Why Nikola Tesla was the greatest geek who ever lived
“Alto capo”
Long, but accurate definition of legitimacy.
2 weeks ago - 
1
1 Why don’t I call the rules of cooking arbitrary, and why am I tempted to call the rules of grammar arbitrary? Because ‘cookery’ is defined by its end, whereas ‘speaking’ is not. That is why the use of language is in a certain sense autonomous, as cooking and washing are not. You cook badly if you are guided in your cooking by rules other than the right ones; but if you follow other rules than those of chess you are playing another game; and if you follow grammatical rules other than such-and-such ones, that does not mean that you say something wrong, no, you are speaking of something else.
Wittgenstein, Zettel 320 (via whakatikatika)
6 days ago - 4
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This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals—sounds that say listen to this, it is important.
Gary Provost (via whakatikatika)
(Source: qmsd, via whakatikatika)
People know what they do; frequently they know why they do what they do; but what they don’t know is what what they do does.
Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, 1964 (via whakatikatika)
(Source: mondonoir, via whakatikatika)
1 week ago - 35
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Representative Democracy, The State, Enlightened Anarchy
If life becomes so perfect as to become self-regulated, no ‘representation’ becomes necessary. There is then a state of enlightened anarchy. In such a state everyone is his own ruler. He rules himself in such a manner that he is never a hindrance to his neighbor. In the ideal state, therefore, there is no political power because there is no state. But the ideal is never fully realized in life. Hence the classical statement of Thoreau that ‘Government is best which governs the least’.
It is my firm conviction that if the state suppresses capitalism by violence, it will be caught in the coils of violence itself and fail to develop non-violence at any time. The state represents violence in a concentrated and organized form. The individual has a soul, but as the state is a soulless machine it can never be weaned from the violence to which it owes its very existence. Hence I prefer the doctrine of trusteeship. — What I would personally prefer would not be centralization of power in the hands of the state, but an extension of the sense of trusteeship, as, in my opinion, the violence of private ownership is less injurious than the violence of the state.
Mohandas Gandhi, Rediscovering Gandhi Vol. II (New Delhi, 2007)
(Source: whakatikatika, via whakatikatika)
The doctrine of equality! There is no more venomous poison in existence: for it seems to be preached by justice itself, whereas it really is the termination of justice. ‘Equal to the equal, unequal to the unequal’ — that would be the true slogan of justice; and also its corollary: ‘Never make equal what is unequal.’ That this doctrine of equality was surrounded by such gruesome and bloody events, that has given this ‘modern idea’ par excellence a kind of glory and fiery aura so that the Revolution as a spectacle has seduced even the noblest spirits. In the end, that is no reason for respecting it any more.
Nietzsche, ‘Expeditions of an Untimely Man’ (1895)
(Source: whakatikatika)
Culture and the state—one should not deceive oneself about this—are antagonists: “Kultur-Staat” is merely a modern idea. One lives off the other, one thrives at the expense of the other. All great ages of culture are ages of political decline: what is great culturally has always been unpolitical, even anti-political.
Nietzsche, ‘What the Germans Lack’ (1888)
(Source: whakatikatika)
1 month ago - 6
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The fundamental sense of freedom is freedom from chains, from imprisonment, from enslavement by others. The rest is extension of this sense, or else metaphor.
Isaiah Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty (1958)
(Source: whakatikatika)
The state? What is that? Well open now your ears to me, for now I will speak to you about the death of peoples.
State is the name of the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly it lies; and this lie slips from its mouth: “I, the state, am the people.” It is a lie. It was creators who created peoples, and hung a faith and a love over them: thus they served life.
Destroyers are they who lay snares for the many, and call it the state: they hang a sword and a hundred cravings over them. Where there are still peoples, the state is not understood, and is hated as the evil eye, and as sin against laws and customs.
This sign I give to you: every people speaks its own language of good and evil, which its neighbor does not understand. They create their own language of laws and customs. But the state lies in all the tongues of good and evil; and whatever it says it lies; and whatever it has it has stolen. Everything in it is false; it bites with stolen teeth, and bites often. It is false down to its bowels.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus spoke Zarathustra (1883) 1.11 The New Idol (via whakatikatika)
(Source: haereticum, via whakatikatika)
(via whakatikatika)
