The Megamachine and the Death of Civilisation

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This video provides an extensive analysis on the writings of the 20th century American philosopher and historian Lewis Mumford and his notion of the ‘megamachine’ as a socio-technical hierarchal apparatus that has emerged and evolved throughout human civilisational history. Under this megatechnical apparatus, the human is reduced to a ‘mechanical mode of existence’, where human life is increasingly shaped to resemble machine-like operations and functions. Additionally, in emphasising the highly urbanised and expansive modern city as the primary centre of the megamachine, this analysis also relates Mumford’s notion of the Megalopolis to the realities of the 21st century city. The main scholars I cite are; Lewis Mumford (philosophical-historical analysis), Sigmund Freud (psychological analysis) and Jared Diamond (historical analysis).

• The Myth of the Machine Volume I & II (Lewis Mumford, 1967, 1970)
• Beyond the Pleasure Principle (Sigmund Freud, 1920)
• Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (Jared Diamond, 2005)

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0:00 – Introduction
09:45 – The Death Drive, Megalopolis and the Machine
51:06 – The Symbolic World and Existentialism
1:07:18 – Closing Remarks

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20 thoughts on “The Megamachine and the Death of Civilisation”

  5. The way i feel it, we stand at a crossroads between epochs. Technological progress cant be halted at this point, unless we fuck up and it happens by accident.

    If we develop ourselves internally, mentally, spiritually enough, and we use technology acordingly, we can have the biggest leap in all qualitative aspects of life.

    However if we dont we can end up straight up extinct.

    If there has ever been a time to set aside diferences and see eachother as part of the same team, with goals that while each unique, are compatible, its now.

    We have to band together and make sure the step into the future is taken steadfastly and unshakingly, because everything we have ever desired awaits there, and everything we ever feared could be there if we fuck up. Right now we all share this goal, to make the move safely. The richest CEO and the poorest homeless both need this same thing. The challenge is wether or not we realise it.

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  6. I feel like projects like the Hyperloop show that it is not about efficiency anymore, because it is more efficient to transport large groups of people than individuals, same with cargo. Maybe it shows that the buyers/consumers are already too stupid to spend money wisely.

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  10. I enjoyed this talk. Good summary of the works of Mumford.

    Around 2009 I was walking down Lexington in the 50s in manhattan and it hit me that the skyscrapers I was seeing were the modern equivalent to the pyramid structures of meso-america and Egypt . They serve the same purposes ,to exert top down control over the masses and to entrain the energy, power and labor of the population in the service of an elite who worships death.

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  14. Establishment hands the reigns to the "bad cop" so they can do bad stuff while the "good cops" get to act pure and antagonistic to American imperialism and the US's fascist behavior at home and abroad (to propagate free-market capitalism). They are both complicit.

    And as long as you entertain that false dichotomy and the economic conditions that allow them to do this, they will keep doing it until you and your community are __depleted__.

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