Looking at ecash as a privacy layer for p2p payments on top of BTC albeit with a custodial element with mints
Denial alone cannot be the basis of the post-Adamic moment which approaches us. Standalone platforms harnessing LLM capabilities will not be as destabilising as the fusion of biology and dataism.
I mention dataism specifically because most bio-computer initiatives, currently being evolved or developed by companies that have an inherent commercial bias on leveraging behavioral data that can be analyzed and incorporated into business models and algorithms. Dataism is premised on the assumption that biological behavioral patterns through cyberspace are a commodity that can be bought or sold and synthesized into "business models" for optimization and "priming".
However beyond biological data there is the more fundamental question of what happens when man is synthesized with machine and the Adamic form is absorbed by the augmented cyborg. Fiqh can certainly respond and react to developments as they unfold. But it cannot be relied upon to evolve a proactive spirit, an orientation ahead of time. At least fiqh in its current iteration and configurations of political economy and bureaucratic stasis vis-a-vis its orientation and troubled relationships with the nightmare modern states of the post-colonial Islamicate.
Now is the need for evolving post-Adamic Tasawwuf, where cyborg can be tamed to serve God - a sufic taming of the man-machine synthesis that denies biological dataism, panoptic supremacy.
Notes On Cybernetic Uncertainty
https://listed.to/@TheIqraFiles/51558/notes-on-cybernetic-uncertainty
There is an arresting paragraph in Hallaq's Impossible State where he talks about how the paradigm of the modern state finds no overlap or common cause with that of Islamic governance:
"Nor did Islamic governance know anything like the scale of surveillance generated by the modern state’s police and prison systems. These, so normalized and a matter of fact today, would have been horrifying to Muslims as specters of domination and cruelty. Nor, still, did Islamic rule so much as tamper with the sphere of education, which remained not only private but also nonformal and highly accessible, accommodating the entire spectrum of social strata"
There are a few times in the Impossible State where Hallaq touches upon the coercive and pervasive net of surveillance the modern state casts over everything it sees in an effort to shape the moral nature of its citizens. Nearly every time he does so he references Foucault's work which is to be expected given his intervention in this particular facet of political philosophy.
Hallaq though does not reference the Cypherpunks as a philosophical resource even though the two share striking similarities. One of the biggest drawbacks with Hallaq's work is there is not enough translation of how his astute theoretical analysis translates into the modern machinery of the State in terms of how it actually works. This does not detract from the merit of his work at all, but there is an opportunity that goes begging.
The modern State is a parasite that logs everything you do, leaving no sphere for an "individual" to truly emerge, it is a consumptive pathology that leaves no space for autonomy even though it dresses itself up in the rhetoric of High Enlightenment aesthetics. This inescapable fact that is now proven beyond reproach is the ultimate vindication of the Hallaqian thesis.
"Exile occurs when society at large becomes estranged from right living and there is an absence of an ethical spirit and voice, when an era lacks a great moral figure or soul"
An Islamicate articulation of the surreal and banal horror of machinification cannot begin in the absence of eschatological belief in the heart of the believer. In Sunni cosmology, as time yawns ahead of us and leaves behind the Prophetic era we are in continuous state of moral decay as we approach the Last Day. Sunni eschatology to those who regularly refresh their hearts with the reminders and literature around the topic will be familiar with the visceral and detailed descriptions of complete moral breakdown and decay and the increasing Prophetic advice that in such times we must withdraw, refrain and retire physically away from such evil whilst engaged in a war for spiritual purification by clinging on to prayer with the Qur'an as a shield. With such an eschatological superstructure one should not be terribly shocked or surprised by the accelerationist contentions (they are varied and diverse) about the march of technocapital and the havoc it would wreck. Nor should the Sunni be terribly surprised that the ruling political elites would exert tremendous oppression to expand and cling on to power.
No role but mocking the importance ascribed to him when the his performance on Twitter will bring in new signups handing over data without a second thought - transgression is absorbed and repackaged back as a consumer choice
Props to Elon - he's playing a different game. Rile up everyone into a chimp contest of r-tards claiming who is more based/racist etc all the while building the Everything App - monetizing the simulated conflict and keeping it within the logic of the new cybernetic system.
The Eye of Sauron is upon us but wait everyone is holding mock inquisitorial trials of who is more racist and charging peasants $5 a month via their Patreon for the viewing pleasure.
For every peasant the most important question on the Right or Left right now is who is more racist and they charge people and game the algorithm on this basis.
Alex Jones really matters when you'll happily transfer your biometrics, financial statements, bank account and passport ID to Twitter within the next five years.
New Iqra File - Notes On Bitcoin Futuwwa
https://listed.to/@TheIqraFiles/49749/notes-on-bitcoin-futuwwa
Yuk Hui who is the author of Cosmotechnics, proposes an idea of technology that tries to bridge the gap between technical expertise and having a cosmological sense of one's place in the world. In effect, it tries to sacralize one's relationship with machinery and technology.
However, it remains to be seen whether cosmotechnics can evolve beyond just a niche interest of those who are privacy conscious and already aware of the metaphysical implications of the hyperdigital and data harvesting decay of American Empire.
Rather, the task for cosmotechnics is whether it can fully sustain itself as a alternative civilization on paradigm to the one that we currently have, which is premised on big tech surveillance, corporate espionage, and state-sponsored spyware.
If cosmotechnics indeed offers an alternative paradigm to the Leviathan-like organism which is big tech, then it has to be grounded in local sacred cosmologies and local ideas about vicegerency and custodianship, which figures prominently in the Islamicate ethical traditions.
The inherent fragility with the whole tradition of Islamicate critique of modernity from Guenon onwards, finding its fullest expression in the normative Sunnism of al-Attas is that if were to fully realise their projects on their own terms we would be doomed to extinction. This is not to say they are wrong, mistaken - far from it. They are inherently fragile projects because if you take their projects seriously on their own terms with sympathetic good-faith engagement and try to scale it up, I don't see how you escape becoming Luddite fodder.
This fragility - where success, victory of Islamicate critiques end up cannibalizing the entire project is a recurrent theme and motif not just in these philosophically sophisticated critiques but also the Ikhwanist projects too
"Martin Heidegger, in his 1966 interview (published ten years later) with Der Spiegel, was asked what came after the end of philosophy; Heidegger answered: cybernetics. In other words, he announced that cybernetics marked the end of Western philosophy"
New post offering some stray reflections on Digital Sovereignty https://listed.to/@TheIqraFiles/48280/notes-on-digital-sovereignty
My new piece on The Iqra Files - Notes On British Muslim Politics that reflects and expands on a recent substack piece by Muhammad Jalal
- links to both pieces below
https://listed.to/@TheIqraFiles/48062/notes-on-british-muslim-politics
https://jalalayn.substack.com/p/the-uk-muslim-community-needs-an
The most insufferable part of liberalism is pretending to go along with the charade that clearly astroturfed, hollowed out, propped-up by-the-Deep-State mainstream "intellectuals" and legacy media orgs are "free and independent" and not a clumsily dim part of imperial propaganda
Enhanced privacy can play a significant role in fostering a deeper and more authentic religious outlook. When individuals are not preoccupied with the burden of performance, they can prioritize pleasing the Creator over seeking the approval of Creation. Privacy allows for the cultivation of sincerity and introspection, as individuals are not pressured to conform to social expectations or project a public persona for financial gain and social advancement.
In a world where surveillance and public scrutiny are pervasive, the quest for sincerity can be impeded by the constant need to manage one's image. By minimizing these barriers, individuals can focus on their personal relationship with their faith, free from the distractions and expectations imposed by society. This freedom enables Muslims to engage in genuine acts of worship, devotion, and self-improvement that are driven by a sincere desire to please the Creator rather than to maintain a façade for the sake of appearances.
By embracing privacy and eliminating the pressure to perform in a particular fashion, Muslims can develop a more authentic religious outlook that is grounded in humility, sincerity, and devotion. This approach allows for a deeper connection with one's faith, fostering a sense of spiritual fulfilment and inner peace that transcends the fleeting rewards of social approval and material success.
Syntheticism - trying to replace God with slow and cumbersome bureaucratic institutions - ''the State'' with promises based around abstractions grounded in political ideology of one particular flavour of the Enlightenment or the other - Marxism. Liberalism etc
21st century - trying to replace God by reinventing the human from a foundational aspect - by manufacturing a new type of biology and neuro-chemistry from scratch. Whether through manipulation via tech or reconstructing aspects of our humanness through piece-meal application.
Such engineering and craftsmanship has been made possible through the harvesting and unparalleled access to the habits of mind and heart of the populace which is viable through a culture of passive digital consumption that trades momentary gratification for privacy.
Remember that the "sexual revolution" was only really made possible through novel pharmacological breakthroughs in contraception.
Prior to that such monstrosities were the preserve of perverted French intellectuals but it was pharmacological manipulation that brought this perversion to the masses - the liberalism we live amidst today in the Anglosphere in its social dimension really is just a child of the pharmacological industry precariously upheld with a cocktail of SSRIs, OCPs and opioid ''analgesia"
"The Hallaqian 20th-century State sought to control nature - nature was the raw material - the earth, the trees, the rivers - and this yielded particular byproducts that fashioned a new subject - the citizen. It was this imperative to mastery that created the 20th-century State.
The 21st-century State no longer has such tame ambitions to control nature alone - it will now seek to control human nature directly, unmediated. This move from nature to humans captures the twilight age of the liberal hypothesis as we move towards the cybernetic"
https://listed.to/@TheIqraFiles/44114/the-hallaqian-problem-and-cybernetics
Existential Threats of Progress, the Modern Financial System, the Metaverse - youtu.be/8_8UcjFLeGI