Lunch of the last human:Nutritionally complete food and the fantasies of market-based progress

In this article, we integrate Nietzsche’s visions of self-overcoming with a Žižekian toolbox to explore how ‘market-based progress’ is upheld through a fabric of ideological fantasies. Through an analysis of Huel, a nutritionally complete British food brand aligned with progressive and techno-utopian discourses, we reveal a fantasmatic structure centred on pragmatism, the search for unassailable truth and continuance of a prehistoric legacy. These fantasies function as illusory support for acceptance that humanity’s great overcoming is singularly achieved through market logic and ethos. Here, a fetishistic inversion centres on subjects believing that the detached spectatorialism of consumption is closer to the act of the Nietzschean ‘Overhuman’ than it is to its inverse, the ‘last human’. This article provides the parameters for how ideological fantasy insulates the market from its material deadlocks and concludes with a conceptualization of the post-sovereign consumer’s subjectification along the fantastical contours of market-based progress

Consumption and cultural commodification : the case of the museum as commodity

Marketing theory has traditionally sought explanation of commodity consumption based upon psychological and economic assumptions of needs, utility and exchange value, a paradigm of understanding that is becoming increasingly problematic. An alternative perspective of commodity consumption is presented, drawing on contemporary social and cultural theory where the commodity form constitutes a cultural and social logic; a discourse of communication which consumers use to mediate and participate in daily life. Instead of defining commodities in terms of use value and economic value, the commodity is seen in terms of a specific subject-object relation experienced in late capitalism, manifest as sign value and sign exchange. Taking the case of the museum, a context that it increasingly applying the terminology of the market, consumer and commodity; a qualitative research project is undertaken to asses the credibility of the cultural theoretical approach. It is proposed that the museum functions as a site of commodification, presenting history and culture as a set of commodities for visitors consumption. Whilst sign value is a useful concept in explaining commodity consumption, it is suggested a clear distinction between use value, exchange value and sign value is unworkable in practice and that utility and exchange value can be most accurately represented as cultural conditions rather than economic ones. The study suggests that consumption should be conceptualised as a constructive, active and productive process which involves the consumer in a continual exchange, use and manipulation of signs. The role of marketing is thus most appropriately thought of as a facilitative capacity rather as a provisional or directive force that mediates consumption behaviour

Dystopia and quarantined markets : An interview with James Fitchett

We present an invited interview with Professor James Fitchett (University of Leicester) on the idea of dystopia and dystopic tendencies in the historical moment of the Covid-19 pandemic.(1) With his wonderfully nuanced background in psychoanalytic theory and a keen interest in understanding market phenomena critically through ideology, paradox, fantasy, simulation, narcissism and sadism among others, James provides a sweeping and sometimes surprising account of how utopia can be both quite selfish and mundanely bland, and how dystopia can be vastly attractive and deeply desired in consumption.Non peer reviewe

Recoiling from a kick in the head-on collision of spinning black holes

Recoil ``kicks'' induced by gravitational radiation are expected in the inspiral and merger of black holes. Recently the numerical relativity community has begun to measure the significant kicks found when both unequal masses and spins are considered. Because understanding the cause and magnitude of each component of this kick may be complicated in inspiral simulations, we consider these effects in the context of a simple test problem. We study recoils from collisions of binaries with initially head-on trajectories, starting with the simplest case of equal masses with no spin and then adding spin and varying the mass ratio, both separately and jointly. We find spin-induced recoils to be significant relative to unequal-mass recoils even in head-on configurations. Additionally, it appears that the scaling of transverse kicks with spins is consistent with post-Newtonian theory, even though the kick is generated in the nonlinear merger interaction, where post-Newtonian theory should not apply. This suggests that a simple heuristic description might be effective in the estimation of spin-kicks.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures. Replaced with published version, including more discussion of convergence and properties of final hol

Just For Fun a History of Mentality Based Analysis of Hedonic and Experiential Consumption

EXTENDED ABSTRACT -We call attention to experience orientatio

A General Formula for Black Hole Gravitational Wave Kicks

Although the gravitational wave kick velocity in the orbital plane of coalescing black holes has been understood for some time, apparently conflicting formulae have been proposed for the dominant out-of-plane kick, each a good fit to different data sets. This is important to resolve because it is only the out-of-plane kicks that can reach more than 500 km/s and can thus eject merged remnants from galaxies. Using a different ansatz for the out-of-plane kick, we show that we can fit almost all existing data to better than 5 %. This is good enough for any astrophysical calculation, and shows that the previous apparent conflict was only because the two data sets explored different aspects of the kick parameter space.Comment: 14 pages

Contamination of depressional wetlands in the Mpumalanga Lake District of South Africa near a global emission hotspot

The Mpumalanga Lake District (MLD) of South Africa hosts a regionally unique cluster of water bodies of great importance for wetland biodiversity. It is also located close to a global hotspot for coal-fired power station emissions but the local impacts from these sources of pollution are poorly understood. Sediment cores from three contrasting wetlands were 210Pb dated and analysed for a range of contaminants linked to fossil fuel combustion, including trace elements, Hg, sulphur and spheroidal carbonaceous fly-ash particles (SCPs). At the two sites with pre-industrial (1900) baseline sediments, Pb, Zn and especially Cr concentrations and fluxes showed significant increases in the impact period (post-1975). Mercury showed the greatest proportional increase in flux (>4-fold) of all trace metals. Mercury and sulphur concentrations and fluxes showed highly significant correlations with emissions over the corresponding periods, while SCPs in sediments also closely tracked emissions. In a global context, levels of sediment contamination are relatively minor compared with other heavily industrialised regions, with only Cr exceeding the sediment Probable Effects Concentration for biological impact post-1975. Despite the relatively large increases in Hg, concentrations do not reach the Threshold Effects Concentration. The unexpectedly low levels of contamination may be due to i) low levels of many trace contaminants in South African coals compared to global averages, ii) prevailing recirculation patterns which transport pollution away from the study area during the wet season, minimising wet deposition, and iii) pollutant remobilisation through desiccation of wetlands or volatilization. The effects of hydrology and sediment accumulation rates lead to differential transport and preservation of organic-associated and more volatile contaminants (e.g. Hg, S) relative to non-volatile trace elements in wetlands of the MLD. The greatest fluxes of Hg and S are recorded in the site with the highest catchment: lake area ratio, lowest salinity and greatest sediment organic matter content