Acid Horizon Hyperreality Is Dead: Baudrillard, the Age of Trump, and 'The Gulf War Did Not Take Place' Revisited
45 snips
Jan 31, 2026 Cameron Carsten, a graduate student in continental philosophy who studies state power and the production of reality, joins to probe Baudrillard’s Gulf War thesis. They examine media as spectacle, AI-altered images undermining credibility, the state turning real events into non-events, and whether the simulacrum has collapsed or the real has returned. Short, sharp takes on deterrence, political decay, and contemporary spectacle.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
War As Media Spectacle
- Baudrillard argues the Gulf War was a prefigured, media-managed spectacle rather than a classical war.
- The image of launching (missiles, broadcasts) becomes the event itself, exhausting the real behind it.
Information As Warfare
- Information functions as a mode of warfare that homogenizes experience and prevents genuine events.
- Rapid information succession launders mistakes and creates 'mental deterrence' from seeing reality.
AI Filters Undercut Evidence
- AI-mediated images can be weaponized to undermine real events by contaminating evidence and credibility.
- The Alex Preddy image filtered through AI damaged the perceived truth of the killing online.
