This book reads as almost theoretical snuff porn: Truscello takes a rhetorical glee in the allegedly necromantic nature of modern urban and industrial hardscaping， even as he masquerades a moral outrage at the death dealers who provide “semio-material Support for most systems of oppression under industrial capitalism。” Every productive asset and tool of mobility and enrichment is revealed as instead part of a “necropolitical assemblage” that produces “death dealing dispossession and structural o This book reads as almost theoretical snuff porn: Truscello takes a rhetorical glee in the allegedly necromantic nature of modern urban and industrial hardscaping， even as he masquerades a moral outrage at the death dealers who provide “semio-material Support for most systems of oppression under industrial capitalism。” Every productive asset and tool of mobility and enrichment is revealed as instead part of a “necropolitical assemblage” that produces “death dealing dispossession and structural oppression。” In this rendering， brutalist architecture — so named because it is made out of raw [in French: béton brut] concrete — becomes a cipher for the moral and physical brutality of modern industrial civilizations， both capitalist and socialist。 “This specific connection between architectural brutalism and the aesthetic of infrastructural megastructures，” Truscello explains， “provides a nexus from which to elaborate what I call infrastructural brutalism。” At this point， such hardscaping is to Truscello nothing more or less than a death cult， driving humanity toward a climactic Götterdämmerung。 “The central paradox of infrastructural brutalism is this: industrial capitalism incurred the sixth mass extinction event in the history of the planet。” While the book is unrelenting in its pessimistic catastrophizing， it does put forth a normative project rooted in a “relational epistemology” framed in the context of the “anarchist tradition” that calls for the “sabotaging of the infrastructure that is too dangerous to keep。” Ultimately， however， Truscello cannot help projecting a gleeful indulgence in ruinporn: “Even as we build technosocial assemblages appropriate for life beyond capitalism， we cannot project their proliferation in society as a blueprint onto a blank canvas。 Any anarchist politics of technology must contend with a world that is always already toxic and in various stages of collapse。” Perhaps he is right to try to help us imagine what the world will look like in two hundred years: at once boiling and drowning， with the tragic remnant of humanity dwelling amidst the ruins， squatting and scavenging， and though aware of living in the wake of catastrophe， as the survivors， obligated to imagine “new forms of cofunctioning。” 。。。more