Talk:Nick Land

Distinct
This is a largely unsourced-but-sourceable narrative: there are two distinct Nick Lands, as there are two distinct Wittgensteins. The current NL is quite alien to his old pupils like Ray Brassier, but he's the one who writes in That's Shanghai, the one who wrote "The Dark Englightenment", cited in the external links but not in the text and so on.

When I chanced upon Robin McKay, who had co-written an introduction with Brassier to Fanged Noumena, I had to ask whether that Nick Land was the "Dark Enlightenment" Nick Land, and well -- it's the same person, and he had written this essay that sort of implies that Nick Land went insane from overwork:

http://divus.cc/london/en/article/nick-land-ein-experiment-im-inhumanismus

and I quote


 * According to the present-day Nick Land, the person who wrote the following texts no longer exists. Yet for anyone who knew him, it is difficult to speak about these works without recalling Land as he was then.

There's a whole story to be dug up here; I'm just involved enough with it that I'm not the right person to start typing on the actual page. But something has to be said about this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dnavarro (talk • contribs) 00:58, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Weasel
Came here to read about the man but I found -- to me impossible to judge -- "weasely" information... "Nick Land WAS a philosopher..." (Sounded dead to me) and "currently 'works' at..."Wahlin (talk) 21:42, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Unintelligible 'Notable Ideas'/Lack of NPOV
Anybody who goes to this page to look for a summary of the ways that this 'philosopher' has influenced the discourse--which is, I think, the best use of Wikipedia when it comes to philosophy--will be pretty baffled by such hermeticisms as 'numogramatics' or 'tic-xenotation.' This might not be so bad if there were some explanation of such terms somewhere in Wikipedia, but alas, Land's disciple(s) have not been so diligent. Also it seems that 'numogramatics' contains three m's in most sources, although I still have no clue what it means or what might make it notable. Clearly, then, the 'notable ideas' section requires serious revision, supplement, or removal. It's also curious that Kode9, the electronic music artist, is listed as a major philosophical descendent of Nick Land.

From the forementioned issues, it's pretty clear to me that this is not a neutral article. At the very least, the article needs to have a little more information in regards to Land's supposedly notable ideas, because right now it reads more like a CV than an article on a contemporary thinker of note. Philosophies may differ here, but I think it should be clear to the reader why a given philosopher should be given an encyclopedia article, and that clearly isn't apparent here. This would lead me to question the general notability of this guy or the 'Dark Enlightenment' which he birthed, but I don't mean to presume on that larger topic. If anyone has ideas on how to settle these notability problems, I'd love to hear. --One More Dilettante (talk) 02:19, 26 June 2016 (UTC)


 * He's had a lot of press, most recently around the Dark Enlightenment stuff. He'd pass general notability. But yeah, this isn't a very good article at all - David Gerard (talk) 11:45, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Does this help?
 * https://www.reddit.com/r/counting/comments/6tgncc/tic_xenotation/ Jenkowelten (talk) 04:43, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm new to wikipedia and as soon as i figure out this fucking formatting stuff I can help fill out this article. One of the problems is that most of what I could say about Land's work comes from primary sources, even as it's been really influential, there aren't enough clear secondary-source summations of it. It's too bad that this article is a stub because Land is the father of accelerationism which is really more and more relevant these days. Ccru's early work is based in Deleuze, Lovecraft, cybernetics, burroughs, and more... Gillesdeleuze13 (talk) 19:06, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Well, I went ahead and removed the 'notable ideas' section until someone can come up with some better candidates and/or elaborate on those ideas of his that are supposedly notable. --One More Dilettante (talk) 02:18, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 22:21, 27 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Nick Land
 * I don`t understand why it got finally deleted. CN1 (talk) 19:48, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi CN1. It got deleted for the usual reasons: It was a screen shot from a youtube video and as such, was a possible copyright violation. In order to include a photo, we would need something that was public domain or close to it. A typical route is to find a Creative Commons licensed image, e.g. a photo of Nick Land that was designated CC 4.0 by-sa and posted on Flickr. Also acceptable: a photo that Nick Land himself allowed Commons to publish as communicated via OTR. There are other ways too. I agree that a photo should be added, but I have no idea as to how to find one that is acceptable for WP.--FeralOink (talk) 22:20, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

There's a lot of wordpress/blogspot cruft
I notice a lot of content from self-published sites. Quite a bit seems to be from very notable individuals in Land's orbit. At the time, there seems to be a WP:DUE problem. For now, if I pull out one of these sources, I'll add it here for future reference:
 * Terminator vs. Avatar: Notes on Accelerationism (Mark Fisher's blog)
 * (another Mark Fisher blog)
 * Hyperstition (artist blog?)

Jlevi (talk) 15:45, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

problem editing influenced
I tried to remove ray brassier, as there's no mention of him in Brassier's article, but it wiped the influenced/s section. Any help? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.211.148.85 (talk) 19:46, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Lead reversion explanation
I recently reverted a change to the lead. I did so because the original version seemed to include many more descriptions of what Land believes, while the edited version flattens the description down to "founder of NrX", a term the reader may be unfamiliar to start with. In this sense, I don't think the edit successfully "clarif[ies] Land's beliefs", as described in their edit summary. Jlevi (talk) 12:48, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

Mistaken edits
Someone named Vaseline [sic] removed my very brief edits to the Nick Land entry on the grounds of "word count." If all you wish is to keep word count to a minimum, you might as well delete the whole text. My edits were no more than five words describing Land’s philosophy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.139.66.2 (talk) 16:39, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Yep, anything other than what you wrote is basically whitewashing. GenGen100 (talk) 18:17, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 11:20, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Nick-Land.jpg

New blog
On the contact page of his Xenosystems blog, Land gave @Outsideness (archive as of 2021-03-26) as his Twitter account; on that account he gives both zerophilosophy.substack.com and xenosystems.net as personal websites. According to WP:BLPSELFPUB (if I understand it correctly), the Xenosystems contact page is a reliable source for the attribution of the Twitter account, and given that attribution, the Twitter account is one for the attribution of the Substack newsletter. I have therefore added the Substack newsletter to the External Links, in addition to changing the dead links to his earlier blogs into links to the Wayback Machine's archives of them. - 73.195.249.93 (talk) 01:07, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Looks good. Jlevi (talk) 04:29, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Subtly insulting lede?
Why does the lede say Nick Land advocates hyperracism? I did not get that impression at all.

Would Orwell endorse 1984-style government by writing a book on the matter? Looks like a cheap insult.

70.254.6.252 (talk) 08:04, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Can we please say "describing" or "discussing" rather than advocating?

70.254.6.252 (talk) 05:13, 5 June 2021 (UTC)


 * On a similar note, why is he under the category for 'conspiracy theorists'? No citations for that FatalSubjectivities (talk) 15:39, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Reception
The reception sections could expanded. Mark fisher has said much more on the subject and many others as well. So far it only focuses on one facet of the analysis from outside opinion. 2603:6010:11F0:3C0:41AE:CBFD:1BC9:E577 (talk) 13:28, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Nick Land's Life in Silicon Valley and, Later, Alleged Support of the Order of Nine Angles
So, to my estimation, Land used to be kind of this Silicon Valley socialite, known in techno-utopian circles for some kind of cyberdelic raves or something, which I think is a rather interesting biographical note.

I also think that, at some point, he expressed support for the Order of Nine Angles, though I can't quite remember where I found that online, and, so, couldn't say for sure, as this is debated on the page on them here on Wikipedia. To my knowledge, Land does support the Dark Enlightenment, which is a neo-reactionary movement, as well as that accelerationism has had a decisive influence on various far-Right groups, but the source for his explicit support of the ONA, I believe, was a WordPress, I think, run by an ONA sect also claiming to be nihilist and anarchist, i.e. not neo-fascist, which is how it couldn't be used, but I do think it's possible that he has made a statement about them in some regard, as, though he, himself, may or may not support them or their ilk, Land's philosophy is just the sort of thing that the ONA may try and utilize, either as per their own ideology or to entry other organizations, thereby warranting a comment of some sort on his behalf. Daydreamdays2 (talk) 20:29, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Odd double mention of particular journalist?
"To reporter Dylan Matthews... Matthews states that Land believes democracy restricts accountability and freedom."

Then later, "Land's current version of accelerationism incorporates explicitly racist views and since late 2016 has been increasingly recognised as an inspiration for the alt-right[22] and, according to Vox writer Dylan Matthews, for white supremacist mass murderers."

Gives far too much credence to a single article by a single journalist, and without much backing behind those claims (clicking through to the article). Liketowumbo (talk) 15:20, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

The Dark Enlightenment essay
No mention specifically of this essay? In either bibliography or the article itself? It’s arguably what he’s become most known for in modern discourse, I can’t see how that’s just left out. 2603:6010:11F0:3C0:1117:DA3F:67BE:98D1 (talk) 02:36, 1 August 2023 (UTC)


 * It is not, his writings from the 90's are more well-known. Schenkstroop (talk) 08:32, 1 August 2023 (UTC)