Not Even Wrong
Philosophy as zero-order humanist Prattleverse
Saturday 23 August 2025
Essay / Metaphysics
Reality is evil
Everything eats and is eaten. Everything destroys and is destroyed. It is our moral duty to strike back at the Universe
Drew M Dalton
What origins research needs is open-mindedness and a willingness to disagree constructively
Have you discovered the new Psyche
Psyche is a digital magazine dedicated to helping you know your self and live well.
©Aeon Media Group Ltd. 2012–2025.
As British physicist, Sir Arthur Eddington wrote in 1929: “[Thermodynamics]…holds the supreme position among the laws of nature… If your theory is found to be against the Second Law of Thermodynamics, I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.” Significantly, both industrial capitalism and its economic guardrail, neoliberal economic theory, defy (ignore, actually) the 2nd Law. This is all you need to know to understand why MTI [Modern Techno-Industrial] culture has "nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation" — William Rees
And for those who skipped the link to read this offering, the shorter of it:
The source:
The author: Drew M Dalton is an American philosopher and professor of English at Indiana University. He is the author of The Ethics of Resistance: Tyranny of the Absolute (2018) and The Matter of Evil: From Speculative Realism to Ethical Pessimism (2023). He lives in Bloomington, Indiana, US.
And excerpts from the offering [with added notes]:
Reality is not what you [or the author] think it is. It is not the foundation of our [author and royal we] joyful flourishing [note: not even wrong]. It is not an eternally renewing resource [in a mere 1.3 billion years, Earth will not be habitable by eukaryotes], nor something that would, were it not for our [modern human] excessive intervention and reckless consumption, continue to harmoniously expand [thanks to Late Modern Human expansionists] into the future. The truth is that reality is not nearly so benevolent [“Nature is unkind.” — Laozi]. Like everything else that exists — stars, microbes, oil, dolphins, shadows, dust and cities — we [metastatic modern domesticants] are nothing more than cups destined to shatter endlessly through time until there is nothing left to break. This, according to the conclusions of scientists over the past two centuries, is the quiet horror [“endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful,” evolution, i.e. joy] that structures existence itself.
We might think this realisation belongs to the past — a closed chapter of 19th-century science — but we are still living through the consequences of the thermodynamic revolution. Just as the full metaphysical implications of the Copernican revolution took centuries to unfold, we [author] have yet to fully grasp the philosophical and existential consequences of entropic decay. We [know-a-lots] have yet to conceive of reality as it truly is. Instead, philosophers cling to an ancient idea of the Universe in which everything keeps growing and flourishing [expanding dominance]. According to this view, existence is good. Reality is good [for expansionist apes during the taking of a planet, for a time].
But what would our metaphysics and ethics look like if we learned that reality was against us [modern humans]? [Okay, I’ve read enough. See Reality is evil for more.]
Eric Lee, cringeworthy idiot
aka H.narrator