I had a tweet go viral about fatherhood and the responses were fascinating. Matt Walsh did a segment on it, TMZ did a segment, thousands of parents shared their own takes. In this episode, I reflect on what the discourse revealed to me.

While I love my children deeply, I often find the act of playing with them tedious. The massive backlash to this basic fact contrasted sharply with the private support I received from many fathers. I use this experience to explore a theory about modern fatherhood: that we are living through an explosion of complexity where traditional benchmarks for what constitutes "enough" (money, safety, success) have dissolved, leaving fathers in a state of constant silent anxiety. I conclude with a reflection on the indie scholar path: One does not have to be a talking head like Matt Walsh, play-acting like an uptight know-it-all, but one also does not have to be a sad, silent nobody who never formulates any interesting or meaningful observations. A lot of people think I'm an attention seeker because I go viral occasionally, but I've actually been doing only one thing for about 15 years. My usually quiet, humble thinking and writing just occasionally break into the limelight. This is fine.

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In this episode, we analyze the sentence "Neo-China arrives from the future" from Nick Land's 1994 essay "Meltdown." For Land, Capital is an autonomous intelligence from the future and China is the privileged site of arrival due to its lack of Western moral constraints. We cover China's Special Economic Zones, Land's predictions of Western decline versus Eastern acceleration, and the concept of Sino-futurism. Looking at the data, we find that Land's concept here is surprisingly prescient and accurately predictive; given the mention of China in "The Dark Enlightenment" and his own move to to Shanghai, this idea is arguably one of his most serious, long-term, and high-conviction ideas. I offer one counter-hypothesis on why I think China might not remain the privileged site of technocapital acceleration in the medium-term.

00:00 Intro
01:45 "Arriving from the future"
04:02 Why China? Western Moral Drag
10:15 Why this sentence is underrated
14:08 China in "The Dark Enlightenment"
18:08 A closer look at Chinese Acceleration
22:15 Sinofuturism

• (00:00) - Intro
• (01:45) - "Arriving from the future"
• (04:02) - Why China? Western Moral Drag
• (10:15) - Why this sentence is underrated
• (14:08) - China in "The Dark Enlightenment"
• (18:08) - A closer look at Chinese Acceleration
• (22:15) - Sinofuturism

I jumped on the livestream for the first time in a while. I discuss the Montaigne chapter in The Independent Scholar, the current debate around IVF & Embryo Selection, and take some questions.

I wrote about IVF and Embryo Selection here: https://justinmurphy.studio/ivf/

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✦ Pre-order my new book, The Independent Scholar: https://otherlife.co/scholar

• (00:00) - Introduction and Welcome Back
• (02:18) - Life Updates and Current Work
• (06:44) - On Independent Scholarship
• (08:10) - Montaigne as an Independent Scholar
• (19:26) - On Embryo Selection and IVF
• (24:58) - Why Do Shrimp Matter More Than Embryos?
• (25:59) - Why Do Video Game Characters Matter More Than Embryos?
• (35:37) - Long-Term Consequences of Embryo Selection
• (43:58) - In-Utero Gene Editing is Approved by the Church
• (45:41) - Final Thoughts and Q&A