The riff is not quite identical; totally different arrangement and texture. But every damn time I hear this song (2), I'm like, "Hey, that's Genesis..."

(1) "Dance of a Volcano" (1978) by Genesis (original)

(2) "A Classic Arts Showcase" (2004) by ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead (studio version unavailable for free streaming; this is live in 2007) This band has cited Yes and Genesis among its key influences, particular for the album on which this song was originally released.

I don't know about anyone else, but I love finding things like this. Unexpected connections between different musical worlds.

Any other examples like this, newer bands pulling riffs directly from 1970s progressive rock?

(3) Bonus "Main Street Wizards" (2003) by Guided by Voices doesn't map to a specific riff, but has the 1978 Genesis vibe all over it.

Exploring political motivations.

Conservatives say they want "more babies" -- as usual, quantity trumps quality -- but I wonder how they might adapt their strategy if they actually got their wish, just not in the form that was (perhaps?) hoped for.

I'll ask the conservatives too if they ever let me. But I think the liberal answers may be more honest in this case (less cause for motivated reasoning, without a view to defend.)

I'm not arguing for or against actually doing this (Disclosure: I have no children). That's your choice and my opinion doesn't and shouldn't count.
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Sorry about that "yelling" situation (deleted). By the time I realized what I had done, it was too late to edit anything.

Edit: Sorry for all the "quotes." Language often backs us into corners.

This seems to follow the playbook of many a moral panic, where the "threat" is amplified most by those who intend to "neutralize" it.

But do you think anyone actually believes that anti-natalist philosophy is responsible for demographic decline? Even a little bit?

It is very generous of them to give "us" so much credit for recent fertility declines (altruism is real!), but such perennially unpopular, “fringe” viewpoints (like anti-natalism) are inherently self-limiting in their reach.

Sort of hard to be both "Extreme" and "widely popular" -- these tend to be mutually exclusive. In this case, they certainly are.

How to understand this dissonance?

Is the issue that anti-natalism is so “painfully” persuasive – even in its most unimposing form? The idea is dangerous and must be suppressed because it makes too much sense? “What if word of this gets out?! We'll have a mess!”

A mess, indeed. And what would you call... this (now)?

I’m half-joking. But really. It’s amazing how much power some folks believe anti-natalist philosophy is capable of! I wish I could muster that kind of optimism!

I hate to be smug about things, and I certainly will never know if I am “right” or not. I’m fine with that. I love it, even. But if I can’t be “right,” then I'd better be careful. Like… really careful. Don't deny the bad (or the good, but people have no problem with that one; balance is needed). Too much certainty is basically the foundation of all or most violence. It motivates us to take incredibly stupid risks and the outcomes are always regrettable (to put it mildly).

Nevertheless, I really don’t understand why anyone would be scared of "us". I can't speak for anyone else, but I aspire to be as harmless as possible. The purported harms of "non-existence" are a persistent human myth... our belief in these harms did more damage than any God/god/gods ever could have.

Anyway.

I've "been an anti-natalist" since before I was even ejected from the uterus, but for almost 4 decades, I never even knew there was even a word for it. I spoke openly about my feelings when I was very young, and adults would laugh.

I was always told, usually condescendingly, that I would eventually "grow out of it." I never did, nor I did I expect to. I felt like... blessed. Blessed to have actually figured out at least ONE of life's major problems. I am nearly 40 now and I feel it was probably one of the best, wisest choices I made in my life. So much for "growing up."

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My point is, that even for someone who deeply relates to the anti-natalist understanding, it took more than half a lifetime to even encounter, for example, David Benatar and Sarah Perry. 10-year-old me would've devoured these books the same way I did over the past couple years.

But they're not bloody easy to stumble on! Ideas like this are not talked about or even acknowledged. The books, if available at all, are stashed away on dusty backroom shelves or kept in the stock room. The self-fulfilling prophecy/feedback loop of low consumer demand and low producer expectations.

Attention-grabbing? Sure. Influential in many people's life decisions? No way.

In the context of contemporary society, this is, implicitly, a highly individualistic, non-conformist philosophy. There are certainly communitarian flavors of the argument which are also compelling, but from where we stand, anti-natalism is a radical act of resistance on a personal -- not group -- level. We're not out campaigning for anti-natalism, or imposing our views on people. Even for those (like myself) who were very interested in the first place, it's been difficult to know where, or even how, to look for it.

To the extent that anti-natalism's public profile has risen at all, that's thanks to the clickbait economy that runs the entire modern internet (and beyond). Anything that is "controversial," automatically becomes a popular, recurrent story, because that's what drives profits, and there is no (financial) incentive to do otherwise. Almost like the laws of physics. (Well, we obey such incentives as if they were physical law... not that they necessarily are.)

In other words, anti-natalism's worst enemies are its most vocal propagators. Then they turn around and give US all the credit. Thanks guys, but I already knew you were capable of generosity. Grand gestures to prove it aren't necessary, so don't sell yourselves short! And thanks for for all your good work. (Smile face)

I originally wanted to say something about “Don’t shoot the messenger,” but that’s fine. Shoot me. Do it! Just make sure to aim for the head. I’d rather the message survive, than my body, which won’t last long, anyway.

Conclusion: This was supposed to only be 2 - 3 sentences. Talk about the "gap between intention and reality"....

(edit) Opinions not facts.

Lifetime Appreciation/Reflections on Robert Fripp's creative & spiritual art.

I didn’t expressly write this for any online forum. I just wrote it for kicks (I guess), right now. I don't know how/if other people may or may not relate to this appreciation. Sorry if it sounds self-indulgent or poorly edited. This is just how it came out. I'm not a regular on this sub, I only use Reddit sparingly between large intervals of disuse. I live under a rock away from popular culture. Whole thing could probably could be reworked... anyway..

Please pardon me if I made any mistakes. King Crimson is my solitary interest, I haven't engaged with other listeners (see note at bottom.) Corrections are welcome; and all opinions are open to further consideration. I should supplement with citations and quotes from Fripp and others later.

Finally please don't misunderstand this as hero worship. Fripp is a man, a human being. He's not some superhuman. But he's someone I've related to immensely my entire life, before I even understood how or why. It makes a lot more sense now, but it required almost 30 years to figure it out. ...

A story about growing up listening to King Crimson, finding meaning in Robert Fripp’s philosophical honesty, fearlessness and willingness to reconcile opposites into a unified whole. Fripp was laconic enough about his spiritual views, much of which he derives from G I Gurdjieff, for me to never have any strong hint on his religious affiliation growing up. Thought he did drop some rather cryptic hints, at times.

(I was raised in an atheist household, and the presence of religion made me squirm – religion was itself a DEVIL (lol) that no one wanted in the house. I sure didn’t. I actually read about Christianity and other faiths, so I “knew they were made up”*, and I could easily see how powerful people freely abused them without restraint, from ancient times to the modern day.)

So I always hoped Fripp’s occasional, abstruse references to God were of the purely metaphorical, poetic sort, and not about some jealous, nagging, hairy dude on a cloud, nor dharma wizards floating around on lotuses like show-offs, and most of all, not inspired by the “new religious movements” of recent decades that seem all too eager to cash in on humanity’s deepest, most profound needs and exploit them for the monetary gain of a few -- all under the guise of lovely-sounding soteriological promises of something never yet to come.

Fripp, it seemed beyond doubt, was much too smart for all that! He was one of THE smartest. I assumed he liked to use the language of religion as an aesthetic device.

Which he certainly does.

However, there is more to that. Fripp is not an atheist. He doesn’t not “deny God” as the ground of all being. He isn’t a member of any official religious congregation. He draws from Western occultism (Gurdjieff and Bennett), Christian esotericism, various strands of Eastern ontology (Theories of being), and from the transformative, living role of musical creativity itself as the foundation of his personal agency. As well as philosophy, science and an eclectic range other disciplines. His dedication to discipline, curiosity, and attention to detail in addition were something rarely seen among his rock and roll peers.

Music, to Fripp is the given. Musical creativity is Fripp’s logos. It doesn’t need to be explained or understood, it just is. Everything is ultimately is explained in the terms of musical creativity as the ultimate end in itself. But he doesn’t only do this to stroke his own ego. He does embrace the ego – it cannot be “escaped” -- but he equally seeks to embraces its opposite (God). He fully accepts – and embraces -- the duality between self and other, power and surrender, weak and strong, etc. and rather than try to obliterate one side in favor of the other, he seeks to “harmonize” them or to integrate them into a unified whole.

This is something I have frequently concerned myself with in my own music [redacted]. If you look at the King Crimson album covers, especially earlier ones, they directly deal with these subjects. Larks Tongue in Aspic with the sun/moon motif for example, or the smiling/paranoid face on their debut LP. Fripp’s work is full of idiosyncratic symbolic sub-structures, a sort of fractal, scaling aesthetic unity that runs from the tiniest details to the broadest overarching themes in his composition (Fripp’s attention to detail – a primary faculty needed to develop in most meditation traditions – is legendary if not notorious… but so is his passion and his genuinely love, I think, for the best aspects of humanity (And even an acceptance of the worst – that which I cannot change.)

As an American, I’m bitter that we don’t get to have celebrities like Robert Fripp and Toyah Wilcox. I was totally blindsided to learn they were both semi-regular, and quite well-liked guests on UK games shows and things like that. There’s nothing worth watching on television anyway, but I’d probably watch that. Fripp is unusually charming, so it’s shouldn’t be all that surprising, but his wit and intelligence would exclude him from any form of American popular entertainment. Your loss, America.

But this lack of exposure only made Fripp a more mysterious, compelling figure from the American point of view. He was cloaked in questions, a riddle unto himself… where does such a man even come from? The fact that some like that existed, anywhere within the range of popular culture, was astounding to me at 12 years old. I struggled to understand why I couldn’t find other artists who were anything like him (I got into Gentle Giant, early Yes, early Genesis… but NOT anywhere close.)

Fripp seemed to hover high above all the rest. The 80s didn’t deflate him, they invigorated him. He genuinely grew, as a person, and an artist, in response to punk. (His 1980s dance albums are phenomenal post-punk classics.)

Nor did the 1990s. He was able to keep a single band alive and fresh by constantly reinventing himself, constantly challenging himself, always trying to go beyond, beyond whatever he had already done.

His solo record and collaborations are of equal importance to his King Crimson work. In particular, his meditative “Frippertronics” soundscapes, developed out of 1970s collaborations with Brian Eno, manage to gracefully transcend both new age and avant-garde aesthetics, resulting in a sound that is profoundly personal, solemnly introspective and full of intense, slow-building emotional melodicism. It is almost painfully sincere. It’s almost unbearably beautiful. It’s incredible music to just sit with and completely immerse in reflection. You might just have one of “those” experiences that people seem to always hope for; the music is practically purpose-built for crying into the arms of God. Fripp understands the power of surrender. His music invites to surrender to something way beyond the tiny, splinter of our individual human experience. The whole of all experience is so far beyond what we would possibly imagine. Fripp’s best music is like a love-letter to that whole-of-experience. And rare among rock musicians, even his “worst” is not half bad. (Sinfield gets Ladies of the Road. Sorry Pete, awful choice of lyric!)

Fripp’s ideas and philosophies are perhaps more relevant and urgently needed in the present day than at any previous time. His perspective actually has some wisdom in it that vastly exceeds that of run-of-the-mill guitar slingers and entertainers. If Fripp is a snob, then all I can say, is “more snobs please.” Fripp enjoys a challenge. And he wants us to enjoy them as well. There is nothing more precious than your innate human capacities for creativity, compassion, reflection, curiosity, etc.

My love of Fripp’s work has always been something of a solo pursuit… not that I didn’t make a sincere effort to change that. (That’s another hilarious story for another time.) I've never really interacted with other people who like King Crimson (other than like, my dad, whose interest in them mine came to totally eclipse.)

Apologies if anything is offensive or rude. No harm intended. I should have written something like this years ago but I just had the experience listening to "Music for Quiet Moments," where I had to write it down. Before the moment was passed.

There's a pretty interesting (if poorly conducted) interview with Fripp, circa 1973, here on someone's rock memorabilia blog. Here, he cites the inimitable Derek Bailey, UK guitarist, finally confirming decades worth of suspicions about direct influence (Jamie Muir had collaborated with Bailey before Fripp but I had never read Fripp utter Bailey's name before. His playing, however, especially in the mid-1970s, liberally draws upon Bailey's dense, dissonant, relentlessly ugly (yet... in my opinion, astoundingly powerful) playing. From the first time I heard Bailey, I thought "Fripp was ALL OVER this." Turns out to have been so.

I think could easily write at least 4x to 5x longer in appreciation for Fripp's art and life. This really barely scratches the surface of what it has meant for me, as a person, as a musician, as a being thrown into this incomprehensibly vast existence...