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May 23Liked by Astral

The loss of respect for so many of the people who somehow defined the media landscape of my childhood and and early adulthood is tremendous. These people do whatever they feel they need to do, fervourously, and their fans, or people “on their side” cheer them on. They all think they are fighting the good fight. But to me they are such disappointments. I would call it heartbreaking, would I not kind of gleefully enjoy this unexpected change of situation. The behaviour of Schwarzenegger over the course of the “events” of the recent years is another case in point. But there are so many examples, countless, in fact, that by default I assume the worst when I hear any name of those media people I knew from the before times. And then I check where they stand …

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In an indirect way we address this in the podcast epsilon that goes along with this. The older generations sold out and bought into everything, and there is no new generation to replace them. If you get to listen, pay particular attention to the comments of my friend Isaac.

I find great intellectual pleasure in retrospectively considering the last 50 years in light of the present as a way to reevaluate and conceptualize how we got here and how things ended up this way

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Yeah, it's fascinating. Will listen to the episode for sure, in fact, that was already on my agenda! On a related note to what you said to "no new generations", I was quite surprised to hear that AfD is now strongest party in Germany, in terms of polling amongst the younger generation, which is completely and utterly unexpected (ehm, kind of, but that would take longer to unpack). I'm not living there anymore, neither would I vote, nor do I expect this to necessarily indicate a "good" development, but I tought of that as an interesting indication of the recently often mentioned vibe shift

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Great read.

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Thank you for saying so. Was fun to write.

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Please enjoy an amazing day— you wonderful writer — and brilliant thinker 🕊️

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Thank you my friend. I hope to see you around again soon, for now I’m working on an in depth book review that will be the template for a few future episodes

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Great article

With once upon a time... it's as if Tarantino realised, after all the glorification of the subaltern he'd participated in between 94 and the mid-2000s and the damage it had done, that he'd made a horrible mistake. But it's also as if he knows it's too late and goodbye to all that oh well too bad we're all fagz now staring into the abyss impotently--more deadening nihilism, in short. I don't get the positive nihilist, 'TRVE MEN RISE UP AND MAKE IT STOP' vibe you descry in it, but maybe you're right and I'm wrong.

'The hipster is the archetypal man of the modern American metropolis, half bug-man and half “hardcore,” he embodies the mainstream fake masculine to his core; facial hair, tattoos, piercings, drinks craft beer, demands his whisky served neat. If he’s lucky he’s a well paid bartender or tattoo artist. Always in the gig economy and usually some gradation of fat but not morbidly obese, ally to some current thing, the “male feminist.” Every one of them owns a “Fuck Racism” T-shirt.'

I call it this manner of fellow the tuffcuck.

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Well written and insightful.

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