1 Matching Annotations
  1. May 2022
    1. The hyperthreat’s center of gravity (COG), the key characteristic that provides its power, is its freedom of movement, which is enabled by its hyperobject-like invisibility and unknowability and by human hesitancy to respond. Human activity that fuels the hyperthreat is often legal, has social license, and is understood as legitimate business or security activity; its contribution to slow violence is often obscured

      Invisibility is a key characteristic of hyperthreats: we can't fight the enemy we don't perceive. We have not evolved the human sensory apparatus to make it visible. Our uuwelt (Uexkull) is not tuned to pick up and physiologically warn us about hyperthreats such as the tiny, invisible molecules of carbon dioxide or methane that we are spewing out everywhere. We are also not armed with default cognitive tools to make undeniable sense of it.

      The "hyperthreat" is a useful meta-level construct because it allows us to tie together many fragments and make sense of it as symptoms of a higher level causal agent. Use of the word "intentional" seem to give hyperthreats a superorganism-like living quality.