a price, and this is the daily operations of corporations. Sadly, the power of corporations maintain themselves regardless of the change in government from one political party to another. Corporations were strong during Bush, and are still strong during Obama. Only alternatives external to the two-party system can enact an opposition to this accumulated power.

 
Over time the history of space exploration has resulted in a lot of territory covered. Here is a map detailing the various missions in space. The empty void of space has been filled with the lines of flight of space exploration and has resulted in wonderful patterns.

 
Here is an example of nerd ingenuity aligned with nostalgia. It is a constructed 1980's arcade table console that contains a laptop monitor that is able to display working arcade games from that era. These games, such as Galaga and Pac Man, are stored in the computer's memory but can be played by the old-fashioned controls of the console.

 
The mythos developed by H. P. Lovecraft explored a race of creatures, such as the terrible Cthulhu, that come from another dimension and that can not be fully comprehended by mere humans. These humans are usually driven mad by their experience. Recently these characters, especially Cthulhu, have been marketed in ways that make them appear cute. There is an element of postmodern irony in this commodification, but the cuteness is successful because it creates an emotional reaction that is at its base similar to the emotional reaction of an incomprehensible horror. Both reactions precede any intellectual understanding.

 
The series Fringe is one of the most imaginative shows on television today. It has a deep plot structure that draws an audience who would like good quality science fiction. Here is a timeline of events that have occurred in the series, and which will be updated as new episodes air. This timeline helps viewers keep track of all the important details in order to enjoy the show.

 
This short animated film has been online for some time, but it is a wonderful example of how the genre can be imaginative without degenerating into basic slapstick comedy. It is these small films, looking great through the easy access of computer animation, that can inspire the larger movies.

 
Here are some photographs of a beautiful example of mosque architecture. Because of Islam's forbidding of human depictions in religious art, mosques are usually decorated using calligraphy and other stylistic methods that are truly inventive and wonderful.

 
Here is a selection of posters created as a reinterpretation of the movie posters of famous films. Rather than the current style of movie poster design, these posters make use of a single element in a minimalist style.

 
The major difficulty of discussing immanence in philosophy is that the philosophical theory must be immanent to what it discusses. In other words, there is no outside to immanence since everything is on the same level of interaction in order to be immanent. However, a philosophy of immanence must be external to what it describes in order to adequately describe the situation of reality. This paradox can best be solved through the use of diagrams to explain immanence. Diagrams are structures with moving parts, and these types of structures are able to portray how immanence works without creating a transcendent theory or set of rules.

 
Freedom, also defined as liberty, is an important factor in American culture. But the idea of cognitive liberty, where an individual has control over one's own mind and what it experiences, is not as strongly emphasized. This type of liberty can include the ability to achieve heightened states of consciousness that has usually been achieved through many years of meditation. Technology has caught up to such a degree as to allow people to provoke such states very quickly and easily. This is a perfect example of cognitive liberty that is also a fulfillment of a larger project of social liberty.

 
John Berkey is a well renowned artist who has made beautiful art depicting deep space as well as the concept art for the Star Wars movies. Here is his depictions of the cities of the future, which match his artistic vision of spaceships in space as being both large and majestic.

 
The social type of the nerd is a very unique and varied identity. For some time it meant someone who was outside of popular culture, but gradually the nerd has emerged as a valid culture. In some respects it can be described as a new counterculture. The drawback to a counterculture status is that it can eventually be absorbed by popular culture and become a commodified lifestyle that betrays its original purpose. The heart of being a nerd is as someone who not only loves knowledge for its own sake, but an absolute refusal to be popular. The growth of nerd culture must always be aware of its primary roots.

 
Ray Brassier has worked within the field of speculative realism by elaborating on the work of Francois Laruelle. In order to separate human thinking from an external reality and present them as independent from each other, there needs to be an understanding of how transcendence emerges from absolute immanence. There is not only an immanence of reality in itself, but an immanence that is the relationship between reality and its structures. These structures in themselves are also immanent. Transcendence occurs when a decision is made that comes between the external immanence of reality and the internal immanence of structures. Transcendence is a retroactive subsumption of reality by structures and a divergence of external immanence and internal immanence. The fact of reality before experience becomes linked to the data of reality after experience through transcendence, and the independent dispassionate inhumanity of material reality is ignored.

 
The nature of rules and how they exist can reveal how both an economy and the law will operate. A rule exists as both thought and action, and would be meaningless if thought and action were separated. A thought needs to be expressed in the world, and an action must be structured by a preexisting thought. In relation to this, an economy is both theory before experience and practice after experience. And a law is not an overarching and artificial principle alone but must be produced, renewed, and articulated by social interaction.

 
The use of images in comic books can substantially supplement a narrative, and the best example of this is some of the comic books from France. Here is a sampling of artwork from a French comic book series about an alternate Earth where architects have complete artistic control over the design of cities. An architectural vision is portrayed that becomes the centerpiece of the comic book.

 
Gar Alperovitz is someone who has succinctly evaluated the flaws of capitalism without necessarily assuming that socialism is the solution. Instead of government control, he has proposed a system of worker ownership of businesses in order to deal with the great disparity of wealth that has emerged for the past thirty years.

 
On May 15, 2010 the Green Party Of New York State nominated Howie Hawkins as its candidate for Governor. He offers a dynamic campaign that offers real ideas that the two-party system refuses to acknowledge. These include a statewide ban on hydrofracking of the Marcellus Shale, creating a state bank similar to the one in North Dakota that can invest in local businesses, and enforcing the stock transfer tax to effectively end the state budget deficit. There is a big discontent this year not only against incumbents but the two-party system in general which can help the Green Party achieve 50,000 votes for Governor in order to get ballot status.

 
Here is an intriguing look at a small aspect of the 1960's which may have been used later on as part of a critique of that decade. In terms of music, and album artwork, there was a brief intersection between the occult and the psychedelic counterculture. Magic, and it imagery, was sometimes used alongside the familiar psychedelic imagery and was in turn enhanced by it in terms of music. But in retrospect it was very probable that this intersection was villified by conservatives as a moral degradation by the counterculture on the larger society.

 
The writings of Timothy Leary in the 1960's was one of the major forces behind the counterculture. These ideas emphasized the personal exploration of the mind in conjunction with the development of a free society. The specific freedom expressed in the counterculture is one where individuals can transform themselves in the shell of the old society. Psychedelics can be an instrument for this specific type of freedom, but it is not dependent on them.

 
The development of the modern prison has been documented by Foucault as an instrument for bodily discipline. Another aspect of prisons, especially that of solitary confinement, is the isolation of individuals from collective groups. This act is meant to prevent any type of collective resistance that can form when an individual mind strives to achieve autonomy. This struggle for autonomy does not occur in a vacuum, and requires some sort of solidarity with others to fight against widespread structures that systematically condition or control human life.

 
Here is a wonderful recording of a talk given by Terence McKenna just before his untimely death. It deals with how psychedelic chemicals can assist in the understanding of the expansion of knowledge, and how there is the ability to program more aspects of reality through this knowledge.

 
Here is an attempt to depict every character in the Simpsons throughout the entire series. It is hard to tell if the group picture includes everyone, but it at least makes a great try to form a set of all Simpsons.

 
When one speaks about spontaneous order, one can mean either order that is unplanned or voluntary. Voluntary order is the cornerstone of a free society and democracy, and some will argue that unplanned order is also positive. But an unplanned order can also be negative as seen in the example of individual and unrelated assaults on women generating a general fear of being assaulted by all women.

 
The Old Weird America was the mythic characteristics of the past that became the subject matter of the folk music and blues tradition. This tradition was a wellspring for Bob Dylan in his songwriting as he shifted from covering folk songs to doing his own material. It reveals the personality of America that can not be pinned down in history textbooks. It also demonstrates that the greatness of the country is not the exclusive domain of jingoistic nationalism.

 
Fractals can be very interesting on an intellectual level as well as beautiful on an aesthetic level. Here is a depiction of the Mandelbrot Set in three dimensions, where it resembles something that grew in nature. This visual effect is made possible because actual elements in nature will show fractal patterns. This also demonstrates how mathematics and nature are linked together.

 
The relationship between democracy and autonomy is one that requires both a decentralization of power and local access to the tools that can empower people. Globalization creates a separation that results in centralized structures and hierarchies. Democracy, on the other hand, is a method that allows individuals to be self-reliant in political and economic autonomy.

 
Much has been written on the fact of corporate personhood, and how this status takes away the legal rights of actual humans. Here is another way of looking at corporate personhood as a kind of magical creation of an artificial being or summoning of a demon. This analogy emphasizes the fact that the act of giving corporations human legal rights is done through the various texts of laws and court decisions. These texts can be seen as a type of incantation that is divorced from material reality.

 
Here is an interesting yet simple introduction to the Cthulhu Mythos that was originally developed by H.P. Lovecraft. The fact that it is presented as a children's cartoon not only makes it funny for adults in an ironic way, but actually something that can be watched and appreciated by small children without frightening them.

 
Here is an interesting paper that expands on Deleuze's idea of the virtual and the actual. Deleuze stated that reality in itself is both the virtual possibilities and their actual manifestations. The human experience of reality is only of the actual, and it can be theorized that the human unconscious is only the virtual. The human interaction with reality, that involves this unconscious and experience, divides and reunites the virtual and actual that exist independently of human existence.

 
In this day and age there has been various accusations that the Obama administration is fascist, or even "socialist fascist", which is a contradiction in terms. Here is some concise definitions of fascism based on actual characteristics rather than imaginary accusations in order to undermine a legitimate presidency and to perpetuate the status quo.

 
Here is an example of homemade technological ingenuity. This is the creation of a supercomputer by connecting multiple PlayStations that would in turn increase the processing power and memory. This demonstrates that not only can individuals develop advanced technology outside of laboratories and factories, but that there is a lot of advanced technological potential in the consumer goods that are already in circulation.

 
The following are my predictions on who will win at the Academy Awards in 2010. Since this year there are ten nominees I have decided to make two predictions for the Best Picture category, one of which I think will win that category but both have a very good chance of winning in my mind.

BEST ACTOR: Jeff Bridges, “Crazy Heart”

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Stanley Tucci, “The Lovely Bones”

BEST ACTRESS: Gabby Sidibe, “Precious”

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Mo’Nique, “Precious”

BEST ANIMATED FILM: Up

BEST ART DIRECTION: The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Avatar

BEST COSTUME: The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus

BEST DIRECTOR: Quentin Tarantino, “Inglourious Basterds”

BEST DOCUMENTARY: Food, Inc.

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT: The Last Campaign Of Governor Booth Gardner

BEST FILM EDITING: District 9

BEST FOREIGN FILM: The White Ribbon

BEST MAKEUP: Star Trek

BEST MUSIC: Fantastic Mr. Fox

BEST SONG: The Weary Kind, “Crazy Heart”

BEST PICTURE: Inglourious Basterds, Precious

BEST ANIMATED SHORT: Logorama

BEST SHORT FILM: Instead of Abracadabra

BEST SOUND EDITING: The Hurt Locker

BEST SOUND MIXING: Avatar

BEST SPECIAL EFFECTS: Avatar

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: District 9

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: The Hurt Locker

 
Here is an interesting chart that shows how the storage of data has evolved. The overall trend has been that smaller and smaller devices or formats have been able to contain an exponential greater amount of information. If one is able to see the evolution in one glance, then one can be amazed at the advance in the technology.

 
Here is an example of how the comic book medium can go beyond stories about superheroes. It is a story of how modern logic was developed within the philosophy of the last century. The comic book incorporates fictional and nonfictional elements in order to clearly illustrate how logic works and its impact in philosophy. The use of pictures and text can enhance the learning experience for those who are not familiar with philosophy.

 
Here is an interesting animation that portrays the Star Trek culture of the Klingons as a propaganda film. It is uncertain who created this animated short, but it shows a lot of talent and imagination. In any case, it is possibly one of the best things in recent Star Trek fandom.

 
Here is an interesting depiction of what an intergalactic transportation system might look like. Inspired by the subway maps of major urban centers, it shows how various lines would be organized for various destinations. In an advanced civilization this may actually be very realistic, but now it is just imaginative.

 
The history of sports has a wide array of unusual stories. Here is the retelling of one example where a baseball player pitched a no-hitter while under the influence of LSD. This story became a bit of a legend, and this is the retelling of the story from the pitcher himself.

 
The commons has emerged as an important factor in the possible alternative to capitalism. In the movement from material production to immaterial production, a new commons of ideas is being appropriated by private interests. The commons of ideas is abundant compared to the scarce commons of nature, and demonstrates that the old argument concerning scarcity in a free market does not apply to ideas. This emergence of the commons can have the same degree of affecting overall economics as the transition from the immobile property of land to the mobile property of capital that marked the beginning of capitalism.

 
The development of a network requires designing relationships much more than maintaining the node of the network. This is very true in an energy network where the ability to have efficient connections insures effective transmission of power. A decentralized energy network can be sustainable by being resilient, adaptable, and locally controlled through an innovative design of relationships.

 
The past decade saw the emergence of science fiction films, and especially films based on comic books. Not only did these movies become successful financially, but the subject matter was treated more seriously as a mainstream film rather than a cheap B movie. This was helped by the ubiquitous use of computer generated effects. Here is a listing of the 20 greatest science fiction movies of the past ten years.