Hi David, Many thanks for your commentary here - I am always interested on accounts from those more familiar with Heidegger since, like the late Mary Midgley, I have found the denseness of his terminology rather off-putting (although I have enjoyed my engagement with his short essays very much). For me, the truth in relativity is that expressing a truth involves finding how seemingly disparate viewpoints converge upon a common understanding. I am uncertain what Heidegger would make of such a claim. Much appreciated, Chris.

Hi Stuart, As you can see in the way I had to construct my argument here, it is difficult to rebut the "Everything is political" position because it is a tautology i.e. it is automatically true but entirely vacuous. But I do think the analysis in this piece broadly holds up. I don't have a more elegant way of putting this together, but your idea to show that it leads to an absurd situation is a sound strategy. I like the way you develop this approach here, although I feel neither of us have a slam-dunk way of shutting down this kind of entrenched position - in those who espouse it, it is practically a dogma and therefore difficult to shake! Thanks for raising this comment here! The woman who I wrote this for, Sheila, has sadly passed away in the years since, but it warms my heart to see something of her survive in the thrust of this piece. All the best, Chris.

Hey NoShep, Always a pleasure to meet a Ghost Master fan! There were definitely issues with timing involved in that project, and the situation is very different now. As for the sound track - that was the magnificent Paul Weir, who also did the soundtrack for Discworld Noir... I've always enjoyed working with him - and we'll get him back for the spiritual successor when it's time comes. Now we're not officially ready to launch our mailing list, but if you hop over to ihobo.com you'll find you can already sign up from the sidebar. We're in shakedown right now, but the list should launch later this week. That's the best way to stay in the loop about what we're planning. All the best, Chris.

Hey dmf, I wouldn't single out object oriented ontology specifically as useless - my general sense here is that "all ontology is utterly useless" i.e. our imagined models of how things sit together are not as important as we like to emotionally invest into. This was as true of Middle Ages cosmotheology as much as it is true now, for reasons I wrote about previously in Ontology as Non-theology, which is a piece that (rather fittingly!) nobody really cared about, even though I feel it contains an absolutely critical observation on our contemporary philosophical situation that perhaps ought to be taken more seriously than it is. Ian does great work in The Atlantic, and I admit a little touch of envy that he has such a platform available! But he has earned it, too. I'm also jealous that he has got to be part of a philosophical movement whereas I get to be a loner, which is not as much fun. But these feelings are pretty trivial and I don't let them bother me. :) All the best, Chris.

Hey Justin, "Every time a new piece of software or modular synth comes on the market, you can hear the kids teasing the wonder hidden within them. Instructions manuals belong in the bin. The chaos continues." This is such a wonderful reflection on this topic, many thanks for stopping by and writing such a lengthy comment, Justin! I had put this into the list of pieces to write about a while back, in part as a result of conversations we had had previously, and writing it was particularly satisfying since so many of these A Hundred Cyborgs pieces end up downbeat, and this one (if you'll excuse the pun) danced around the issues more joyously. I'm wary of being too positive about the details about the electronic music scene, but at the same time I do find Illich's conviviality amongst this network of beings and things, and think it a context where we can still find some hope in our relationship with robots. Hope life is treating you well, and vice versa, Chris.

Hey dmf, Thanks for another weird and wonderful link! You certainly have your fingers in some interesting internet pies! Chris.

Ha, Ian and I go way back... He's the one dual class philosopher-game designer to have more name recognition than me. :) Thanks for the link, Chris.