Hey Eclectic Spacewalkers!
Last week we had the pleasure of sitting down with Brent Cooper. Brent is an independent political sociologist, filmmaker, and the Founder and Executive Director of The Abs-Tract Organization.
We came across Brent like most of the people that have come on ‘Conversations’ - through Twitter. Brent’s writing was our first introduction to him, as he lucidly and ruthlessly critiqued the Intellectual Dark Web, Game B, the meta/hyper modernism movements, and a lot of what was and is happening in our current political discourse.
Brent's background includes growing up in Vancouver, a unique journey to and from academia and back again, starting the Abs-Tract Organization, as well as making a film of a - shall we say - “satirical” nature (check it out below).
The Abs-Tract Organization ("TATO") is a meta-think tank formed to provide global solutions to systemic problems, specializing in "abstraction", an advanced thinking process and social critique with wide ranging applications.
Our conversation was far-reaching, thought-provoking, and interesting to say the least. We have included some of Bren’t best writing below, along with timestamps from our discussion. We thank Brent for his time, research, and eclectic mind.
We hope you enjoy the conversation!
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Timestamps:
- Working in blue-collar jobs for 5 yrs between college and graduate school (07:00)
- Living in the Anthropocene epoch and the difference between Meta-modernism & Hyper-modernism (11:45)
- Timothy Morton’s Hyperobjects, Object-Oriented Ontology, and Modern Monetary Theory (16:55)
- “Key Logs”, keystone, technopoly, and other heuristics (24:45)
- Five favorite logical fallacies featured on Brent’s The Stoa lecture (33:05)
- Anti-Intellectualism, THAT Jordan Peterson vs. Slavoj Zizek, the IDW, Game B, & Anti-Debates (42:40)
- Our recent episode with Claire Webb, the Drake Equation, the Fermi Paradox, and the importance of collective action (58:40)
- the idea of “Systemic Conspiracy” (01:01:40)
- A critique on IRL and reductionist modalities (01:18:40)
- The Abs-Tract Organization (01:22:30)
- Brent’s message for his “Overview Effect” question (01:33:04)
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More on Brent Cooper:
The Abs•Tract: Core Philosophy