Abnormal Capitalist

XXXTentacion’s Death Is a Reminder to Mourn, but Not to Forget

As the rapper Jidenna tweeted, “For those who are so woke that their compassion is asleep, remember this…if Malcolm X was killed at the age of 20, he would have died an abuser, a thief, an addict, and a narrow-minded depressed & violent criminal. So, I believe in change for the young.” His point is not to equate XXXTentacion with Malcolm X, but to put some perspective that young and lost souls can sometimes evolve into something greater given the opportunity. Whether XXXTentacion would have made good for his wrongs we’ll never know.

And from The Atlantic :

XXXTentacion may have spent his career trying to convince his most ardent young fans that they’re worth more than they believe, but his legacy—of trauma endured and seemingly unrepentantly inflicted—reminds us that worth has never been distributed evenly.

→ HighSnobiety

[Russian Oligarchs] May Have to Explain Source of Wealth to Get UK Visa

Finally :

Downing Street confirmed it was looking at individuals who were still in the UK and holding tier 1 visas, which allow anyone who invests more than £2m in the British economy to stay for 40 months.

‘Cause it never seemed so :

Responding to the reports on the delay with Abramovich’s visa, the Kremlin claimed that Russian businesses often encountered “unfair and unfriendly” actions when applying to come to the UK.

Those “people” applying for a tier 1 visa are so entangled with the Russian “government” :

But Theresa May’s official spokesman said: “The prime minister has been absolutely clear that our argument is not with the Russian people, our dispute is with the Russian government.”

→ Guardian

Trump’s Victim-Blaming Response To The Mass Shooting

Would we really rather lock up people than lock up guns? And is all that supposed to be facilitated with an ethic of mass mutual suspicion? Perhaps the next move of America’s gun promoters will be to place the blame on some other group of people with backgrounds and beliefs that the majority finds jarring. Will they keep drawing the circle of the good with an ever smaller circumference, until it resembles nothing so much as an armed camp, packed with guns? President Trump might call that a great and safe community. And whom will he blame then?

→ The New Yorker

This Is Danny Pearl’s Final Story

“What is grief?” I recently asked psychologist Steven Stosny, posing the obvious question I’d avoided for so long.

“It’s an expression of love,” he told me. “When you grieve, you allow yourself to love again.”

“How do you grieve?” I asked him.

“You celebrate a person’s life by living your life fully.”

• • •

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed never said a word to the court in Guantánamo that day. When the last words of the 88-page charge sheet were finally read at 10:28 pm, 13 hours and 5 minutes after the proceeding began, the judge cracked his gavel and just like that the arraignment came to a swift, odd end.

KSM stood up and smiled, and I watched as he picked up a stack of books draped with his tazbi, his prayer beads. A minute later, he was gone. And what was I left with?

Relief. Relief that I could finally feel sad that Danny would never come back.

→ Washingtonian

Is Consciousness Fractal?

This intersection between our experience and fractals may run even deeper than Taylor’s evolutionary hypothesis. “Any act of creativity is an act of physiology,” Goldberger says. “The extent that we are fractalized in our essence makes you think that maybe we would project that onto the world and see it back, recognize it as familiar. So when we look at and create art, and when we decide what to take as high art, are we in fact possibly looking back into ourselves? Is creation in part a re-creation?” “It wouldn’t come as a shock to me if consciousness is fractal,” Taylor says. “But I have no idea how that will manifest itself.”

→ Nautilus