Category: MUSIC IN PHASE SPACE
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The Internalization of Constraints
There is paradox with Paul McCartney, the melodic genius, the Beatle who could conjure pop perfection with the ease of a magician pulling rabbits from a hat, is at his most compelling not when he is in control, but when he is out of control. Or, more precisely, when he is challenged, when his polished…
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Perspective: Psychedelics for the Modern Man
Modernity, as we know it, began when humanity first embraced the idea of depth and dimension. In a Medium post I wrote back in 2020, https://ramurrio.medium.com/the-end-of-perspective-and-the-new-amension-gebser-picasso-36a55f429f48 I explored the “end of perspective” and the arrival of a new dimension, inspired by the ideas of Jean Gebser and the fragmented forms of Picasso. Gebser famously argued…
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Inca Zirp
The American gold and silver that flowed into Spain from the 16th century onward functioned, in effect, as a form of zero-interest money — a steady injection of liquidity into the imperial economy that enabled a dramatic expansion of state power without requiring the structural reforms or productive investments necessary to sustain it. Like the…
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A New Way of Smelting
Bribery is a relic of a bygone era—a Bronze Age mindset, if you will. It’s a tool of self-preservation for those clinging to ill-gotten gains, a desperate attempt to maintain power and control within a system on the verge of collapse. But as history teaches us, no amount of bribery can stop a system from…
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Stargate
Ah, yes, the Stargate project—an allegory for the present moment, a monument to the madness of techno-optimism, with its endless stream of corporate behemoths like SoftBank, Oracle, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and others all rubbing their hands together in glee. It’s as if we’ve entered a dystopian remake of the 1994 Stargate film, this time with some…
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Survivor’s Guilt
As I was watching Los Angeles burn last week, I felt a deep, unshakeable crumminess. The flames seemed to carry with them a weight of history, of loss, and of survival itself. It was in that moment that the last few Paul McCartney albums I had been listening to—albums I hadn’t given much thought to—suddenly…
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Extras
Ah, cryptography! It’s like Andy Millman in Extras, no? At first, it presents itself as this pure, untouchable ideal—a bastion of privacy and individuality in a world determined to collapse all boundaries. It says, “No! I will not compromise!” But what happens? Reality intrudes. And what is reality if not the persistent erosion of the…
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Watching Miami Vice with the Ghost of Ronald Reagan at Midnight
There he was, the Gipper himself, grinning like a Cheshire cat fresh out of Hell, sitting cross-legged on the couch, a fog of spectral smugness curling around him. On the screen, Crockett and Tubbs were locked in a neon-soaked cocaine bust, their pastel suits radiant under the glow of South Beach debauchery. Somewhere in the…
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Decline? Yes. Collapse? No.
Decline? Yes. Collapse? No. Collapse would mean CIA spooks scribbling op-eds on Substack and hawking $10-a-month subscriptions like two-bit grifters at a carnival sideshow. The agency boys in their ill-fitting suits, slumped in coffee shops from Langley to Lincoln, churning out think pieces titled “The Death of American Empire: A Personal Journey” or “How I…
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The Subscription Economy
The shift from acquisition to subscription models has changed more than just how we acquire goods and services—it’s reshaping our relationship with time, identity, and even culture itself. Acquisition, traditionally seen as the ultimate form of possession, is a finite experience. You acquire something, use it, and then move on, satisfied that the need has…