ruff linkage 20181911 min read

[weekly linkdump, somewhat edited from my diigo]


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#ifyouonlyreadone, ok make that two

I’m done with trying to understand Trump supporters. Why don’t they try to understand me? – “Here’s the thing: the rest of us have the moral high ground here. We see the same demographic writing on the wall that Trump followers see, but where it makes them angry and fearful, it leaves us energized. Many of us are excited to see the nation that will arise from this cauldron of change. That’s because the idea of change doesn’t threaten us. It will challenge us, yes, but we’re ready for that. We know that this a big country, big enough for many different kinds of people, many different ways of life. We know what it means to live and let live. And we know that welcoming the stranger, caring for the stranger, is simply what you do as a human being.”

‘I had to guard an empty room’: the rise of the pointless job – “definition of a bullshit job: a form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence, even though, as part of the conditions of employment, the employee feels obliged to pretend that this is not the case.”


#watch,

“Run” Cats in Alley – “when you realize you’re on the enemy gang’s turf and its time to go.”

Jordan Peterson | ContraPoints – “God save the lobster queen” What a fabulous take-down of Jordan Peterson. Still chuckling. Huge instant-fan of ContraPoints.

re:publica 2018 – Sebastian Schmieg: Menschen als Software-Erweiterungen – “Während Technologien oft als Erweiterungen unserer Körper beschrieben werden, betrachte ich in meinem Vortrag diese Beziehungen aus der entgegengesetzte Perspektive: Menschen als Software-Erweiterungen, die ganz einfach eingesteckt, neu verkabelt und wieder ausrangiert werden können.”


Giuliani2024 – Why ferrets, you ask?! You’ll have to watch Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.


listen and

Childish Gambino – This Is America – Mind blowing.


Pieceocast 088 – Anti-Fascism And The Lobster Queen


#learn

David Goodall, Australia’s oldest scientist, ends his own life aged 104 – “What I would like,” Goodall said, “is for other countries to follow Switzerland’s lead and make these facilities available to all clients, if they meet the requirements, and the requirements not just of age, but of mental capacity.” Of course, it should be a right to end ones life, what I would like to discuss though is how it can cost as much as it does, and how assisted suicide can be a business model.

From Windrush to Grenfell, the powerful only see tragedy when it suits them – “The pattern is clear. The privileged looks the other way until outrage about a specific injustice injects a sense of urgency” Knowingly ignore problematic issues just hoping they will never erupt. This is more and more the tactics, and even in environmental issues.

Social media copies gambling methods ‘to create psychological cravings’ – “Methods activate ‘same brain mechanisms as cocaine’ and leads to users experiencing ‘phantom’ notification buzzing, experts warn” Still feeling the buzz? I no longer do, at this point it’s just a ton of work to keep up. Let’s hope the internet collapses soon and gets reduced to the basics again.

Through my cancer, I have found the key to a good life | George Monbiot – “Prostate cancer surgery is no fun. But in two months I’ve learned more about myself and the world than in the previous two decades” Brave honesty again, the author worried if it was over-sharing, but hell no, this is important.

‘Google go home’: the Berlin neighbourhood fighting off a tech giant – “Other cities have embraced the company, but in Kreuzberg opposition to a planned Google campus is vociferous. What makes Berlin different?”

The April 19 Uprising in Nicaragua – “An Interview, Overview of Events, and Analysis”

Pretty Loud For Being So Silenced – “Critics of the left aren’t oppressed and they don’t believe in “rational debate.” Weiss’ NYT article “Meet the Renegades of the Intellectual Dark Web” debunked, done and dusted.

Cory Doctorow: The Engagement-Maximization Presidency – “Donald Trump is manifestly not very smart in the sense of understand­ing nuance or being able to discern the truth among many propositions. But he is very good at acting like a machine-learning system that is co-evolving with the attention-maximization systems built into our ad-driven systems.”

Welsh police wrongly identify thousands as potential criminals – “A police force has defended its use of facial recognition technology after it was revealed that more than 2,000 people in Cardiff during the 2017 Champions League final were wrongly identified as potential criminals. ” 92% were wrongly identified.

Junot Díaz and The Myth of Male Genius – “What we need is an end to the myth of genius itself. It’s healthy to be told that you’re wrong when you’re wrong; and possibly better to be told you’re right when you’re right. But what we have now is a system where brilliant men are almost always told they’re right, and brilliant women are almost always told they’re wrong, and how dare they criticize this man, this certified genius. So men assume their brilliance, and don’t improve; and women assume their inferiority, and shut down. But everyone’s up for critique. Every writer deserves to be taken seriously as they are, and judged by the actual words they’ve chosen to lay out on the page.”

Political Aspects of Full Employment – “The social position of the boss would be undermined, and the self-assurance and class-consciousness of the working class would grow. Strikes for wage increases and improvements in conditions of work would create political tension. It is true that profits would be higher under a regime of full employment than they are on average under laissez-faire, and even the rise in wage rates resulting from the stronger bargaining power of the workers is less likely to reduce profits than to increase prices, and thus adversely affects only the rentier interests. But “discipline in the factories” and “political stability” are more appreciated than profits by business leaders. Their class instinct tells them that lasting full employment is unsound from their point of view, and that unemployment is an integral part of the “normal” capitalist system.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates: Kanye West in the Age of Donald Trump – “West calls his struggle the right to be a “free thinker,” and he is, indeed, championing a kind of freedom—a white freedom, freedom without consequence, freedom without criticism, freedom to be proud and ignorant; freedom to profit off a people in one moment and abandon them in the next; a Stand Your Ground freedom, freedom without responsibility, without hard memory; a Monticello without slavery, a Confederate freedom, the freedom of John C. Calhoun, not the freedom of Harriet Tubman, which calls you to risk your own; not the freedom of Nat Turner, which calls you to give even more, but a conqueror’s freedom, freedom of the strong built on antipathy or indifference to the weak, the freedom of rape buttons, pussy grabbers, and fuck you anyway, bitch; freedom of oil and invisible wars, the freedom of suburbs drawn with red lines, the white freedom of Calabasas.”

Afrofuturism: Why black science fiction ‘can’t be ignored’ – “Afrofuturism may not be able to rectify an entire history of exclusion, but its impact, born of its attempts to answer important questions, is something that can’t be ignored.”

This is America: the theories behind Childish Gambino’s satirical masterpiece – “The rapper, AKA Donald Glover, has released a cryptic new video that amassed 10m views in 24 hours and has been hailed as a work of genius. But what does it mean?”

Poland’s Holocaust law triggers tide of abuse against Auschwitz museum – “Staff say they have suffered a campaign of disinformation and hate from Polish nationalists”

Junot Díaz withdraws from Sydney Writers’ festival following sexual harassment allegations – “I take responsibility for my past,” he said. “That is the reason I made the decision to tell the truth of my rape and its damaging aftermath. This conversation is important and must continue. I am listening to and learning from women’s stories in this essential and overdue cultural movement. We must continue to teach all men about consent and boundaries.”

Greenhouse gas ‘feedback loop’ discovered in freshwater lakes – “A new study of chemical reactions that occur when organic matter decomposes in freshwater lakes has revealed that the debris from trees suppresses production of methane—while debris from plants found in reed beds actually promotes this harmful greenhouse gas.”


#oldiebutgoodie

Can Art Museums Help Illuminate Early American Connections To Slavery? – “Would you think differently about a work of art if you knew it depicted a slave owner? New labels installed at the Worcester Art Museum are drawing attention to the connections between art, slavery, and wealth in early America.”


#francais_deutsch_other

Ein Diskurs zum Würgen – “Rechte Medien und Twitterer sind nicht an einem Diskurs interessiert. Sie in Massen zu blocken, wie es Jan Böhmermann empfiehlt, ist nicht totalitär.””

Brauchtumspflege: Was ist los mit dir, du Land der Bayern? – “Der Süden schwankt zwischen Größenwahn und trotzigem Rückzug in eine ausgedachte “Heimat”. Jetzt bekommt es ganz Deutschland mit den Auswirkungen dieser politischen Brauchtumspflege zu tun.” I don’t give a shit about Bayern, but this was written by Georg Seeßlen, so it’s a great read.

Die Bundeswehr bei der rp18 – eine Chronologie. Und ein paar Fragen. | re:publica 2018 – “Es ist verrückt: Wir diskutieren auf der re:publica unter anderem die Folgen von Missinformation und Fake News, wie sie entstehen, wie man sie verhindern kann. Welche schwerwiegenden Folgen sie haben können. Und dann das. Von der Bundeswehr. Einer Verteidigungsarmee, die schützen und in Konfliktfällen deeskalierend wirken soll. Die völlige Unsensibilität der Bundeswehr gegenüber einer Veranstaltung wie der re:publica wirft die Frage auf, wie diese Armee wohl in fremden Kulturen, gegenüber Menschen in Krisengebieten agiert.”


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