Digital dwelling with uncertainty gives people political capacity despite fueling conspiracies

Evidence

I argue that the immersive attunement of homo speculans to the present contains underexplored political capital. Speculative communities’ dwelling with the unknown—called into being by our routine digital rambles (what I term the “infinite scroll” and the “infinite swipe”)—has made people both more aware of the “here and now” and, relatedly, more open to the future’s unpredictability. While this state of affairs has undoubtedly sparked new anxieties (and a worrying surge of regressive conspiracies), it has also made societies better equipped to navigate what we may call the “real fake” of the present speculative politics: a political reality that relentlessly blends myth with facts, yet is no less real for it. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 42

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the ‘real fake’ — a political reality blending myth with facts that is nonetheless genuinely real — a key concept for articulating how speculative politics works.
• XREF: On the ‘finite scroll and infinite swipe’ training people to embrace uncertainty, connects to the reader’s interest in how uncertainty-training is the causal engine migrating trading-floor logic into daily life and voting. — connects to: A political vote can express dwelling with uncertainty rather than a positive program — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 523