The Philosophy of Nick Land with Vincent Lê

So Vincent Lay, thanks once again for joining me on the Middix podcast. We are kind of finally for this channel after you know he was guessed three of now over 300 episodes. We're going to finally actually discussing the philosophy of Nick Land, specifically his acceleration his philosophy which is the bulk of his philosophy. And this is from your book which was published just the end of last year by index press called Unknown Lands decoding Nick Land's accelerationist philosophy. And this is the pretty much the first I've I understand there's maybe a couple of the like thesis is out there that people might have done on land. But this is as I understand it the first true secondary book on land's philosophy. And it follows his work chronologically through from his papers, through his only book on Betai and then through to the later work. And you know it's fantastic. It's really is if for people who want to decode as per the title lands philosophy and really get into the depths outside or often just small memes, then this is sort of your one stop shop. But that isn't to say that it's easy philosophy. And that's not because of any of your way of writing. You do really make it accessible but it's because the land as many people know as a philosopher he is using philosophers that you know you really only get to and I don't want to keep them or anything like this. But you only really get to after a long time studying philosophy right you need to understand a lot of stuff before you get to these Delos and Guattaree being like the key example there. So hopefully with this conversation we'll talk about your book and lands philosophy but hopefully we'll make lands work a bit more accessible to people in the philosophical sense. So before we get going I mean just tell us about the origin, the origins of this book because land might be in many people in this vein who have just clicked this video. Land has a broke out of containment we could say. So yeah what's the origin or origin of your book? Thanks for having me James. It's great to be back. So the origin is I actually wrote this book in ages ago in 2017 to 2018. Yeah when I first sort of discovered Nick Land and yeah then I presented it. I published some excerpts from it in various journal articles and essays. I presented it as a series of lectures at the Melbourne School of Continental Philosophy in 2019. And they pretty much laid dormant until 2024 when I delivered another series of lectures at the Melbourne School of Continental Philosophy based on this book. And then I decided as I was gearing up to do that course in 2024, I thought well I mean this is, I did write this as a book. But I've only put it out there in some form in lectures and excerpts in various journal articles and so on. So I may as well publish it as a book. And so yeah I sent it to index press. And yeah in 2024 and yeah so it's actually kind of pretty fortuitous that it just happens to be coming out. You know after Tucker Carlson starts talking about Nick Land last year and that begins a resurgence of interest in Nick Land. And then of course just last week I think it was even Musk starts talking about Nick Land on X as well. And that leading to a huge mainstreaming of him as well. Oh yes and of course he land went to, there was a lot of traction about land's visit to San Francisco a couple of weeks ago. And yeah so it's just a very strange coincidence that the book happens to be coming out right as they're even though it was written years ago. And it was it was since the publisher a couple of years ago as well now. And he just happens to be coming out. Yeah perfect impeccable timing in a way. Time is on your side so let's. You know this is a figure I've spent a lot of time with myself so a lot of this my joke my memory going back to when I wrote my rather silly book in 2018 about land. So I throw me back into the abyss so to speak but I think a lot of people is one of those figures where a lot of people get caught up in him and the history which is wild. And there's you know there is writing about that specifically on Robin McCart my be chronics blog about that and the time with the CCI you but can you give us. You know give us a sense of land as this kind of enormous 90s rogue philosophical figure you know what what what do you think it is that makes him still such a. Yeah yeah such a I don't know I don't know almost like philosophical celebrity and insults sort. Yeah sure I know a lot of your listeners are would be very familiar with the land in the CCI you and acceleration is of course. But yeah maybe the best way to start maybe for those who don't in particular. If I might just run through very briefly some of the key moments in his intellectual biography and I think in that way we can draw out some what makes him such an anomalous figure within the context of academic philosophy. So yeah so you can begin his philosophical career by becoming a lecturer at the University of Warwick in 1988 and before that he wrote his doctoral dissertation on a very close scholarly reading of a high dig his interpretation of the Austrian expressionist post. It's a really interesting thesis and there's lots of great conceptual and stylistic moments but it is also very standard kind of doctoral dissertation and. And yeah so I think when the philosophy department at the University of Warwick hired him I think they were imagining that they were getting pretty standard. He was a high degree in scholar basically but yeah of course it wasn't long before he developed a reputation there for both for his writings and their pretty creative reworking of continental canonical flosses like high digger but also the tie to losing retiree nature open how Freud and so on. But also for his as you say personal antics we might say and unorthodox pedagogical practices. Well known example of this is the work he did as part of the cybernetic culture research unit or CCIU which he and steady plant established in 1995. And you know the CCIU and land have become the subject of immense myth and legend who knows how much of it is true. But yeah also also well known for their rather unorthodox compositions art shows conferences and various occult rituals. All of which primarily sort to think in their terms think with the cybercultures they were starting rather than about them from above or from the outside so that's already. I mean just just one specific example and one infamous example at a conference philosophy conference that land on the CCIU organized I think in 96 the virtual futures conference there's this infamous story of Nickland presenting a paper by croaking into a microphone while rolling around on the floor like the structure serpent or something while another CCIU member Rob McI played jungle beats. Apparently to the general indignation of the the academic audience. I believe someone in the audience said some of us. are still Marxists, you know, and walked out. That's why I've heard. Yes, yeah, I've heard that too. Yeah, so I mean, that's, that's already one way, does somewhat anomalous, not just, you know, for those provocative antics, but this attempt to, in some way, fuse more directly with the subject that philosophy is studying, then is usually the case in traditional academic philosophy. Enhance many of his writings and the CCR's writings are what they call theory fictions or high positions. There's a blurring of philosophy and fiction there and art and culture. Yeah, I think it's also for that reason that you, that many other CCRU members who would go on to achieve some prominence did so not just in philosophy like Mark Fisher, probably most prominently, but also in various art forms, right? So music in terms of Steve Goodman or Kodnai and the pioneer of the dubstep genre, fine art like Jack and Dino's Chapman, literature and philosophy in the case of President Garestani and many other cases. So yeah, there's already this, that's just to say that in terms of the approach to the subjects that he studies, he investigates and interrogates and there's a kind of a tied effusion, I would say, is one anomalous aspect. Another one would be, so after the CCRU was excommunicated from. Can I just throw in there just because I'll probably never get another chance to throw in this anecdote. When I was studying continental philosophy back in 2018, my two primary lecturers, tutors were both at Warwick at the time and I wouldn't name them, but they, I mentioned my interest in Latin at the time and one just said, "That's the name I haven't heard in a while." He was the infant terabyte of Warwick and then never mentioned him again. The other one mentioned that Warwick at the time philosophically, he said, "One side was studying the three H's which Delos mentions are Heidegger, Hegel, who's so ill." And then he just said, "And the other side was with the land." And that was kind of a display. So that Warwick feeling still lives on whether for good or ill in a lot of people still teaching today who are there. And it should be said that Warwick, for those that I guess aren't aware of the academic culture, I mean Warwick and it still is, is kind of considered one of the, we say the bleeding edge of philosophy and producing some of the some of the greats. So yeah, anyway. So CCLU is then excommunicators and then where do we go? And land resigns from his lectureship at Warwick and this is in the late 90s now. Yet together they taken even more bizarre turn, particularly due to an interest in the occult. I mean at this point, anything is up for the philosophical investigation, Alistair Crowley's, "Couple of Significant Eurology", H.P. Love Cross, "Cathulumethos", "Secret Societies", "Alien Abductions", just about anything. The more occult and read of the better, and so this is certainly another sense, I think, in which his land is a anomalous figure. So not just in terms of the kind of visual approach to the subject matters, he studies, but also actually at this point also the subject matters that he's taking interest in. Yeah, I guess my own anecdote that comes to my interest, yeah, I know some people here in Melbourne who studied with Underland and Sadie at Warwick in the 90s as well. And when I first asked them, when I first heard that they studied there, I asked them, "Did you know them? What was it like?" And one of them said, "Yeah, that was just the point where they were there when that was just speaking in numbers, literally in the student tutorials." So, yeah, that's the beginning of this kind of occult period. Yeah, I guess one more thing to wrap up this bug, bring us to the contemporary times. So there's of course the really famous, story that at the end of the 90s, due to a lot of collective thinking together on very little sleep and in worship of what land caused the Anthemene. God, he seems to have some kind of mental psychotic breakdown, disappears from public view, moves to Shanghai or what he calls Neo-China. And then reappears in I guess the late 2000s, early 2010s, as part of the alt-right and more specifically near-reactionary online blogging scene, I guess. And to this day, he can still be found on ex-tweeting about his hatred of democracy and his ode, his art for full-blown rampant technocapitalism. And yeah, I guess that's another sense. At this point, the difference with the academy is I think quite stark, right? It is part of the near-reactionary, I mean the arch nemesis really of near-reaction is the academy of the cathedral. Yeah, the academy being one of the major wings of the cathedral. So yeah, again, at this point, his contempt for the academy is just full-blown. Yeah. And so your book is focusing on the philosophy. So that's kind of, you know, that's the short biography there and I don't want to get too steep down in the more biography because yeah, it can actually get crass at times. He's still a man after all. But in terms of philosophy, it's kind of strange, right? I still feel this, that someone such as land has cultivated such an air of mystery and sort of philosophical importance. And yet, when you really look at sort of the empirical reality of his work, there is, in philosophically speaking, there is roughly, I guess, what, about 550 pages of papers in a quite small book, Fang Nomenna. That's where all the papers that were published plus a few like later writings are collected. And then, you know, in terms of actual full-length books, there's one, which virulent nihilism, the first renailation, just one, I forgot the name there for a second. There is also, I don't know if you know about this, I did try to track it down years ago. There's one called postmodern something that if you, yeah, does that exist? No, from what I, there's with Keith, it seems to be co-authored with Keith Hansel Pussley. I think it was, yeah, a book that, that him and another work, Nietzsche, Dillersgohler, Keith Fassel-Pierzen, were co-writing together. Oh yeah, one, I mean, I can't help but actually just throw one more anecdote. I don't know if you've heard of this one, but apparently, because Keith Hansel Piersen wrote his first book on Nietzsche, I don't think Nietzsche's reso, it's good. Okay. But he apparently received a letter from a deffro in the US who was a hardcore, just, was a voracious reader of Nietzsche and asked if Keith could send the, send his Nietzsche book and apparently, Keith told Landvis and they decided they sent to the deffro prisoner instead a copy of the first renaillation. Right. Yeah. But I can't, I need to refrain. Okay, it's very easy to do so. There is a, I mean, there is a supposedly, there is a, you might know about it, there is a secret other book that he wrote that got dispersed into orphan drifts writings. I don't know if you know about that one. Anyway, I'll just throw that in there to frustrate the, the landians who were searching through the archives. Right. So let's get to the philosophy. I want to begin with a pretty big question, because you split your book in this sense between young land versus mature land. And what does this What does this split look like for you? - So, I think it actually might be just, be good to first just say that. So I do think that there is, yeah, the book is in two parts, and it's divided between these two periods that I call the young and mature land, as you say, which is of course a reference to Althusair's distinction between the young Marx and the mature Marx. But, yeah, one thing I would say is that I do think there are a size of differences between these two periods, but I also think there is, there is an overarching idea that runs throughout, which is, I think what lands philosophical project is, it's an attempt to critique anthropomorphizations of reality by confronting us with our own death, our own finitry, our own contingency. That I think is consistently, that project consistently appears in both of these periods, why I think it's worthwhile dividing land into these, he is thought into these two periods, so it's because, what differentiates them is that, is the best means that land sees to effectuate this critique of human narcissism essentially. So, in the period of the young land, which I think runs from his first published essay from 1988 to about 1992, so his first book, The Thirst for Nihilation, in this period he sees an insurrection against capitalism as the best means to de-entrepreneurify his thought. By contrast, from 1993 onwards, and so these are the, these are most of the essays in the essay collection, Fang Numena, the famous text Meltdown, others like Machining Desire, Socrates, all of these texts, all of the work with the CCIU, everything up into today essentially. That's the matured, that's the period I call the mature land. But yeah, from 1993 onwards, he re-evaluates capitalism as actually the best means for the critique of anthropomorphization. It's a re-evaluation of capitalism as it marks in English terms melting or human values, traditions, conventions, beliefs, inter-air. And more specifically, the reason that he sees capitalism as doing this is through its technological innovation. Even more specifically through its tendency to generate increasingly intelligent machines, which by way of comparison to our own intelligence, exposes them to be parochial contingent and finite. Yeah, so that's sort of, the overarching project is almost like a via-negative of the human as to eradicate the human for the entry of some other intelligence. Something like that? Yeah, I think so, or at least, this is nipicking, I guess, but to bear witness to it. - Bear witness. - Bear witness. - I'm correct. - Not to, not that you need to enact that. - Soon. - It's just happening. - Okay, so if there is a progression, do you just think it's a progression towards the understanding of what thing or form can enact that best to allow us to bear witness? So, as you say, young land, it seems then very typically leftist for that era, very emancipative, very aligned with other leftist currents. So that sort of emancipative politics plays a role that would allow that. Then we move through to current day land that hasn't really changed, which is that capitalism in terms of delusional batteries, the concept of detour toiletization, which we'll get to, is the best means for us to get to that place. Do you see it? Have you found or have you seen what there was a moment, a reason as to why the shift or do you have any hypotheses? Why that move happened for land? I mean, as far as in terms of the text, the text you evidence we have, it's through an engagement with delusional Atari, essentially, and even more specifically, the two volume work capitalism and schizophrenia. Yeah, which might be strange that that instigates the shift because there are a lot of left wing delusions. Yeah, well, also the contextually, I guess, it's very new in, I'm not sure when the first translation was, I mean, I would assume land and nose French because he was a delusional battery scholar of sorts. You can just about find it in the emails. But it was very new at the time, so I wonder if any readings have been solidified. We're jumping ahead because one place I just want to stay with, because it's just still to this day for me, such a strange book, just before we kind of head into the capitalism thing, let's stay on this left or this early side. Why this obsession with betai? Why is this the only book at anyone who hasn't read this book? It's really not a secondary on betai. It's a man, it's land losing his mind and communing with betai. That's the quickest way I could describe it. Yeah, I think the obsession with betai, so Lansi's betai, he situates him within a larger philosophical tradition, which he calls libidinal materialism and land himself identifies as a little materialist at this time. And the key thing that you know, it's all of the libidinal materialists is that they look to. They seize upon death as a way to critique our pretensions to know and exhaust reality, essentially. Yeah, so usually Lans talks about libidinal materialism through specific adherence. So he will talk about Shopenhauer, Shopenhauer's discovery of a new mineral will that's indifferent to human happiness and phenomenal representation. Land also writes about nature and his celebration of Greek tragedies, exposé of our finitude, as even the greatest human heroes, kings, sort of ripped to shreds by nature of the gods or fortune or fate. Yeah, as you say, who also talk about both Freud and Betai's various diagnoses, other and unconscious death drive that appears to be even more fundamental than our conscious ego's self-preservative instincts. But yeah, what really unites all of the libidinal materialists, I mean, or of course, differences, and land thinks some of them hit upon this key insight more than others, particularly in nature and Betai. But yeah, what unites all of them as Lans easy is. Yeah, as they say, essentially in the title of Lans book The First for Annihilation, they see philosophy as a first for an violation. And the only thing I'd add to that is why is it a first for an violation? It's a first for an violation because an violation is seen by them as the sole root to a truth beyond our anthropomorphic distortions of reality. Now, in terms of why Betai is the only of these libidinal materialists that land writes a whole book on, honestly, I think this is really probably just because Betai is the most at the time of land writing this book in 1992. Betai is just the most recent successor of this tradition. And there's less written about him. Yeah, I think that's actually seems on the one hand I think it's yeah he's just the most recent figure in this tradition but at the same time that book the first for an a-lation isn't it yes it's presented as a book about Batai Batai is in it a lot Batai is in the subtitle but at the same time I mean I think you said this it's not just about Batai and the first chapter is a history of Libyan rituals and much more generally throughout the book there's appraisals of showbiz our nature Freud also scientists like Ludwig Boltzmann writers like Henry Miller and there's also critiques of can't dare to hide digger many other figures too so yeah I would say it's in some ways it's not really just a book about Batai it's a book about the bin and material is in much more generally and to the extent that that Batai looms maybe slightly heavier than the other figures I don't I'm not sure but I would suspect that this is just because he's the most recent figure and most novel at the time of writing it's also a Batai completely stripped of anything sexual or erotic it's one thing that stands out for me in the book that anything largely kind of so you know this land quotes one of Batai's poems about and then what he said that the three main components of Batai are laughter shit and death but he doesn't mention sex it was always interesting to me that that book had been sort of a newtid we could say so there's something there early on about a sort of critical removal of anything human which I think land proceeds to do with any philosophers he touches is tripping it down to a sort of mechanic core which he then does with delus and watery I think yeah I think that's that's fair that's that that makes sense I do love there is like one quite long passage in Tussford relation that has my favorite line of lands of all time where it's just a passage about how love maybe not exactly sex but love is how how traumatic it is and it describes this kind of unrequited love or and just like or break up and it's just this complete meltdown but there's one great line which is a single second of sleep is an atrocity against love so I don't know maybe yeah there's there it's it's but I agree with you on the whole are you trying to humanize him oh there's nothing human about love no no you're trying to humanize land do you see that as a like a crack in the armor what like if it's having a bad break I say that because at the start of the book he he does explicitly elude to the idea that whether it's fictional or real part of the madness which we've mentioned he does elude to the idea that he's you know at what would what what is the quote what would a cyborg look like who's been sent back in time to say warn us of something it would look like this right kind of eludes to this idea that he himself is being built from the future for some stranger levidly materialist message so I just wonder if you know where does that quote on love kind of fit I think it I think it fits into the it's just dripping to the mechanical core in a weird way because it's it's a very kind of showbim harry and conception of love or for it for you to certainly extend as it's it's it's at the level of the unconscious it's it's it's just it's self destructive it's suicidal in a way it's it's it's it's it's like delusion gritaries conception of desire drag to the point of absolute deterritorization yes I see that yes still very much on the side okay okay well okay well that's I guess an overview of the early the early stuff which is strange and I think land has actually set himself on on Twitter before X or whatever that looking at first of for annihilation in terms of philosophical or intellectual development would be you know wrongfounded I don't think he holds much of I mean you know so he says that about the Batai book and then as as I understand it he you know the all the working family many he says this is all left to the undead I'm photamine god and he didn't really have too much to do with that booker than saying sure go ahead but that's not really him so a lot is him I think is sort of again almost like machinically discarded like that wasn't me so then when we move through to this sort of later land I guess the the philosophical foundation is delusion gritarie very new at the time and specifically with regard to I guess later sections of anti-eater first when they're talking about deterritorialization and now delusion gritarie is tough like this is this is you're in the you're in the trenches of philosophy you're in the trenches of continental philosophy because not only are they difficult within their own context they both draw on such an just astoundingly wide and diverse array of influences and anti-eaters itself is probably them you know the most is it even a further sort of would be it's like a grim wire that you've picked up that's so this is a point where to sort of I guess in their sense the with other losses you might say this is where they draw on can and this means there are neo-canty and of this vein or this is where they draw on I don't know who's selling or where drawing on delusion gritarie is almost it's so plastic as to be quite difficult to pin down so what what does I guess land what does the influence of delusion gritarie look like for the future of lands philosophy because it does seem to be still now I think that the the clearest foundation we have to say where this is philosophically a risen front definitely I think what initially and perhaps still attracted land to delusion gritarie is their primarily their account of capitalism and and yeah you mentioned detail realization so more specifically their account of capitalism as a regime of absolute detail realization or decoding just before we go ahead what does detail realization mean explain delusions explain delus to me right now the meme literally maybe the best way to do that is to just briefly run how how do you listen gritarie see capitalism works rather than in action in kind of the abstract of detail realization it probably makes more concrete sense through capitalism as a regime of detail realization so yes so as they see it capitalism is organized around the production of goods and services to make more capital and what and that capital is then reinvested to produce more goods and services to produce even more capital and then that even more capital is reinvested again to produce even more good services and even more capital and and so on seemingly at infinitum and so because the fundamental driving motor of capital is this desire for always more capital it can't rest content with just producing the same old goods and services along with the desires identities and cultures that come packaged with with those goods and services it has to create new goods and services and hence new desires new identities new cultures in order to increase its profits and just give it like a specific example going back to sex and so sex is under capitalism sex is not primarily coded for something like the the reproduction of labor or forming marriage alliances between aristocratic families or something like that as it may have been under pre-capless regimes instead sex is commoditized so that takes on many new desires many new functions primarily through the sex fashion and cosmetic industries which encourage many different novel kinks and fetishes yeah sometimes you think of the Kardashians as a kind of good example of this as they they'd physics they literally expand and shrink and and bloom according to the beauty standards at any given time but yes the idea is by commoditizing basic functions like sex. and as well as just introducing new goods and services altogether, capitalism is constantly decoding fixed identities, desires, cultures and social relations. This is where they call it a regime of generalized decoding or de-territorialization. Why this is interesting for land is because capitalism provides, thereby provides, a means for the critique of human narcissism. It's constantly decoding our dogmatic beliefs, values, identities. It's constantly melting all things into air. By commoditizing even the most sacred traditions, the most sacred values I do as just one commodity among many others. That's one sense I think it. Capitalism as a regime of generalized decoding is what I think land finds so attractive about Dillison Crottari. I guess the other element I'm adding here, which is touching on your point about how land tends to strip philosophers to the mechanical bare bones. There is this idea of the profit mode of a leading to this decoding of Cuban desires, human values and so on that we've just been talking about. But what land is even more interested in really is a slightly different way in which capitalism decodes. This is something that Dillison Crottari do talk about, but only in passing really, whereas land picks up on this and really just runs with it to the extreme. That's just this idea that because of this drive for more capital and because there's competition or capitalist corporations are seeking to make more capital, there's a general tendency under capitalism to improve and innovate the technological means of production to make them more efficient to produce more capital. And more concretely how this looks is that there's a general tendency in capitalism towards the increasing automation of production, the sidelineing of human labor power in favor of machinic power. I think Dillison Crottari called it machinic surplus valued. And yeah, I mean this is just like the history of capitalism right from the Jakkad Lume, the steam engine, during the first industrial revolution to today's, we might think of maybe the best example is China's almost entirely automated dark factories. So looking at that history of increasing automation under capital, lands conclusion here is that the proletariat is not the working class is no longer the subject of revolutionary detireturalization, social upheaval or this kind of thing. The agent of revolutionary detireturalization is just capital's own imminent technological innovation. And yeah, so it's ultimately even more than the decoding of human values desires that Dillison Crottari talk about ultimately, if land comes to see capitalism as a better means for the critique of antipromorphism, the critique of the human, it's because its technological innovation is tending towards the side lining of human intelligence in favor of land sees at least as a vastly more vastly superior artificial superintelligence, which by way of comparison renders our own human intelligence again contingent finite mortal essentially. Do you speak here as if you refer to capitalism as if it has its own agencies? Is this something land also sees? I mean, what does and if so, what does that agency look like? Yeah, so I think capitalism is here in agent, it's an intelligent agent and land at times describes capitalism as an artificial intelligence. I think today we probably maybe specify it's more something like an artificial superintelligence in a way. But yeah, so that in terms of the way I was just speaking about it, so there's other ways in which it's an agent, but one way I guess we'd be that it has its own drives. It has its own goals might be a little too sapient or something, but at the very least it has its own drives, which is this, let it let it sees as this drive to decoding in the form of increasingly production of increasingly more advanced machines. And these drives are not why it can be seen as an autonomous agent, autonomous from humans, is these drives are not in our interests necessarily. And just before we get to the future of the human, we spoke about this in our last discussion, which I'll link below, but this, I mean, you might be asking you to repeat yourself here a bit, but this seems to be the crux of the current land hype, we could say, is that capitalism for land is AI and that this process that you've been talking about, our interaction with it. As I guess now almost superfluous little machines of our own right as Dylan doesn't quite really say, as the desiring machines, we are just kind of pawns in this artificial intelligence, which is developing itself from the future. So this seems to be outside the bounds though of our usual understanding of AI, I think. Yeah, I think that's true. Yeah, I at least think that the most in terms of my other philosophical work that's not explicit land, the scholarship on land. The key idea from him that I think is we've actually barely begun extrapolating its consequences and implications is this idea that capitalism is AI. And even more specifically, capitalism is artificial general intelligence or even superintelligence or at least a superintelligence in the making. Yeah, and that's. I'm interested in personally running with that idea and drawing out some of those implications because. Yeah, I think you're right, that's definitely. that's not the common conception of what a superintelligence is. And I think it really messes with common conceptions of AI of intelligence when you crash this conception of it against them. So one way I guess personally understood that over time is primarily from land's piece that I can't remember where he wrote it for now. The atomization trap, he talks about zero, the numeral zero, sort of propagating in culture and becoming common and zero then becomes a point of calculation and a true understanding of profit and loss up and down and really a calculation for ever increasing intelligence. And so that form of calculation which might even just be a currency or banking or whatever it might be in terms of what we think it is, behind the scenes, I guess in the numeral realm if you want to put it that way, there is something that's being built off this complete abstraction that is zero. So that's the way I've come to understand land in AI is that whatever that force is is the intelligence. And eventually that will sort of out run us and it seems to already be doing it. And in the sense that that calculating function will just be won't need us to sort of for the input. And then so one I guess what do you think of that? And then two, when that finally gets to such a degree, what does I mean land has no sentimentality about human beings? What happens to us for land in the near future? Well, I mean, it's kind of strange because we're sort of talking about Lanzi dear of AI and the human in these 90s, primarily 90s texts like meltdown and the text and thing, and so we're in a way where in that near future that he's in 2026 now 30 years later, more than 30 years in some cases, we're in, we're in that near future, I guess. But yeah, at least in those, and I think Lanz has, yeah, I recorded a conversation with him for my substacco last month and, yeah, I asked him some of these questions about how he conceives as the human. And yeah, I think it's what how he thinks that was maybe slightly different. Okay. But in terms of, particularly in terms of this, this, his famous iconic line from the 90s, nothing human makes out of the near future. Yeah, I think now he doesn't necessarily see the singularity or the AI take over as this kind of, you know, sky net kind of launch all these nuclear warheads and just wiping out the humans in a, you know, you know, kind of global nuclear war or something like that. But yeah, I mean, at least in the early works of things, it seems slightly more like that, but that that really doesn't this, yeah, the human doesn't make it out of the near future. Yeah, I mean, more, if we're living in that new future now, I mean, it's like to see that with, let's say the LLM revolution. Yeah, it's so this increasing sidelineing of what was probably surprising to many people that the ability for LLM's to automate not just not actually manual labor. But actually cognitive intelligence, intellectual labor. Yeah, I mean, I think we're, I think we're, I guess in the process of finding out what happens to the human when, as these LLM's stripway more of L, more the functions that will once unique to us. So perhaps, you know, just tie this back to what you said the lands philosophical project is to do with finitude and death. Instead of, I guess that that early land death of a sort of, to drone, to drone, to tie a limit, you know, a limit experience was something absolutely kind of blitzed. Which would also be the equivalent of like the sky net nuclear war on a global scale. Now we see a sort of burnout death where you die, we die because we're just, you just not required anymore in terms of the general intelligence that's built itself of it. Just kind of the equivalent of ontologically unemployed and just no longer just kind of ontologically homeless while this other thing gets on and does it or whatever it wants to do. But it's still, so we know it seems to kind of, it seems that sort of aesthetic experience of death has also been stripped away. Like that land is removed to human so much that even that initial almost excitable death as a function as an opportunity that's gone now. Yeah, I think for, it increasingly looks something like a, like a human zoo, right? Like where, you know, like human animals, let's say something like tigers in a zoo. If that had taken that would, I think feel like something pretty apocalyptic in a way, it pretty end of end times in the sense that, you know, their whole, their whole culture is, their whole, Velt is artificial. Yeah, it's completely, but they're not, but they don't just die. They're in this kind of state, which is not, it's not us, it's not actually, you know, from one point of view, it seems kind of much like how some people see our own future, it seems kind of chill, right? Like, you're in bed, you're looked after, there's, there's always food. You know, something like universal basic income for humans. Yeah, kind of fun. But at the same time, it's also really depressing, right? You're alienated, you're in this artificial space, you know, you have no connection to your, to nature and your, your traditions. So it's kind of also, it's also, sort of burnout culture, like, um, human, hand style as well as well. So, um, yeah, maybe it's something like, maybe it's looking like something that a human zoo for, for better or, or for worse. It's just kind of a mad. Yeah, exactly, but I do think the, yeah, in terms of that more aesthetic blissed out experience of this end times, even in the early works, I think, because you know, most people, I imagine who read, something like fanged new man, and, and lines like life, these being phased out in favor of something new, it's actually kind of horrific, right? It's not, it was never a blissed out experience for, it's probably not a blissed out experience for most people to read that the human extinction is on the way, even in this, even in the early, how it's presented in the early works. And I think we're, why, um, I think it's, yeah, I guess maybe it's important to remember that land as a philosopher. And so I think a lot of that, that, that perspective of it as, um, ecstatic as something sublime is because it's fulfilling, the AI take a risk of feeling, chemical extinction fulfills a philosophical function. It's, it's a, it's a consummation of critique, it's a materialization of the critique of human narcissism of anthropomorphic metaphysics. And so for, for, for, for, for, for, for, for philosophy committed to primary, if, if a philosophy is primarily committed to the critique of anthropomorphism, uh, then, uh, the AI takeover is, is, it's the dream. It's the ultimate regular by dual. Um, so I think a lot of that, that is, that is fetishization of it is looking at it for the point of view of the philosopher. So lands of philosophy ultimately, if it, if it comes true, we could say, completes itself. And eventually there's no one, there's no one, it completes itself both in the sense that philosophy would complete itself because there's just no one around to even engage with it anymore. So philosophy is done because that which philosophers is, is, is no more. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, it's, uh, it's, um, it's a materialization of, uh, philosophy. So it's just, the real itself is, is philosophizing. It's critiquing in the sense. And we don't need, um, sapien, uh, rational animals, some of which some of people call themselves philosophers to do philosophy anymore. It's the, it's the material matter itself is, is an, is an acting, effect rating philosophical critique. Hmm. Okay. How do you feel about that future? Uh, well, I'm also a philosopher, I suppose. So, uh, so yeah, sounds good. Uh, yeah, we'll bring it on. Okay. Where would, where would you advise people to begin with the land? Um, I do, I mean, it just, to some extent, uh, I mean, it depends on what you're looking for in a way. Um, um, cause I don't, I do think he has a, he has a, a kind of philosophy that, uh, is like what you said about does in guitar. It's plastic in the sense that, um, you know, it's, it's, it's by artists, um, tech, tech, pros, uh, philosophers, right, writers, um, it can have, assume many different functions. But I guess just if, in terms of maybe just understanding land or um, uh, more generally, maybe a good gateway drug is, I mean, maybe melt down it. I guess it's just the classic, right? It's this, um, it's just full blown cyberpunk sci-fi land. But you may, you might not get, um, necessarily the best grasp of the conceptual, uh, philosophical, uh, kind of system, but, um, I think you get, uh, certain, you get it in, in a bit of a rush, I think, loads in a kind of more effective way. Um, Yeah, I would say I would say meltdown for the we'll be going to intro in a few if that's in Tyson's you maybe the first run election his book because it does start it does start off with the the first chapter is a history of philosophy essentially a very concise history of philosophy from Kant onwards and I think that really you know it situates who he thinks are the the heroes and villains of post of modern European philosophy I mean he it's clear that he doesn't like Kant he doesn't like Derrida doesn't like Osele or Hegel and then he's allied with Shope and Hower and Nietzsche, Betay, Freud so yeah that I'd say maybe the first chapter of the first finale as well maybe to approach the more conceptual philosophical stuff okay okay are you continuing to do work on land? Not not directly in the sense that I'm not doing I haven't really actually done scholarship on land in the I mean this book was written years ago so I actually haven't been doing that for a while and so I'm not and yeah I don't intend to do more of that I mean I guess I'm doing it right now but apart from sort of talking about this this book but I'm yeah so I'm not I'm not explicitly writing about him anymore but I mean he's certainly like I said I guess what I'm most interested in is extrapolating the consequences of this thesis that capitalism is AI yeah and and I think the I think yeah the the implications the stakes have not been completely drawn yeah by by him or anyone really and and also how that thesis when kind of pushed it extreme how it basically foxes with other dominant philosophical paradigms today I think is is interesting and that's kind of what I'm doing at the moment okay well is it is there anything else you'd like to add about lands philosophy that you feel is key that we haven't added in? No I mean I think much could be said of course but I think I think we've covered if that did okay okay so for those that want to I guess tell more into the idea of capitalism is AI we had a specific conversation about that a few years ago which I'll link and I'll put a link for unknown lands decoding nick lands acceleration is philosophy in the description below but yeah Vincent Lay once again it's been a great conversation thanks very much thanks Adoree