Since the American people have decided* to plunge head on into the most hard-core form of the market state (a.k.a. whatever happens after the nation-state is demolished), the question is: what does it make sense to invest in intellectually? What subjects does it make sense to ponder and discuss?
Here is the list I came up with but feel free to add to it:
1. Personal productivity.
2. Time management.
3. Body and health management.
4. Local politics.
5. Psychological health.
6. Personal relationships in the age of fluidity.
7. How best to eradicate the remains of nation-state mentality from one’s way of seeing the world.
The fight for resources and opportunities in the new state form is on. Those who entertain us on TV are very aware of it and are fighting for their share.
Opportunities are massive but they are different and for different things than the ones we are used to.
* What you decide is not about your rhetoric on the subject but about the result. Whatever Trump says, for instance, about wanting to strengthen the nation-state is useless if his actual actions lead in the opposite direction.
Clarissa's Blog 
I would love to read your posts on those topics. Could you also add a post about the decisions of other major countries in the world? For me, major (groups of) countries would be EU / Germany, Russia and Ukraine, Arab countries and most importantly Israel.
I read such news (see below) and think that, for better and for worse, because of our Middle Eastern realities, Israel will preserve the nation state model (with possible small changes) for a long time yet, probably till my death. Am I mistaken?
NEWS 1
Five wounded in Petah Tikva terror attack
Shooting outside crowded market in the city leaves two moderately wounded and three lightly hurt; shooter fled scene but captured by civilians and neutralized by police shortly thereafter; one man stabbed in the neck when he tried to capture terrorist.
…
The shooter, a 19-year-old from the Nablus area, fled the scene but was shortly thereafter captured by civilians, who neutralized him using a sewing machine. He was then arrested by police and taken to the hospital for treatment.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4920284,00.html
NEWS 2
Mass ultra-Orthodox protest brings traffic to a halt
Hundreds of Haredi demonstrators pour onto the streets of Jerusalem, Bnei Brak and elsewhere in protest against the imprisonment of an ultra-Orthodox soldier who deserted from the IDF; central roads see heavy congestion as police attempt to drag the protesters from the sites to calls of ‘Nazis’ and ‘murderers’; a soldier was seen spraying protesters with pepper spray; 31 arrested so far.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4920232,00.html
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Both pieces of news are from today, btw.
The first piece of news shows once again that violence won’t stop anytime soon, and so won’t the national bonding resulting from being a society under attack.
The second piece of news is connected since the issue of obligatory draft is a nation state’s issue.
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I don’t know if this makes me doomed or ahead of the game, but that is basically a list of my favorite topics to think about 🙂 So definitely write about them!
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You are very much ahead of the game. Good for you!
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Since the American people have decided* to plunge head on into the most hard-core form of the market state (a.k.a. whatever happens after the nation-state is demolished), the question is: what does it make sense to invest in intellectually? What subjects does it make sense to ponder and discuss?
¯_(ツ)_/¯ (Puts a pin in it to think about later)
4. Local politics.
a)I had a project many years ago where I had set up daily news alerts for the 50 most populous cities and their mayors. I abandoned the project because it was simply too much information to process and do something with and because all of the US stories seemed to have the same “national and state problems are messing up x locality’s budget.” Plus I think I used the wrong platform and it was more in service of “deciding where to move to.”
b) A project of contact numbers and information for all representatives of the state houses, state senates and state governors (as the base for an app?) seems too large for one person unless they know how to scrape information off social media and their official websites or they handle it by going Mechanical Turk.
6. Personal relationships in the age of fluidity.
Obviously, immigrants, academics and possibly the young are better equipped? Maybe?
a) My cousin’s child excitedly told me about how she knew where this Minecraft video blogger lived down to the blogger’s street address view from Google maps. She was making conversation; I was just thinking “What the hell?”
b) How is your nephew and niece skyping/gchatting with you? My mother has figured out how to video chat with her siblings, mostly without my help.
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I’d add financial management and asset protection.
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Exactly.
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Persona management and identity theft.
In an age of fluidity, people are different things to different people. Also there is literally persona management software.
Identity theft could fall under asset protection. We are in an era where having the right “identity” is more important than ever and more documentation is required for each identity, so they are vulnerable to all kinds of attacks including infosec. Increasingly an identity without a paper or pixel trail does not exist.
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Very true.
Plus, branding. An individual as a brand.
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This is all very interesting. One of the things that I’ve been thinking about for a while is a need to cultivate an new attitude which I’m currently thinking of ‘engaged detachment’ or ‘prepared detachment’.
I teach at a large public university in a full-time, renewable, decently paying, but not tenured position. My department’s enrollments are decent and there’s no immediate threat to my job. At the same time, our state legislature seems bent on slowly destroying public higher ed in our state. It seems somewhat likely that my university might decide at some point in the next 20-25 years that it doesn’t need (or can’t afford) someone doing what I do. On the one hand, it makes sense for me to invest a lot in my teaching and my program to keep it strong and viable and also to market myself as a valuable person who the university might keep on to some other thing when they don’t want what I do now. At the same time, it makes sense to be mentally preparing for things to change, to emotionally detach from the outcome so that my energies and emotions are ready to pursue the next thing when the time comes. So both engaged and detached.
I feel this attitude is also necessary in politics, we need to fight Trumpism and the radical-right in every way possible. At the same time, we aren’t going to have the time and energy for feeling defeated after the many battles we are inevitably going to lose. So we must be engaged in the fight, but prepared to detach from the outcome.
I’ve identified this as a challenge for me because I do have a tendency to give in to defeat and to get emotionally bogged down in old things and things that have gone wrong. Those tendencies haven’t served me well in the past and it seems they will be even greater disadvantages in the future.
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These are crucial observations, crucial. Attachment means rootedness, while fluidity demands detachment.
I’d suggest a detachment from any job, institution, or company and attachment instead to one’s own growth, enjoyment and work. Using up the resources and discarding any institution because that’s what it will do to you anyway.
And yes, absolutely, emotional detachment from anything but the strictly private.
Thank you, this is very helpful.
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The trick is going to be getting my brain to go along. Being detached from things that I deal with everyday just doesn’t come naturally.
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Damn, Tom. I didn’t want to read something so real to start my weekend. What an insightful comment.
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