[thundergolfer]

Not really that related. Refinement culture is concerned with evolving aesthetics and marketing which is partly a response to globalization and the rising middle classes of asia, partly related to digitization, and partly just a normal evolution of style.

What George is talking about here is much more related to the ideas of Nick Land, technocapital, Marshall McLuhan, and man's relationship to industrialization.

> Isolation is basically impossible because the Internet follows you everywhere. And it’s perfectly uniform, there is no other Internet, just a place with five corporate towns and some Chinese ones that are really hard to visit if you don’t speak Chinese.

This is McLuhan's "global village".

> I don’t think I’m properly capturing the scope of the machine. First you build the fence to keep the animals out then you build the fence to keep the animals in. It’s a Fullmetal Alchemist homunculus maybe it has already eaten your soul.

This is Nick Land.

[acron0]

I think 99% of the commenters in this thread seem totally tone deaf to the article and the phenomenon being attacked by geohot. Granted, he doesn't articulate it well, but as you say, these aren't new concepts and much better introduced by Nick Land, Mark Fisher, Byung-chul Han etc.