How do we understand the world and our place in it? Do our lives consist of a small number of dramatic turning points, or is there nothing but a series of gradual changes from infancy to old age? Are political elections genuinely transformational, or merely arbitrary points along a shifting cultural timeline? And in physics, how can the continuities of general relativity coexist with the discontinuities of quantum theory?

In Waves and Stones, Graham Harman shows that this paradoxical interaction – the question of whether reality is made up of sudden jumps, or is laid out along a gentle gradient with no clear divisions between the various things in the world – permeates every area of human life. What’s more, this paradox is as old as human thought itself. In exploring how the continuous and discrete relate to each other, he takes us on a kaleidoscopic journey from the philosophers of ancient Greece, through the writings of the great Arab historian Ibn Khaldun, through architectural and evolutionary theory, the compatibility of religion with science, and the wave-particle duality of matter.

To explore the relationship between the continuous and the discrete, Harman shows, is to consider the very fabric of reality. With this dazzling new book, he proposes a new way of thinking about this ancient problem, with profound implications for our understanding of ourselves and the bewilderingly complex world in which we live.

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/313185/waves-and-stones-by-harman-graham/9780241392867

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As usual the boys find themselves somewhat at odds with the officially sanctioned narratives on everything from NATO, Greenland, Ukraine and Qatar to who exactly is cutting the undersea cables, and what might be going on with Elon Musk, the dollar, American debt and crypto.

And we end with a brief look at the bond market’s reaction to Labour’s budget and what that tells us about the fiction of national sovereignty.

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The Death of Democracy is the title of a public talk I used to give. I used to talk about how democracy was being hollowed out, who was doing it and why. I wrote a number of articles on the old Golem Blog about it. Back then it was speculation and supposition. I used to say this is what I think those in power are thinking about, these are their worries and this is what I think they might do.

In essence I felt that those with power over us, for all they pose as champions of democracy, they are in fact doing all they can to hollow it out. They do not trust us, do not like us and have no intention of taking orders from us. They do not consider that they in any way work for us. No more than a farmer thinks he works for the animals he raises for slaughter. At most he feels there is a minimum duty to care for our welfare so we fetch a good price at auction. That is, I think, how those in power see us.

Democracy is something they pay lip service to but no more than lip service. What they are willing to let us have is the ‘talent show’ version. Democracy where carefully groomed boy bands posture and pout and we get to chose between them.

I have come to feel that the battle for democracy, our last best chance to save what is left of it, and find a way to build it back, is upon us. It is the battle of our times. I believe that. I believe history and our children will judge us by what we do or are too afraid to do in the next few years.

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Image NASA ID: PIA12348 Secondary Creator Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/CXC/STScI

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