"An older man with a firm wine belly, hosting regular feasts for friends and neighbors, with every logistical detail automated except the cooking, which he enjoys. Holy spaces — more sacred and ornate than ones today — where humans commune with the divine, get married, and say goodbye to the dead."
This is every Sunday for us. I would advise more people live in the now and not wait or fret about a possible future.
Dude, that AI picture makes me want to be heterosexual. Love it. We need to at minimum make Dionysian Futurism an officially designated aesthetic. Suck it, Scandi Rustic.
Started listening to your interview with Jim Rutt, stopped, and decided to read your article. The moment you said you used AI but critique CAD artwork I could guess the issue.
1) Capturing Dionysian futures is hard because vibrant life is biological, which means that your futuristic vibe would include skydiving on an unknown exoplanet with a group of AI robots, augmented humans, and mishmash of old-school, don't give a fuck humans. If they could be drinking a bottle of wine or injecting themselves with a chip that says "chaos virus", and maybe riding each other (sexual or non-sexual) on the way down then you might get a better feel.
2) Futures are difficult because they are abstract, as opposed to lived. For urban design, it would be better to set very basic rules around an initial resource nucleus like water processing/vertical garden, then let people build out however it worked for them. Realistically this might look like a Barrios style mishmash, with PV, gardens, kids playing. Imagine a cyber punk city but during the daytime, less rust/neon signs, kids playing and maybe plants and animals all over.
Great topic! I didn't learn about Apollonian and Dionysian forces from Nietzsche but from Camille Paglia in Sexual Personae. She's a tad sassier than Nietzsche and - I'm guessing - more fun. I try to live in that future you've outlined. I rejected the safe, protestant, white bread choices as goals and instead lived to balance and refine the messy, noisy, delicious southern Italian environment I grew up in. Cin cin!
IMHO this is only possible if we come to embrace the goodness of being along with its necessitated suffering, rather than hope technology can offer us existence without suffering. There is no such possibility. The only suffering that can and should be eliminated is the kind that diminishes being. To eliminate all suffering is to eliminate being itself.
As a self-proclaimed Dionysian I totally endorse this vision! This will be accompanied by a complete retreat from that horrible, sterile, soulless Scandi minimalism towards something more Renaissance-Baroque in style. Also, trends like Cottagecore are already harbingers of this.
I will definitely toast you and futurism with my own Manhattan this evening (Bullet rye and Antica Carpana vermouth).
I also fear that there is a generational difference at work here. People in their twenties seem to have little interest in enjoyment of things like a great glass wine or driving a sports car (or even driving at all). They seem to make sleep quality the only acceptable pleasure and even that may be more for its utilitarian value.
Thanks Drake. That sounds like an amazing Manhattan.... I hadn't thought of the generational angle here. I do feel like it's become a challenge for younger people to enjoy Dionysian delights in an era with crushing debt on one side and addictive traps on the other.
Bjarke Ingels tried to do this with what he called "hedonistic sustainability." The idea is that green architecture and urban planning should make life more pleasurable, not less — that sustainability and quality of life should be mutually reinforcing rather than in tension.
"Hedonism, derived from the Greek word hedonê, meaning "pleasure" or "will," encompasses a range of theories that emphasize the significance of pleasure. Psychological or motivational hedonism posits that human behavior is driven by a fundamental desire to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. In this context, pleasure is regarded as not just a simple aspect of life, but as the ultimate good, guiding principle, and moral foundation of one's existence."
I love this and I'm here for it. I was just reading how Chinese government official functions have gone alcohol-free and I thought well, that bodes ill....
Thanks Hollis. That means a lot coming from you. That's funny re Chinese government. I think alcohol can be pro-social, pro-civilizational, but that's a topic for another essay. :)
"An older man with a firm wine belly, hosting regular feasts for friends and neighbors, with every logistical detail automated except the cooking, which he enjoys. Holy spaces — more sacred and ornate than ones today — where humans commune with the divine, get married, and say goodbye to the dead."
This is every Sunday for us. I would advise more people live in the now and not wait or fret about a possible future.
That’s exactly the point: to continue the thread of activities that make life worth living.
Dude, that AI picture makes me want to be heterosexual. Love it. We need to at minimum make Dionysian Futurism an officially designated aesthetic. Suck it, Scandi Rustic.
I know same, lol. Love the idea of a Dionysian Futurist Aesthetic™
Started listening to your interview with Jim Rutt, stopped, and decided to read your article. The moment you said you used AI but critique CAD artwork I could guess the issue.
1) Capturing Dionysian futures is hard because vibrant life is biological, which means that your futuristic vibe would include skydiving on an unknown exoplanet with a group of AI robots, augmented humans, and mishmash of old-school, don't give a fuck humans. If they could be drinking a bottle of wine or injecting themselves with a chip that says "chaos virus", and maybe riding each other (sexual or non-sexual) on the way down then you might get a better feel.
2) Futures are difficult because they are abstract, as opposed to lived. For urban design, it would be better to set very basic rules around an initial resource nucleus like water processing/vertical garden, then let people build out however it worked for them. Realistically this might look like a Barrios style mishmash, with PV, gardens, kids playing. Imagine a cyber punk city but during the daytime, less rust/neon signs, kids playing and maybe plants and animals all over.
Great topic! I didn't learn about Apollonian and Dionysian forces from Nietzsche but from Camille Paglia in Sexual Personae. She's a tad sassier than Nietzsche and - I'm guessing - more fun. I try to live in that future you've outlined. I rejected the safe, protestant, white bread choices as goals and instead lived to balance and refine the messy, noisy, delicious southern Italian environment I grew up in. Cin cin!
IMHO this is only possible if we come to embrace the goodness of being along with its necessitated suffering, rather than hope technology can offer us existence without suffering. There is no such possibility. The only suffering that can and should be eliminated is the kind that diminishes being. To eliminate all suffering is to eliminate being itself.
Project Hail Mary is arguably a dionesyian futurist flick
Interesting. Will check it out! Everyone’s saying good things.
it is a whole different vibe that we have hardly seen in a movie in years, particularly a movie about science
As a self-proclaimed Dionysian I totally endorse this vision! This will be accompanied by a complete retreat from that horrible, sterile, soulless Scandi minimalism towards something more Renaissance-Baroque in style. Also, trends like Cottagecore are already harbingers of this.
Thanks. 🙏 love those examples.
I will definitely toast you and futurism with my own Manhattan this evening (Bullet rye and Antica Carpana vermouth).
I also fear that there is a generational difference at work here. People in their twenties seem to have little interest in enjoyment of things like a great glass wine or driving a sports car (or even driving at all). They seem to make sleep quality the only acceptable pleasure and even that may be more for its utilitarian value.
Thanks Drake. That sounds like an amazing Manhattan.... I hadn't thought of the generational angle here. I do feel like it's become a challenge for younger people to enjoy Dionysian delights in an era with crushing debt on one side and addictive traps on the other.
Bjarke Ingels tried to do this with what he called "hedonistic sustainability." The idea is that green architecture and urban planning should make life more pleasurable, not less — that sustainability and quality of life should be mutually reinforcing rather than in tension.
"Hedonism, derived from the Greek word hedonê, meaning "pleasure" or "will," encompasses a range of theories that emphasize the significance of pleasure. Psychological or motivational hedonism posits that human behavior is driven by a fundamental desire to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. In this context, pleasure is regarded as not just a simple aspect of life, but as the ultimate good, guiding principle, and moral foundation of one's existence."
Yours sounds more fun. https://www.archdaily.com/1006443/what-is-hedonistic-sustainability-in-architecture
I love this. Thanks for sharing it.
I love this and I'm here for it. I was just reading how Chinese government official functions have gone alcohol-free and I thought well, that bodes ill....
Thanks Hollis. That means a lot coming from you. That's funny re Chinese government. I think alcohol can be pro-social, pro-civilizational, but that's a topic for another essay. :)
Don't be so gloomy. Hallucinating LLMs prove that AIs can be just as creative as we are. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1m8ydlTYSECUYha5hKcFchZhpn1RPl7uP/view?usp=drivesdk
They are perfectly acceptable but also reveal blind spots.