Interview: ARX-Han
On East-West Techno Rifts / Open-Source Diffusion vs. Techno-Feudalist Trans-Human Acceleration / The Literary Salon as Last Port in the Storm
Talking with novelist ARX-Han on the optimistic outcome, the counterbalance to techno-feudalism, the shifting Overton window, on deep (racial? / psychosexual?) anxieties of Western elites over China’s technological rise, transhumanist cults, the internet as a pathologization engine, the problem of male agency in a world trending toward simulation, the accelerating breakdown of ideological coherence, the future of literary fiction in an era of digital feudalism, the aesthetics of niche subcultures, on panpsychism for story building models, the seduction of AI worship, Grand Theft Auto as contemporary American reality. On paranoia, the next phase of cult formation, social engineering, why the next big cultural divide won’t be left vs. right but human vs. post-human, and why it’s enough to just be read by a small group of considered minds in a literary salon scattered across the digital ether… + more.
Excerpts
On American Social Engineering
“So I think the broad thing to understand is that my view is that Americans are the most propagandized population in the world, but the sophistication of that propaganda is so high that they have the inverse view, right?”
On Convergence
“And so I think that the structures of our consent manufacturing apparatus are much more sophisticated, distributed decentralized coded in a sort of implicit procedural logic and institutional logic that is takes quite a bit of time to disentangle and see clearly.
And one thing that's very fascinating to me is just the convergence between effective altruists and Silicon Valley defense tech bros.
Because they basically converged on the same foreign policy, which is just essentially American hegemony, right? And I just think it's very ironic that you know, I have this line in my head that you know, maybe it turns out that effective altruism was really just about killing Chinese people, right?”
On Literary Opportunity:
“ I've written about this before in terms of how liberalism has acted as a sort of identity shredder for Asian Americans, but the irony is, I think, because this is such an important historical moment in the geopolitical contest between East and West, but I think there's an opportunity to write fiction about it and literary fiction about it that's very interesting that taps into the vein of this present moment”
On Masculinity
“The solutions essentially require, probably technological reversal over and above anything else. I'm increasingly of mind that the ennui of the modern male is downstream of technological civilization itself.”
On the Optimistic Countervailing Force:
“The funniest optimistic outcome to me, the most hilarious outcome would be that various Chinese tech companies produce vast quantities of open source, AI and, robotics platforms that are then diffused throughout the world at scale.
And, that acts as a countervailing force that prevents us from entering full blown techno feudalism and concentration of power”
On America
“America just is like a Grand Theft Auto sketch…
Especially California, right? Like California is just like a GTA comedy routine where the most like crazy shit just happens with consistent frequency, you read about something like, ‘Oh my God’, that's a feature, not a bug of California…
I think the strength of America as a system - Is this ability to do memetic recombination…”
On New Axis of Conflict
“I think the new axis of conflict will be pro and anti transhumanism slash AI worship and stuff like that. So I feel that a major transection of values is inbound. Something novel. And that, that kind of cuts across this conventional left right distinction in strange and discomforting ways.”
On Literary Privilege
“ And I think we shouldn't, I think writers, we shouldn't be so so damn greedy, and we should just say that’s, that's enough. Like this is already a privilege, you know? Like it's already it's a privilege to be read by a small number of considered readers, and to be taken seriously, and to engage in dialogue with others.”
More
ARX-Han@ www.DecentralizedFiction.com
2024 Interview with ARX-Han on his novel Incel
https://www.leafbox.com/interview-arx-han/