r/ReadingFoucault

This community is a space for us to further our interest in (and better understand) Foucault’s work as well as share our thoughts and opinions on how we interpret, understand and use his tools and concepts. We are reading about Foucault's notion of freedom this week - come join the discussion!

Going to sound crazy on this post but that’s what Reddit is for.....

John Wick 4 and The Matrix 4 both come out on May 21 2021. So my theory is what if it was all the same....

Hear me out the Matrix was always adapting to Neo (Keanu Reeves) with Mr.Smith starting with other agents to just Mr.Smith himself but duplicated. With Neo starting off the movies as just a computer hacker then becoming a kung fu/ weapons master due to programming. Always knowing what hall or door to take due to an operator back in the real world.

Then we have John Wick (Keanu Reeves) who again can fight and shoot guns better then any other hit man. It says he is an orphan from Ruska Roma but what if the matrix reset itself to try and stop Neo before he becomes the one. When John Wick trains in martial arts and weapon skills he catches on quickly because it is still programmed in him.

With the Matrix and John Wick always being calm before the storm meaning a small conversation before each fight it almost seems as if the stories align. Because the Matrix is always evolving to defeat The One, Mr. Smith created different identities or hit man if you will to try and kill John Wick all at once. Time and time again as John Wick is attacked Mr.Smith feels this is the chance to finally win bringing on the conversation of victory. Even though there are times where other hit man will mention it’s just business almost shows that they could be taken control of like the Matrix.

The theory of resetting the Matrix to kill The One brings in the same characters such as Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) in which he plays the role Bowery King. After John Wick 3 Keanu Reeves finds himself before Bowery King after being betrayed by friends asking “ are you pissed John.” With betrayals going in both movies, Laurence Fishburne and Keanu Reeves always find each other being back to back fighting the world.

This is just a theory definitely not probable but.....What if it was all the same.

I have a theory in nighttime everybody sleeps right? And imagine 2 people one is you the other guy sleeps but you are still awake and when you sleep you wake up tomorrow so that guy has woken up tomorrow but you are still in today time when you stay awake the whole night your gonna catch up to the future here is a example A guy sleeps in 2019 and wakes up in 2020 but another guy is not sleeping that means the non sleeping guy has to finish 2019 to be in 2020 but the sleeping guy is already in 2020 so basically the guy that slept woke up in 2020 while the second guy is still in the past I'm not sure if my theory is real or not i was just thinking while trying to sleep

When I was in the deep sleep after that night happens!...I keep imagine about the school before it gets any attentions!...My dreams are full fill more intense about my Life! (I'm sorry, I can't get enough grammar about my story will continue on!)

Can someone summarize or dumb down this paper for me?

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2324835

What if your actual midlife crisis happens during your actual Midlife, and it's an effect rather than an ideal,Someone may be going through it but not showing the signs Visibly but feeling them mentally,Imagine a 13 year old boy is bullied for 'looking like he's going through a midlife crisis' Because he dresses according to a different trend, now imagine that same kid coincidentally dies at age 26,Back to where I said they play out differently,Something Big Happens whether you notice it or not right when you are at your 50% mark, Whether it be something like a Civil war starting in Syria or A nuclear bomb being dropped in a populated city, and even maybe it happens directly to you,Perhaps you develop a Disease like Cancer when you're 10 and die at age 20,Whether it was caused by the Cancer or not, it was a Large Effective moment in your life and It happened during midlife, Scary part is What if it already happened and you didn't know it, what if it's happening right now and you just haven't figured it out, even something as simple as tearing a muscle or twisting your ankle could be big enough moments to be that Midlife and you wouldn't even know it

I Wrote this to ask, has anyone else thought that something like this was a comprehensible idea, feel free to give feedback! 👍

     Terrorism. Jihadism. What is the difference? Are they both the same thing? No! Jihadist follow certain rules and on the other hand, we have terrorist who just spread terror in the country. Jihadists do not kill people who surrenders and they are always on the defensive side. Jihad means holy war. 
    Why do media industries convey that jihadist and terrorist are same? Well, let me summarize this. America is afraid of jihadists so that’s why they want to vanish it slowly by slowly by claiming them as dirty and uneducated people. That is even said in the Hadis that the judgement day will be near when Muslim will fear death. This means that Muslims will not do jihad. 
    About Osama Bin Laden, he was never a jihadist. He was a terrorist and that’s it. He killed inoncent people and his act was offensive. These are against jihad rules.
    Jihad is a good thing and it will always be. Jihad is not only about war, you can do media jihad like how I did. 

Please bring awareness to our Muslim friends by sharing this. I am not doing this for fame! You can verbally tell your friends about this or you can claim that you are the one who wrote this. I allow. But the objective is to inform our Muslim Friends…H2K*

Iraq. One of the World most dominant country before. What happened to Iraq? How did they loose? This is crazy. I mean Iraqis are super smart people not only before even in todays world. I have encountered many Iraqis and I found out that they have something in common and that is their logic. Now let me tell you the story of how Iraq lost the war. It all started when Bush decided to attack Iraq because they were creating massive explosive and great amount of weapons. You can imagine how strong they were by considering, troops of USA, UK, Australia and Poland were not able to win the war in the first time. But later on they tried with the power of media. News channels in Iraq were hacked by the USA to report that 'Iraqis soldier lost the match and almost every soldier is surrendering'. When Iraqis soldier saw that, they thought that they have no choice other than to surrender and thats what they did. Through media, US have won the war from these massively intelligent people. Iraqis are still smart people and they have take serious actions to stabilise their country, Iraq. WAKE UP PEOPLE OF IRAQ! -H2Khan-

140,000 NATO troops plus 250,000 Afghan troops are currently trying to invade Afghanistan. What could stop them from assaulting? Nothing! Isn’t? I mean that’s a huge force. Plus, there is reportedly $1 Trillion USD spent by United States to invade Afghanistan. What can logically safe Afganistan from this super dominant country? Pashtoons! It may be funny because terrorists can’t really do anything besides scattering terror and you may be right as long as you claim them terrorist because mentally, we all are emotionally brainwashed by the current media industries. This is a US gameplay. Whenever something ugly occurs make Muslims the scapegoat. Well, Muslims are not like that. The terrorist conflict is not only in Afghanistan. It is also in Iraq and Syria. You won’t believe what I am going to expose now. BBC reported that spokesperson of ISIS is an Australian 16 years old boy. You can check now on internet. And to tell you, BBC is the only news channel that can be trusted because they speak with proof and clear evidence. They have also provided evidence for that news. Back to the topic, ok, I’ll ask you a very simple question. Were there any terrorist activities before NATO troops secretly entered Afghanistan with the excuse of the so-called ‘911 investigation’? Were there any rape cases in Afghanistan beside the general ones before US entered? There were Pashtoons before then why didn’t they do all the things which media industries are blaming them now. United States wanted to extract the natural resources in Afghanistan and 911 was a great excuse made. Great thinking United States but sadly your troops are trapped their looking for a way out. And day by day, United States economy is facing huge downs. The question was asked about the economy by some media reporters but it was grounded. Even though US has spent approximately $1 Trillion USD, Pashtoons are still stronger than before. Ok, let’s just predict that Muslims are terrorists, then why didn’t they go to some non-Muslims country and spread terror there rather than killing its own kind. Well there may be some Muslim terrorists but with proof I can say the leaders are non-Muslims. It’s all the ‘great games of United States’. Through media, they had conquered one of the world strongest Muslim country before. Iraq! Through women, they had conquered Turkey and Turkey is still chained up until now for that defeat almost 150 years ago. Take note of our major weakness, my dear Muslim friends. I am not saying that we should go against liberalism neither media. They both are fine till some extent. I know there will be huge objections on my article. I’ll be happy to hear all out because I am a human and human beings make mistakes. Please post a clear objection with proof claiming that I am wrong… For brothers and sister who wants to follow my daily posts, @RealHassan_Khan is my twitter account. Thank you! ---H2Khan---

First of all, 911 was planned! I have proof for what I said at the beginning of this article. 911 was planned but the question is, "Why was it planned?" Bin Laden was a key for US military to enter Afghanistan with a reason. The reason was made! US wanted to extract the natural resources from Afghanistan. And with the subject of so-called '911 investigation', they secretly invaded Afghanistan. Now the story is over. It's grounded! But there are some details left. US troops are still stuck in Afghanistan looking for a way out because Pashtoons are fighting for Afghan's Lands... They havent succeeded but they are still stronger than US troops even though they have spent Billions of dollars in invading Afghanistan. That clearly affected US economy. The question was asked about why was the economy of US dropped down but until now the question is not answered...

Ok so i have a theory that Stranger things and A Quiet Place exist in the same universe. I know it sounds crazy, but hear me out.

1. Both creatures are described as membranous creatures. In fact, they even look the same
2. In the bathtub scene A quiet place, you can see the lights flickering above the bathtub. In stranger things, the lights flicker when a demi gorgon is nearby/ teleporting.
3. Maybe the demigorgons were the ancestors of the beasts? they look the same. plus, a quiet place takes place in 2020. Stranger things takes place 1983. could the demigorgons have evolved in that amount if time?just a thought. one more thing. the creatures can't teleport. so maybe, when eleven closed the portal, the demigorgons couldn't teleport. so they somehow lost the ability. since they had no natural predators in the upside down, they multiplied quickly. maybe they got released from the upside down and rampaged the world. The way they they could have gotten across the world was by those weird blue tunnels that Hopper got stuck in. i don't know. its just a theory. but let me know if you have something to add!

We can change the way the world is governed, Painlessly.

The"Your Upinion" app:

where you speak to the world and the world speaks to you.(this is not like anything you have seen before)

Simple to use:

Choose any category in the world, choose any statement in the world, set priorities to show what's most important to you.

Simple to build:

It's all search engines and data storage with some security.

Simple to understand:

You express your opinion, trending happens leading to some new information to consider, from that a new opinion may evolve. This process is compounded by every human involved. Which then leads to consensus.

Why: Because beyond survival, everything that humans do is an expression of their need to connect and control the world around them. Please see our 3 1/2 minute video http://www.yourupinion.com/

I'm going to be submitting a paper to some journals and conferences and wanted to see if /r/theoryreview could help me out at all. I know we are a new group, so I don't know how pertinent or useful this post will be, but I thought to throw it out here and see what happens. I'm looking for any/all manner of criticism, spare nothing. Cheers.

High Life: Affect and Anonymity in the User Mode of Existence

Today, the existential crisis of modernity is affecting the complex relations between heterogeneous, networked, anonymous users or “actors,” simultaneously in material (between objects and things) and semiotic (between concepts and discourses) relations. Affect’s effect can be traced working in, between and across space and time, with or without actors conscious knowledge, both online and in the world. This paper will attempt to untangle the entropic networks of relations presently being generated, transformed and exchanged in affective cybercultural capital online, in scientific discourse, in popular culture and in the lives and actions of people in city streets around the world. These relations will be traced across whichever domains they appear in order to determine to what extent “affect” can be found circulating in and across networks of relations in global networks of anonymous users and how this “affection” might be profitably understood as “love”. What kind of potential or capacity is this vital, affective work imbuing and enabling in and among increasingly digitized, self-reflexive, meta-critical and active networks of actors in discursive relations online and actual actions in the world? How are modern users enacting a new mode of existence, how does this mode find stability in the modern critical situation and crucially, what’s “love” got to do with it? This paper will follow the interdisciplinary tactics of Roland Barthes and Bruno Latour and reroute around critical barriers by taking the Spinozan-Deleuzian route which theorizes that it is affect that immanently mediates and permeates all actors and relations in the world. Through a material semiotic analysis of affect and anonymity, this paper seeks to reveal new and useful answers to questions concerning free will, addiction, power and desire from the complex relations of networked actors across the world in the Information age.

EDIT: Revision 1

Today, the existential crisis of modernity affects complex relations between heterogeneous, networked, anonymous users (or actors) across material (between objects and things) and semiotic (between concepts and discourses) relations. Affect can be traced working in between and across space and time, with or without users conscious volition or knowledge. This paper will attempt to untangle the entropic networks of relations continuously generated, transformed and exchanged in affective cybercultural capital online, in scientific and narrative discourse and in the lives and actions of people in city streets around the world. These relations will be traced across domains as they appear. In certain modes, the circulation and accretion in and across relations of anonymous users manifests as a mutual “affection” among a network of users. If in these networks “affect” is profitably understood as “love,” then what kind of potential or capacity is being imbued and enabled in and among increasingly digitized, self-reflexive, meta-critical and vitally active networks of actors? How are modern actors enacting a new “user” mode of existence? What new sites of political agency are possible in this mode and how does love contribute to its tentative, critical stability? This paper will follow the interdisciplinary tactics of Roland Barthes’ and Bruno Latour’s approaches, rerouting around critical barriers by taking the Spinozan-Deleuzian route which theorizes that by tracing the immanent mediation of affect in the world, networks of actors and relations can be traced anywhere. Through a material semiotic analysis of affect and anonymity, this paper seeks to reveal new and useful answers to questions concerning free will, addiction, power and desire from the complex relations of networked actors across the whole wide world, and web.

EDIT: Revision submitted -thanks for the feedback, it was very useful!

Today, the existential crisis of modernity affects complex relations between heterogeneous, networked, anonymous users (or actors) across relations both material (between objects and things) and semiotic (between concepts and discourses). Affect can be critically traced working in between and across space and time, with or without modern users conscious volition or knowledge. These relations will be traced across domains as they appear. In certain modes, the circulation and accretion in and across relations of anonymous users manifests as a mutual “affection” among a network of users. If in certain networks “affect” is experienced by anonymous users as “love,” then what kind of potentiality or capacity is being imbued and enabled in and among the relations of increasingly digitized, self-reflexive, meta-critical and vitally active networks of actors? How is this new form of critically anonymous modern love contributing the enactment a new mode of existence? What new sites of political agency are made possible and how does love contribute to the tentative, critical stability of the emerging anonymous “user mode of existence”? This paper will follow and describe the transdiscursive tactics of affect by using the interdisciplinary approaches of Roland Barthes and Bruno Latour. It will reroute around (post)modern assumptions by following the Spinozan-Deleuzian line of thought which theorizes that the immanent mediation of affect in the world can be found traced (any)everywhere. This paper will attempt to untangle the entropic networks of relations continuously generated, transformed and exchanged in affective cybercultural capital online, in scientific and narrative discourse and in the lives and actions of people in city streets around the world through a material semiotic analysis of affect and anonymity. Ultimately, this paper seeks to reveal new and useful answers to questions concerning freedom, addiction, power and love, from complex networks of relations in the modern world and on the web.

I'm working through some ideas and couldn't resist posting a fragment of my thoughts here considering my experiences in the last few years with reddit have informed the thrust of my current research and I'm really interested in what others have to say.

Some of the language I use is pretty loaded and informed by critical and cultural theory and (post)continental philosophy. I'm writing a book for my doc thesis (...if i get accepted to a local school. I was courted by Duke, offered full funding and a star supervisor, but input the wrong date into my calendar and missed the application deadline) and can't wait to follow some of the questions I've developed in my proposal. Once I finish the academic book, I plan to write a more accessible version to be sure, but for now unfortunately, the discourse needs to remain at the academy's perscribed level.

Thoughts on the user mode of existence:

Today the abstract modern experience is becoming concretized through the mechanical organization of material semiotic discursive relational processes, affectively generated by the fluid vital motion of anonymous actors in and between relations on the web and in city streets.

The Internet provides shelter for disillusioned and alienated moderns who desire access to a new mechanism for experiencing their modern roots–and themselves/each other–from the half-millennia long process of modernization and discursive subjectivity. These relations in contemporary material semiotic discourse exist online, in gradients of anonymity. By dint of this new field of option, a user's capacity to affect choice and decipher meaning grows stronger. From the maelstrom of local (and global) multitude's information cacophony, critical users are engaging in dialogic exchange which enables robust intense new potentiality, determined by the perceived anonymity of a given relational experience in relation to a users actual heterogeneity from the perspective of other circulating networks of rogue or dominating power relations.

The effect of such accumulations of these many new little choices which are constantly colliding in and between vast numbers of users simultaneously across the world, is the emergence of a new kind of power to will a new kind of existence. It is the force of anonymous volition in the user mode of existence.

edit: just finished doc applicaiotns, back to the real world- sorry for the delayed responses!