I’ll try to blog more often, and in shorter format. There’s so much happening right now that I procrastinate on blogging, then I feel like there’s too much to write about, so I don’t write anything.
The book (If These Fists Could Talk) is basically done. I’ve blogged constantly about the ROBA Hypothesis; feel free to browse the archives. I’ll post a link in a few weeks where you can buy it on Amazon. Here’s the cover:
I have ideas for some more books based off the ROBA Hypothesis, including:
- The Myth of Violence (or Without Origin: The Eerie Silence Surrounding our Violent Origins) – An analysis of myths of violence, or the lack thereof. There’s a shocking lack of myths surrounding the origins of violence, but origins of fire myths are ubiquitous. I’ll do a comparative approach to myths of gods of war. It’ll be a truly Frazerian book.
- Beyond the Beast – Various monsters and mythical figures like zombies, vampires, and werewolves; their anthropology and a new theory on them all. Teaser: European werewolves were mythological constructs that were a weird liminal space between the witch trials and advanced forensics.
- The Art of Violence – A guide to aesthetics.
- Kinship of Violence – Super nerdy theory about the origin of cities, stemming from the ROBA Hypothesis
- ROBA Core – A simplified guide to the ROBA Hypothesis, basically a shortened version of If These Fists Could Talk, more concise, with lots of images.
- last but not least, Beaches Are Stupid and Other Popular Opinions. This will be a funny book, I hope.
Movies
I’ve been so wrapped up in writing the book I’ve completely put off film projects, but I am working on 2 scripts. One is a sequel to Contour (called Detour) and another is called Reversion aka We See You, David Fringe, which is a hard sci-fi action comedy. Maybe the first of its kind. If you want to see these things, please bother me.
Research
I’ve clocked nearly 25,000 pages this year; I’ll post a list of what I read. I took this photo today of my library:
My organization system is kind of rough, but it mostly goes something like this, in order from the top left, numbered top to bottom, then next bookshelf:
- Shelf 1: 1. Autism/history of science, 2. Kinship, 3. Rene Girard, Eric Gans, and more kinship, 4. Anthropology (lots of headhunting and Mesoamerican stuff), 5. science, 6. languages and overflow.
- Shelf 2 (corner, both sides): 1. Anthropology and evolution, 2. Frazer, 3. more Frazer, religion, 4. history of science, old anthropology including Africa, 5. American and European history, archaeology, 6. psychology, therapy, (auto)biography, more religion, 7. books I don’t want clients to see, some film books, pseudoscience, autobiographies I also don’t want clients to see.
- Shelf 3: 1. China, 2. violence, 3. myth, 4. warfare, 5. linguistics, 6. India and Africa.
- Shelf 4: 1. Japan, 2. misc ancient anthropology, 3. philosophy, 4. misc. history, 5. literature and linguistics, 6. literature.
Humans Dumber than Ants?
Look at this video:
It’s typical for people to look at this and think, “Gee, maybe ants are smarter than humans.” But we have to factor other traits in: the humans are also concerned about ensuring no injuries result, so all the participants are thinking about all the other participants in a deep manner; humans are also concerned about the surrounding structure, like when moving a couch through a house and attempting to avoid touching any walls; humans craft things with right angles, but ants do not; lastly, humans will have lofty goals with this piece of geometry, since it will be used for a commercial building, temple, etc., which will serve as a nexus of human interaction that goes far beyond immediate kin, whereas ants have purely utilitarian reasons for getting from point A to point B.
Plus, the hive mindset in ants is something we moderns expressly condemn. Any individual human in the group might have innovative ideas for how to get the geometry through the puzzle; in fact, if there had only been two people, the puzzle might have been solved faster. I think the comparison between humans and ants here is highly misleading, part of a trend to diminish humans to being mere animals while also paradoxically rendering human behavior (especially violence) all the more mystifying.
In my upcoming book I discuss this strange phenomenon, which feels like a big propaganda campaign selling the idea that humans are just animals, and we should be researching ants, chimps, amoeba etc. for ways that we could be smarter animals. I don’t deny the value in researching other organic life for insights, but it’s totally unnecessary to then question the intelligence and specialness of humans. I’m not sure exactly what the goal of this propaganda campaign is, but I assume it’s so certain academic groups can maintain some kind of hegemony in the sciences. The Royal Institution, for example, really pushed this idea of humans-as-animals hard; with it they pushed a scientific theology that one must be “humble” and admit that humans, earth, our solar system etc. aren’t so special. It’s definitely a theology, and people respond pretty violently when you critique it.
(It’s for this reason I’m excited to start reading the history of the Royal Institution. I think it’ll shed light on this issue.)
Three Body Problem
The second book delves into the paradox and elaborates on the Dark Forest Hypothesis: (spoiler) aliens are hiding from us because they know that war is inevitable if they broadcast their location.
Book three is a mess about the collapse of the universe and its rebirth with the aid of some 1.7 million different alien species, including an Adam and Eve-like couple who can bring knowledge back to humans again.
It seems that the more atheistic an author tries to make sci-fi, the loftier and more ridiculous they get. I feel like Ayn Rand suffered from something similar; hence the 50-page diatribe at the end of Atlas Shrugged. However, Liu writes phenomenal action scenes.
I watched one episode of the Netflix series and found it painfully low quality. I also watched the (very) Chinese version of the show produced by Tencent… it was too poppy for my tastes. I’d rather retain the imagery from the books. Book 1: 9/10, series overall: 7.5/10
Movie Review: Moana
I watch a lot of kids movies because of my boys, so I’ll throw my 2 cents in on the latest we watched, Moana. Great music (except that crab song, but the kids love it so…), and funny animation. The plot is cute, but your typical totem myth, and Disney tries to play both sides of the fence. On the one hand, it’s your typical “girl leaves small conservative town” while also holding a modern (and very sensitive) anthropological view which says “not that traditional Maori society is bad!” Disney is, in effect, saying conservatism is different from traditional tribal culture. ‘Kay, sure.
The imagery of the volcano is nice; just remember, they would throw human sacrifices into these things, or at the very least a chicken, especially one like Heihei. That would quell the volcano. Or at least, when it quelled… no, if it quelled, then yes, of course the sacrifice worked. If it didn’t work, they’d get another chicken. The settling ash was very fertile, turning the island green. Disney whitewashed a sacrificial myth that was universal, but hey, great music.
There isn’t much action, but what’s there is obviously top notch. Really, that’s the thing I like most about Disney.
I notice Moana doesn’t suffer from the antic inflation that plagues every other cartoon these days (where characters make a huge gesture before performing any new action). There are still a lot of annoying Disney-isms, like hands trailing behind movement, too much joint attention (if someone is talking in a Disney movie, everyone looks at them, which is not real, especially if you’re autistic), etc. I get these are aesthetic decisions that are probably based on simple metrics, but humans just don’t move or behave like this. Disney is inventing a movement language that doesn’t really fit with the broader, violence-filled world kids are in. I wonder how many kids just take refuge in dance: it’s like it has zero bearing on the real world. (The Iron Giant has amazing animation because it is almost devoid of antic inflation. Movements are sudden and jarring. It’s a classic for many reasons, but I believe animation is one of them.)
Moana is a solid 3/5 movie: retconned and nerfed history, but saved by good music, fun animation, and a great handful of action scenes.
My kids swear Moana 2 is just as good.
Girardian Documentary
Please check out Sam Sorich’s documentary Things Hidden: The Life and Legacy of René Girard. It’s very good. Girard’s work (particularly his Violence and the Sacred) was instrumental in crafting the ROBA Hypothesis.
If I were to rate this film based on pure marketability, I think it could have been 2 movies, much as how Girard split his theory into two books, one anthropological and one religious. That would have garnered it far more attention. But as a Girard fan, I give it a 5/5.
Music
The namesake of this post (song begins at 20:38). I love vaporwave; it’s a prolonged funeral to analog media. Retrowave is its bastard twin: a failed resurrection of aesthetics, with an inevitable retcon that feels cheesy and lame. You can’t do that. Except Dance with the Dead. They can do it.
Social
I was on Twitter for a minute. Then I posted something about anthropology, and a half dozen antisemitic comments flew my way. WTF. Everyone I talk to acknowledges Twitter as an unfortunate cesspool. I anticipated that some time ago and wrote about it here: Elon’s Broken Dark Ray.
I’m back on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericjacobusofficial/ but that’s the extent of my social media life at the moment.
Misc
My computer has too many external USB drives; so whenever I open file explorer, it has to start em all up again, and this causes me on average about 45 seconds of lost productivity per day, but I get way overstressed about it, which seems out of proportion.