Art on Aneesh Sathe

The End of Identity: AI, Plasticity, and the Divergence Machine

Sun, 08 Mar 2026 06:28:21 +0000

Over the past year, the Contraptions club has been reading through history—from Giordano Bruno and Montaigne to Spinoza, Adam Smith, and Hume. We are now using using Venkatesh Rao’s Divergence Machine framework as a lens to make sense of the modern world.
For context, Venkat posits that human history operates through massive “world machines”. The “modernity machine” was constructed around 1200 and operated at a steady plateau of capability from 1600 to 2000. It is now in a state of rapid, partially scheduled disassembly. In its place, the “divergence machine” was constructed around 1600 and has been operating in fully deployed mode for about 25 years.
Looking at this transition through the philosophers we’ve studied, my feeling is that over the centuries, we’ve witnessed a gradual peeling back of the layers of imagination that were once heavily layered on top of nature. We can map this peeling back directly to Rao’s divergence concepts.

The Kernel and the Ark

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 08:28:42 +0000

I. The Wall and the Infinite #

It is possible that the history of the modern West hinges on a single, melancholic misreading of Voltaire. When Candide, exhausted by the Lisbon earthquake and the brutalities of the Seven Years’ War, finally withdraws to the banks of the Propontis to utter his famous dictum—“Il faut cultiver notre jardin”—he is not proposing a program of agricultural management. He is issuing a plea for containment. To cultivate a garden, in the shadow of such overwhelming chaos, is an act of stoic resignation. It is an admission that the world is too vast, too violent, and too unintelligible to be governed by reason. One builds a wall against the infinite, and within that limited circumference, one tends to the soil. The garden is a refuge from nature.

The Deep Dark Terroir of the Soul

Fri, 26 Dec 2025 02:17:37 +0000

This is the third and final part of the Thicket Series:
Part 1: Logic of the Thicket and the Unsearchable Web
Part 2: The Architecture of Resistance

The history of the working subject might be best understood not as a ledger of wages or a sequence of industrial breakthroughs, but as a study in the migration of the Master. In the eighteenth century, the Master was a concrete presence, a figure residing in the castle or the cathedral, distinct from the worker by a physical and social chasm. One knew where the authority lived because one could see the smoke from its chimneys. By the nineteenth century, this figure had moved into the factory office, closer to the rhythm of the machine but still identifiable by the suit and the watch. The twentieth century saw a further dissolution; the Master became atmospheric, blending into the very walls of the institutions that housed us—the schools, the hospitals, the barracks.

The Tortured Artist Is So Yesterday

Mon, 08 Dec 2025 05:08:29 +0000

41 years ago, Samuel Lipman wrote that an artist’s life is a “constant—and constantly losing—battle” against one’s own limits. That image has lasted because print culture taught us to imagine the artist as a solitary figure whose worth is measured by the perfection of a single, final work. Print fixed texts in place, elevated the individual author, and made loneliness part of the creative job description.

That world is slipping away.
And with it, the tortured artist.

The Keel

Mon, 21 Jul 2025 06:23:02 +0000

Tonight we cast our nets 
In foreign waters 
Now we are new 
Tomorrow we’ll belong 
Then the sea'll tug and pull 
Time to be gone 
 
So, let’s 
Kiss the nymphs 
Meet the crabs 
In their bucket games 
Feel their stabs 
 
Our plans are small 
But they are spread 
A thousand ports 
Before we are dead

Image: Sailing off Gloucester (ca.1880) by Winslow Homer.

The Best Game Ever Made

Sun, 13 Jul 2025 06:58:58 +0000

What does audacity look like?

I did not imagine the problems I was having was due to a lack of temples and worshipping the right gods. Being from India, this should have been obvious. I had figured out long ago that a steady supply of beer, dedication to craft, good means, and romance were the were critical to happiness. Spirituality had not been considered. Hewing a temple out of granite improved focus.

We Need Homes in the Delta Quadrant

Tue, 29 Apr 2025 07:44:02 +0000

Place is security, space is freedom. — Yi-Fu Tuan

Starfleet Log, Delta Quadrant—Classified Briefing

At the edge of the known, maps fail and instincts take over. We don’t just explore new worlds—we build places to survive them. Because in deep space, meaning isn’t found. It’s made.

I. Interruption of Infinity #

The Delta Quadrant is a distant region of the galaxy in the Star Trek universe—vast, largely uncharted, and filled with anomalies, dangers, and promise. It is where the map ends and the unknown begins. No stations, no alliances, no history—just possibility.

Untitled

Mon, 20 Jan 2025 04:50:19 +0000

I’m taking part in the Contraptions Book Club where we are reading City of Fortune which is about Venice. I was struck by the character of Doge Dandolo. Dude was 80+ when we saw a trade opportunity in the 4th Crusades. In the book, the author, Roger Crowley describes a brief moment when Dandolo makes a heroic rush on the banks of Constantinople’s Golden Horn during the Sack of Constantinople.

I found both the Doge and the imagery interesting so went looking for art depicting the art, there’s supposed to be lots. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any and nothing in the public domain. So I asked AI to generate something.

Jan 14, 2025

Tue, 14 Jan 2025 08:06:00 +0000

Font fight! #

The fonts have assembled, their ligatures sharp their curves are shiny. They all line up with perfect kerning… or do they? Your eyes and mind are their battlefield.

https://www.codingfont.com/

I got JetBrains mono btw.

Decentralization is just partial centralization #

Renée DiResta writes about the social media flux in Noema.

Decentralization places a heavy burden on individual instance administrators, mostly volunteers, who may lack the tools, time or capacity to address complex problems effectively.