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  1. Jan 2022
    1. These find-ings demonstrate the important function of musicians in diplomaticrelations.

      This isn't something I really considered, but Pietrobono himself is a sort of political tool

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  2. canvas.ucsc.edu canvas.ucsc.edu
    1. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin

      1. Benjamin is part of the Frankfurt School at Institute of Social Studies in Germany.
      2. They are trying to examine the failure of Marxist revolutionary social change.
      3. The idea is that ideology disseminated through mass media are making it very difficult for Marx's prognotication are making it very difficult for social change to occur.
      4. 19th century modernity: mass transportation, factory work, dissemination of capitalism, movement to cities and experience of urban life

       These convergent endeavors made predictable a situation which Paul Valéry pointed up in this sentence: “Just as water, gas, and electricity are brought into our houses from far off to satisfy our needs in response to a minimal effort, so we shall be supplied with visual or auditory images, which will appear and disappear at a simple movement of the hand, hardly more than a sign.” (op. cit., p. 226) Around 1900 technical reproduction had reached a standard that not only permitted it to reproduce all transmitted works of art and thus to cause the most profound change in their impact upon the public; it also had captured a place of its own among the artistic processes. For the study of this standard nothing is more revealing than the nature of the repercussions that these two different manifestations—the reproduction of works of art and the art of the film—have had on art in its traditional form.

      Q: Why does it matter that film minimizes the aura?

      At the time, art reacted with the doctrine of l’art pour l’art, that is, with a theology of art. This gave rise to what might be called a negative theology in the form of the idea of ‘pure’ art, which not only denied any social function of art but also any categorizing by subject matter. (In poetry, Mallarmé was the first to take this position.) An analysis of art in the age of mechanical reproduction must do justice to these relationships, for they lead us to an all-important insight: for the first time in world history, mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual. To an ever greater degree the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility.7 From a photographic negative, for example, one can make any number of prints; to ask for the ‘authentic’ print makes no sense. But the instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is reversed. Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice—politics.<br> Ritual: pre-modern timesPolitics: Despite the political painting the art piece will be associated with the aura of original piece of art.

      • Film is not auratic because in film: 1) spaces and times are constructed 2) actors performance is stitched together 3) actors do not share space with spectators 4) multiple points of view 5) appeals to a MASS AUDIENCE and a COLLECTIVE AUDIENCE 6) reveals new aspects of the thing reproduced (time alpse, slow motion).

      How do institutions put the aura back into film?

      In photography, exhibition value begins to displace cult value all along the line. But cult value does not give way without resistance. It retires into an ultimate retrenchment: the human countenance.

      The superstar is a way to put the aura back into film

      The film responds to the shriveling of the aura with an artificial build-up of the “personality” outside the studio. The cult of the movie star, fostered by the money of the film industry, preserves not the unique aura of the person but the “spell of the personality,” the phony spell of a commodity. So long as the movie-makers’ capital sets the fashion, as a rule no other revolutionary merit can be accredited to today’s film than the promotion of a revolutionary criticism of traditional concepts of art. We do not deny that in some cases today’s films can also promote revolutionary criticism of social conditions, even of the distribution of property. However, our present study is no more specifically concerned with this than is the film production of Western Europe.

      *Marx says capitalism produces the seeds of its demise. We can think of that as a guiding principle in which capitalism produces the neorosis that leads Chaplins character into a destructive set of behaviors that stops the Fordist capitalist production in a factory.

      Feelings of belongoing and togetherness and being overhwemed by a mass you want to be a part of , but for Benjamin this is a trynanny where people feel they are in control but they are not really in control. Thus communism replies by politicizing art. Art for art's sake is harmful when put in the service of a facist regime. Art for political progress.

      The growing proletarianization of modern man and the increasing formation of masses are two aspects of the same process. Fascism attempts to organize the newly created proletarian masses without affecting the property structure which the masses strive to eliminate. Fascism sees its salvation in giving these masses not their right, but instead a chance to express themselves.21 The masses have a right to change property relations; Fascism seeks to give them an expression while preserving property. The logical result of Fascism is the introduction of aesthetics into political life. The violation of the masses, whom Fascism, with its Führer cult, forces to their knees, has its counterpart in the violation of an apparatus which is pressed into the production of ritual values.

      Film is not merely a translation of an in-person thetaer performance. Rather film is performing for future audiences and for the director and for cinematrography. This supports the idea that film is a collabroative creation that brings an object into the world.

      One film can be playing multiple times around the world and so this can be distributed on mass scale.

      Film is not merely a recording of reality. Film reproduced new aspects of the things reproduced through slow motion and it brings to light entirely new aspects of matter but discloses quite aspects within them. If Benjamin merely interested in the epistemological possibility of the film to expand our limited perceptual appartus, yes but think about how this reinforces his claim that film moves us away from the aura,...that if we can see unknown aspects by recording it then we can't rely on film to reproduce an original we have to keep in mind that the image is qualitatively distinct from our perceptual access to the thing. So film is not merely a copy of the thing that it records.

      Benjamin flips things and says that maybe film isn't art the way we see an art and this will get us away from the trappings.

      What is Benjamin's definition of art which he is defining with the aura, the transcendence of individual of ritual.

      1. substructure or base: factors that produce commodities and economic relations that result from these concrete aspects
      2. superstructure: culture, law, media that for a Marxist thinker emerges in the way that the economic structure functions; the more media/education/political cosumption that you do the less you are going to understand the conditions of your exploitation and the more you are going to think change is possible.
      3. What role does cinema play in the move from cult and aura to mechanical reproduction? See snapshots.
    1. In an era where funding for good projects can be hard to come by, or is even endangered, we must affirmatively make the case for the study of how to improve human well-being. This possibility is a fundamental reason why the American public is interested in supporting the pursuit of knowledge, and rightly so.

      Keep in mind that they're asking this in an anti-science and post-fact political climate. Is progress studies the real end goal, or do we need political solutions? Better communication solutions? Better education solutions? Instead? First?

      Are they addressing the correct question/problem here?

    1. It was largely the speakers of Iroquoian languages such as theWendat, or the five Haudenosaunee nations to their south, whoappear to have placed such weight on reasoned debate – evenfinding it a form of pleasurable entertainment in own right. This factalone had major historical repercussions. Because it appears tohave been exactly this form of debate – rational, sceptical, empirical,conversational in tone – which before long came to be identified withthe European Enlightenment as well. And, just like the Jesuits,Enlightenment thinkers and democratic revolutionaries saw it asintrinsically connected with the rejection of arbitrary authority,particularly that which had long been assumed by the clergy.

      The forms of rational, skeptical, empirical and conversational forms of debate popularized by the Enlightenment which saw the rejection of arbitrary authority were influenced by the Haudenosaunee nations of Americans.


      Interesting to see the reflexive political fallout of this reoccurring with the political right in America beginning in the early 2000s through the 2020s. It's almost as if the Republican party and religious right never experienced the Enlightenment and are still living in the 1700s.


      Curious that in modern culture I think of the Jesuits as the embodiment of rationalist, skeptical argumentation and thought now. Apparently they were dramatically transformed since that time.

    1. We’re not a place—it’s very difficult to come to Xbox Live and say, ‘Okay, I want to go create a political party on the platform’. You could kind of twist the tools and try to get there, but it’s just not set up for general-purpose conversations or community.

      My Xbox 360 display picture is a Libertarian Party one created by the Xbox team for a past election cycle. They had them for GOP and Dem as well.

      There are also a few groups centered around politics for coordinating gameplay together premised on a common interest - so it seems that to that extent he doesn't know his own system?

      I don't know that Xbox as a social platform would be favorable for "creating a political party" whatever that means. Government's control what political parties are created - they only allow the ones they approve of to exist anyway.

    1. Ms. Trajano, whom the president referred to as a “socialist.”Later that day, when Ms. Trajano was asked about the president’s remark, she said she didn’t find the label offensive.“I think social inequality must be confronted,” she said. “If that’s being a socialist, then I’m a socialist.”
  3. Dec 2021
    1. We live under governments that are too captured by the near-term priorities of capitalism to seriously address the threat of climate change

      Inability of politics to go beyond sort-term objectives

    1. My interest in psychology intensified, I came across Stanislaw Grof and Ken Wilber. Grof's book 'Realms of the Human Unconscious' opened many doors for me, and Wilber's 'Up from Eden' meant a decisive turning-point in the development of my fundamental worldview. Wilber offered a much more encompassing vision of the evolutionary dynamics of the society than the left. He also provided an alternative utopic vision, focussed on consciousness development rather than on social reforms.
  4. Nov 2021
    1. The root of the discord lies in the fact that many Christians have embraced the worst aspects of our culture and our politics. When the Christian faith is politicized, churches become repositories not of grace but of grievances, places where tribal identities are reinforced, where fears are nurtured, and where aggression and nastiness are sacralized. The result is not only wounding the nation; it’s having a devastating impact on the Christian faith.

      This would seem to indicate that culture and politics are taking precedence over the religion and faith portions of these churches.

    1. he wanted a school board focused on the basics of education, not the abstract notions of social change some progressives say are at least as important as those basics
    2. On two highly divisive cultural issues — public safety and public education — even voters in this exceedingly progressive city have bluntly told their elected leaders that high-minded rhetoric is not enough.
    1. Εκτιμάται ότι το ΗΒ θα αξιοποιήσει τις Βρετανικές βάσεις στην Κύπρο προκειμένου να παραμείνει ενεργή δύναμη στην Ανατολική Μεσόγειο και να ανασχεθεί ο Γαλλικός παράγων. Αυτό ελλοχεύει τον κίνδυνο ως εγγυήτρια δύναμη να ταυτισθεί με τα Τουρκικά συμφέροντα. Απαιτείται επαγρύπνηση και ισχυρό lobbying.

      Οπως στον [[Α' ΠΠ]], η συμμαχίες ξεκιναν ενα ντόμινο, με Ελλάδα-Γαλλία να αντιπαρατίθεται σε Βρετανία-Γερμανία-Τουρκία.

  5. Oct 2021
    1. certain narratives to explain why there was suddenly so much conflict across society. Our first was the open/closed narrative. Society, we argued, is dividing between those who like open trade, open immigration, and open mores, on the one hand, and those who would like to close these things down, on the other. Second, and related, was the diversity narrative. Western nations are transitioning from being white-dominated to being diverse, multiracial societies. Some people welcome these changes whereas others would like to go back to the past.Both these narratives have a lot of truth to them—racism still divides and stains America—but they ignore the role that the creative class has played in increasing inequality and social conflict

      Explanatory dimensions for current political environment

    1. I mean, I think Trudeau has shown us who he is, which is somebody who likes campaigning more than governing and is better at giving the speech than enacting the policies.

      Public relations for a colonial, corporate governance system dependent on the theft of land and resources and the disempowerment of the population through the mechanism of money.

    1. “It is not for the like of me to say. It is the business of people who have the power and the knowledge to understand these things, and take it on themselves to right them.”

      Deference to the "expert"; however none exist in those times; ie the industrial phenomenon was so new that who could have extensive knowledge of what "worked best"?

    1. This article fails to recognize the societal benefits of free education. Since the US is all about the individual, this isn't surprising. However, the facts - as evidenced by countries where education is essentially free - is that it increases the societal level of education, which improves so many things, not the least of which is more informed and rational voting.

    1. three concentric spheres: consensus, legitimate controversy, and deviance

      Hallin’s spheres

      Hallin divides the world of political discourse into three concentric spheres: consensus, legitimate controversy, and deviance. In the sphere of consensus, journalists assume everyone agrees. The sphere of legitimate controversy includes the standard political debates, and journalists are expected to remain neutral. The sphere of deviance falls outside the bounds of legitimate debate, and journalists can ignore it. These boundaries shift, as public opinion shifts.

    1. The real conspiracies are hiding in plain sight.

      The big difference between the paranoiac's conspiracy theories and the real ones is that in the fake ones the conspirators are "in it together" and form a like-minded group. In reality, the billionaires would be very happy to through each other under the bus if they could.

      So it's not so much that there are real conspiracies as there are a known set of methods and tools - known to everyone, everywhere - that allow this gross power imbalance to be created. These methods and tools are known to all but can only be used by the rich because they are themselves very costly.

  6. Sep 2021
    1. Is the fact that these exist a function of how quiet and unknown these can be within a small subset of select society? Because the're not more common or commonly known, the average person isn't aware (not helped by the complexity of the details) on a daily basis and thus they can continue on helped by politicians in power who can be lobbied (or otherwise captured).

    1. If one assumes that political reform is long, slow, and painful, hierarchies and centralizing strategies can be productive. After all, they can keep the movement on target and give it some coherent shape. Ideas on their own do not change the world; ideas that are coupled with smart institutions might. “Not by memes alone” would be an apt slogan for any contemporary social movement. Alas, this basic insight—that political reform cannot be reduced to the wars of memes and aesthetics alone, even if the Internet offers an effective platform for waging them—has mostly been lost on the Occupy Wall Street crowd.9 Challenging power requires a strategy that in many circumstances might favor centralization. To reject the latter on philosophical grounds rather than strategic grounds—because it is anti-Internet or anti-Wikipedia—borders on the suicidal.

      Brilliantly put!

    1. I've got serious reservations about this Gerst fellow. His answers are too vague and contain too many bald assertions. The form of his answers fits what I've noticed to be a "style" of regressives seeking to promote obsolete traditions and social norms.

      Granted, it's difficult to present precise information in "interview format" articles like this one, but education is too important to get get wrong - again.

    1. ry. The debate provoked by the attempt to impose a tax on all clocks and watches in 1797-8 offers a little evidence. It was perhaps the most unpopular and it was certainly the most unsuccessful of all of Pitt's assessed taxes: I

      William Pitt (the younger) assessed a tax on clocks and watches from July 1797 to March 1798 and it didn't go well. One would suspect it was the case that those who purchased them were the richer upper-classes (as argued above in the piece) who had the power and wealth to vitiate against such taxation.

      Presumably if the masses were the target, the tax may have stayed.

      This sort of power seems to ensconce racist policies.

    1. What’s left are two options, but only one for the WWW. To capture the most internet users, the best option is to use a .is TLD; however, for true anonimity and control, a .onion is superior.

      The 2 most liberal domains: .is (Iceland) and .onion (world)

  7. Aug 2021
    1. The Edgerton Essays are named for Norman Rockwell’s famous 1943 painting, “Freedom of Speech.” Rockwell depicted Jim Edgerton, a farmer in their small town, rising to speak and being respectfully listened to by his neighbors. That respectful, democratic spirit is too often missing today, and what we’re hoping to cultivate with this series.
    1. Everett, J. A. C., Colombatto, C., Awad, E., Boggio, P., Bos, B., Brady, W. J., Chawla, M., Chituc, V., Chung, D., Drupp, M., Goel, S., Grosskopf, B., Hjorth, F., Ji, A., Kealoha, C., Kim, J. S., Lin, Y., Ma, Y., Maréchal, M. A., … Crockett, M. (2021). Moral dilemmas and trust in leaders during a global health crisis [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/mzswb

    1. Tim O’Brien. (2021, July 21). DeSantis—Who signed a bill outlawing vaccine passports, blames “experts” for public distrust of vaccines, sells “Don’t Fauci My Florida” merch and was hesitant to disclose his own vaccination—Wants you to know “vaccines are saving lives.” https://t.co/yz7SPFTnsE [Tweet]. @TimOBrien. https://twitter.com/TimOBrien/status/1417952302330167298

  8. Jul 2021
    1. The historian Peter Turchin coined the phrase elite overproduction to describe this phenomenon. He found that a constant source of instability and violence in previous eras of history, such as the late Roman empire and the French Wars of Religion, was the frustration of social elites for whom there were not enough jobs. Turchin expects this country to undergo a similar breakdown in the coming decade.
    2. The incontestable principle of inclusion drove the changes, which smuggled in more threatening features that have come to characterize identity politics and social justice: monolithic group thought, hostility to open debate, and a taste for moral coercion.
    3. But in identity politics, equality refers to groups, not individuals, and demands action to redress disparate outcomes among groups—in other words, equity, which often amounts to new forms of discrimination. In practice, identity politics inverts the old hierarchy of power into a new one: bottom rail on top. The fixed lens of power makes true equality, based on common humanity, impossible.
    4. With identity politics, the demand became different—not just to enlarge the institutions, but to change them profoundly.

      change these institutions how?

    5. The statement helped set in motion a way of thinking that places the struggle for justice within the self. This thinking appeals not to reason or universal values but to the authority of identity, the “lived experience” of the oppressed. The self is not a rational being that can persuade and be persuaded by other selves, because reason is another form of power.

      The struggle for justice can be found within the self (rather than the group).

      Reason is another form of power.

      How does the idea of justice and self in the first connect (or not) to the Woodard's idea of self with respect to God in the Protestant evangelical America?

    6. The term identity politics was born in 1977, when a group of Black lesbian feminists called the Combahee River Collective released a statement defining their work as self-liberation from the racism and sexism of “white male rule”:
    7. Among white people, 38 percent of college graduates voted for Trump, compared with 64 percent without college degrees. This margin—the great gap between Smart America and Real America—was the decisive one. It made 2016 different from previous elections, and the trend only intensified in 2020.

      Trumps margin.

      How can this gap be closed in the future?

    8. If we mutually exclusively split America into these four classifications, what would be the proportion of people within each?

      What do the overlaps of these four groups look like with respect to Colin Woodard's eleven American Nations?

    9. The overwhelmingly white crowds that lined up to hear Palin speak were nothing new. Real America has always been a country of white people. Jackson himself was a slaver and an Indian-killer, and his “farmers, mechanics, and laborers” were the all-white forebears of William Jennings Bryan’s “producing masses,” Huey Long’s “little man,” George Wallace’s “rednecks,” Patrick Buchanan’s “pitchfork brigade,” and Palin’s “hardworking patriots.”

      An interesting way of tying together some groups of voters over time here. They do have a very common thread in their whiteness.

      What other things do they have in common?

    10. Since then, the two parties have just about traded places. By the turn of the millennium, the Democrats were becoming the home of affluent professionals, while the Republicans were starting to sound like populist insurgents. We have to understand this exchange in order to grasp how we got to where we are.

      I'm definitely curious about how this about face occurred.

    1. or Jonas, one of the questions we must face is this“What force shall represent the future in the present?”

      This is a pressing question which our governments pay far too little attention to.

    1. Trump had led the country to the brink of its own “Reichstag moment,” viewing him as a potential threat to American democracy.

      -- Gen. Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

    1. Nine of 10 of House Republicans will be white men, calculates David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report, compared to just over one-third of House Democrats.

      117th Congress

    2. The 2016 presidential race had signaled as much. Donald Trump carried 2,584 counties across the country, but calculations by scholars at the Brookings Institution showed that the 472 counties Hillary Clinton carried accounted for nearly two-thirds of U.S. economic output.

      Hillary Clinton: 472 counties = 64% US GDP

      Donald Trump: 2584 counties = 36% US GDP

      Source

    3. districts won by Democrats account for 61 percent of America's gross domestic product, districts won by Republicans 38 percent.
    4. Residents of districts won by Democrats generate 22% more output per worker, and have a 15% higher median household income.
    5. In Democratic districts, 35 percent of residents have college degrees, compared to 28 percent in Republican districts.
    6. Employees are less likely to work in manufacturing (7.2 percent in blue districts, 11 percent in red districts) and more likely to work in digital services (2.5 percent compared to 1.1 percent).
    7. Blue districts have attracted the expanding segments of the U.S. population and workforce; half their residents are non-white. Red districts are 27 percent non-white.
    1. Juan: As a community, we always do wrong. When I was in the US, we had Bernie. I love Bernie, I wish he would have been president, but they chose Hillary instead, and Hillary lost against Trump. Then I come to Mexico, and we had all hopes that this new government was going to do positive things. He is making a change, but it's going downhill right now. My long-term goal is to be able to change the way people view things, because Mexicans can be selfish, they can be ignorant.Juan: That's because that's how they were taught since they were little. What I want to do is change Mexico and take out all the potential that we have, because we have so much potential, we just don't do it, so does the US. The US has so much potential, one of the top ones with the potential, but because of right now with the leaders that we have, we're not able to provide it. Then again, I guess that's overall as a society. We want to change this, let's change this or change that, but we can't, because the person who is ruling is not going to … They have other things in priority.Anne: Maybe you'll be a president.Juan: I want to be president, but I want to make a change [Chuckles].Anne: That's great. Well, thank you very much.Juan: Yeah, no problem.

      Reflections, The United States, Mexico; Feelings, Dreams

  9. Jun 2021
    1. many Democrats had hoped to overwhelm Mr. Trump with a surge in turnout among young and nonwhite voters

      Well, those voters told you who they wanted and it wasn't Biden.

    1. The viciousness of church politics can rival pretty much any other politics you can name; the difference is that the viciousness within churches is often cloaked in lofty spiritual language and euphemisms.

      It would be interesting to examine some of this language and these euphemisms to uncover the change over time.

    2. One of the more incisive comments about the gap we often see between faith and works sticks with me today: that for too many people of the Christian faith, Jesus is a “hood ornament.”

      Jesus is a "hood ornament."

      searing...

    3. “‘Evangelical’ used to denote people who claimed the high moral ground; now, in popular usage, the word is nearly synonymous with ‘hypocrite,’” Timothy Keller, one of the most influential evangelicals in the world, wrote in The New Yorker in 2017.

      Interesting.

      I've found myself looking at statements from Republicans over the past several years and tagging them as "hypocrisy".

      I wonder what the actual overlap of the two groups is?

    4. “In American pop-culture parlance, ‘evangelical’ now basically means whites who consider themselves religious and who vote Republican,” according to the Baylor University historian Thomas Kidd.

      I feel like this is the general case...

    5. Partisan, cultural, and regional identities tend to shape religious identities.

      How?

      Why?

    1. As of 4 September 2020[update], 98 out of 193 (51%) United Nations (UN) member states, 22 out of 27 (81%) European Union (EU) member states, 26 out of 30 (87%) NATO member states, and 31 out of 57 (54%) Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) member states have recognised Kosovo. The government of Serbia does not recognise it as a sovereign state.
  10. May 2021
    1. Stephan Lewandowsky. (2021, May 16). An update to the ‘politics’ page of our COVID-19 vaccination communication handbook. Thanks to @kostas_exarhia for his diligent and constant work on this 1/n https://t.co/ezztaLMEBG [Tweet]. @STWorg. https://twitter.com/STWorg/status/1393996441966858242

    1. the mood music of the hard right from the past two centuries: the people in thrall to deceitful elites, awaiting deliverance by those who know and tell the truth

      an idea equally exploited by Hitler and Trump

    1. Examples of this sort of non-logical behaviour used to represent identity can be found in fiction in:

      • Dr. Seuss' The Butter Battle Book (Random House,1984) which is based on
      • the war between Lilliput and Blefuscu in Jonathan Swift's 1726 satire Gulliver's Travels, which was based on an argument over the correct end to crack an egg once soft-boiled.

      It almost seems related to creating identity politics as bike-shedding because the real issues are so complex that most people can't grasp all the nuances, so it's easier to choose sides based on some completely other heuristic. Changing sides later on causes too much cognitive dissonance, so once on a path, one must stick to it.

    1. Beltran, D. G., Isch, C., Ayers, J. D., Alcock, J., Brinkworth, J. F., Cronk, L., Hurmuz-Sklias, H., Tidball, K. G., Horn, A. V., Todd, P. M., & Aktipis, A. (2021). Mask wearing behavior across routine and leisure activities during COVID-19. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/2qya8

  11. Apr 2021
    1. Coinbase's CEO declared his company "apolitical." He says that he thinks of his company as a professional sports team. Paying no attention, it seems, to how actual professional sports teams have responded to social justice issues. He gave people a week to take severance if they disagree.
    1. Sensitivities are at 11, and every discussion remotely related to politics, advocacy, or society at large quickly spins away from pleasant. You shouldn't have to wonder if staying out of it means you're complicit, or wading into it means you're a target.

      This is something that even pre-Socratic philosophers discussed. Not saying something is also saying something.

      Most of what is done by and in a capitalist company is supported by a certain rationale: to make as much money as possible for your shareholders.

      If you care about making money, you speak out against injustices; These injustices could be logical, moral, ethical, or a mixture.

      The phrase 'It's become too much' is a bit vague from Fried, who has written books that advocate speaking out, e.g. 'It Doesn't Have To Be Crazy At Work'.

    1. Political solutions are also only partial because our interregnum has an emotional side, one best explored by writing about art.

      Something about this is reminiscent of the left's reliance on logic and the rights reliance on gut reaction and appeal to emotion. Rational versus emotional.

      How are we to bring the two together?

  12. Mar 2021
    1. His answer was that nature had endowed humans with reason (“logos”) and that, hence, the function of humans is to think and, more specifically, to participate — by way of thinking — in the divine thought that organizes the cosmos.

      F*** you aristotle.

    1. Mitch McConnell, who was accused of laying waste to bipartisan co-operation in the Senate when he blocked a supreme court pick by Barack Obama then changed the rules to hurry through three picks for Donald Trump, has said that if Democrats do away with the filibuster, they will “turn the Senate into a sort of nuclear winter”.

      Guardian, getting the big-long-truth out of the way up front. Woohoo! Exactly the right context. Persistently malignant force in America, that we have been unreceptive & unmoving in every way my entire living life. Bad people.

    1. Democrat Chicago to allow the economy to open up less than a week after Biden's inauguration...it's all planned to make Biden appear successful! Democrats allowed millions of people to suffer and lose businesses all for their own greed and power!
    1. System architects: equivalents to architecture and planning for a world of knowledge and data Both government and business need new skills to do this work well. At present the capabilities described in this paper are divided up. Parts sit within data teams; others in knowledge management, product development, research, policy analysis or strategy teams, or in the various professions dotted around government, from economists to statisticians. In governments, for example, the main emphasis of digital teams in recent years has been very much on service design and delivery, not intelligence. This may be one reason why some aspects of government intelligence appear to have declined in recent years – notably the organisation of memory.57 What we need is a skill set analogous to architects. Good architects learn to think in multiple ways – combining engineering, aesthetics, attention to place and politics. Their work necessitates linking awareness of building materials, planning contexts, psychology and design. Architecture sits alongside urban planning which was also created as an integrative discipline, combining awareness of physical design with finance, strategy and law. So we have two very well-developed integrative skills for the material world. But there is very little comparable for the intangibles of data, knowledge and intelligence. What’s needed now is a profession with skills straddling engineering, data and social science – who are adept at understanding, designing and improving intelligent systems that are transparent and self-aware58. Some should also specialise in processes that engage stakeholders in the task of systems mapping and design, and make the most of collective intelligence. As with architecture and urban planning supply and demand need to evolve in tandem, with governments and other funders seeking to recruit ‘systems architects’ or ‘intelligence architects’ while universities put in place new courses to develop them.
    1. As well as the discussion about what is really meant by a ‘domain of one’s own‘

      Societies have been inexorably been moving toward interdependence. More and more people specialize and sub-specialize into smaller fragments of the work that we do. As a result, we become more interdependent on the work of others to underpin our own. This makes the worry about renting a domain seem somewhat disingenuous, particularly when we can reasonably rely on the underlying structures to work to keep our domains in place.

      Perhaps re-framing this idea may be worthwhile. While it may seem that we own our bodies (at least in modern liberal democracies, for the moment), a large portion of our bodies are comprised of bacteria which are simultaneously both separate and a part of us and who we are. The symbiosis between people and their bacteria has been going on so long and generally so consistently we don't realize that the interdependence even exists anymore. No one walks around talking about how they're renting their bacteria.

      Eventually we'll get to a point where our interdependence on domain registrars and hosts becomes the same sort of symbiotic interdependence.

      Another useful analogy is to look at our interdependence on all the other pieces in our lives which we don't own or directly control, but which still allow us to live and exist.

      People only tend to notice the major breakdowns of these bits of our interdependence. Recently there has been a lot of political turmoil and strife in the United States because politicians have become more self-centered and focused on their own needs, wants, and desire for power that they aren't serving the majority of people. When our representatives don't do their best work at representing their constituencies, major breakdowns in our interdependence occur. We need to be able to rely on scientists to do their best work to inform politicians who we need to be able to trust to do their best work to improve our lives and the general welfare. When the breakdown happens it creates issues to the individual bodies that make up the society as well as the body of the society itself.

      Who's renting who in this scenario?

  13. Feb 2021
    1. Those who are responsible for upholding this system profess to want to fight crime, but they do so by destroying communities.

      This is an obviously emotional appeal that would affect anyone in the audience since most everyone has a sense of community somewhere. This statement also boldly shades those who uphold the system; including judges, cops, lawyers, and politicians.

    1. He is seriously concerned – as many of us are – about the destructive repercussions of identity politics, the censorship of dissenting opinion, and the rewriting of American history.

      A lot of inflammatory dog whistle rhetoric here (not to mention the poor use of en dashes posing as em dashes).

      He calls out destructive repercussions of identity politics, but fails to notice that everyone wants to feel safe in their identity, not just cis-gendered white male Republicans.

      He calls out censorship of dissenting opinion while writing on his own website. When did the government censor his opinions or any other opinions? Republicans are so pro-corporation and pro-enterprise, but then get upset when those same great companies enforce basic social norms?

      And then, in the same breath: "rewriting American history?!" Perhaps we just taking a more nuanced perspective of the actual truths? Maybe we're hearing the stories and perspectives of those who's dissenting opinions have been not only been censored out of the media, but never allowed in for almost 250 years?

    1. UK is with EU. (2021, January 18). ..The reason we are in this third lockdown is because of the anti lockdowners like Lord Sumption ..We are going in circles, countries who have done well controlled the virus and now have an economic recovery ..And every life matters #GMB @devisridhar speaking truth to power https://t.co/U3BBV0uUSb [Tweet]. @ukiswitheu. https://twitter.com/ukiswitheu/status/1351089812799950850

    1. Depending on the politics it might either mean that the implementation can no longer be changed, because that would break your code, or that your code is very fragile and keeps breaking on every upgrade or change of the underlying implementation.

      not quite sure how this is politics, but interesting example

    1. Sharpe claims that Englishmen “were able to…constitute themselves as political agents” by reading, whether or not they read about state affairs; for politics was “a type of consciousness” and the psyche “a text of politics.” “The Civil War itself became a contested text.” So reading was everything: “We are what we read.”

      The argument here is that much of the English Civil War was waged in reading and writing. Compare this with today's similar political civil war between the right and the left, but it is being waged in social media instead in sound bites, video clips, tweets, which encourage visceral gut reactions instead of longer and better thought out arguments and well tempered reactions.

      Instead of moving forward on the axis of thought and rationality, we're descending instead into the primordial and visceral reactions of our "reptilian brains."

  14. Jan 2021
  15. Dec 2020
    1. I saw him and was astounded. 33I loved him as a woman, 34falling upon him in embrace. 35I took him and made him 36my brother.” 37The mother of Gilgamish she that knows all things 38[said unto Gilgamish:—] ................................... [213] COL. II 1that he may join with thee in endeavor.” 2(Thus) Gilgamish solves (his) dream. 3Enkidu sitting before the hierodule

      In the time period the translation, you can tell that they had just begun to create labels on relationships, people etc to understand what they were feeling or to just recognize different people. In the text chosen, there are many different area's in the highlighted portion and throughout the text, where Gilgamesh uses labels which created for a clear story. It is however conflicting because of the translators and them maybe having included different sections so that the story makes sense. Nonetheless, when he said that he loved him like he would a woman, that shows how the language at the time was advanced, closer to the current 21st century, enough to realize that Gilgamesh had romantic feelings for Enkidu. Also with the piece when the translators described him as sitting near the hierodule. The slave, prostitute (both) was able to be identified no matter of the gender. Looking back at the time, it is still demeaning when thinking in our 21st century mindset and what we consider normal. However looking back, it is interesting to see how advanced the ancient Iraq civilization operated. It is also amazing seeing where the women of this country came from as in today's world the women now being able to be involved with the government, they are making it a mission so Iraqi women know their rights (Calabrese, John, et al).

      CC BY-SA

      Calabrese, John, et al. “Constitutional and Legal Rights of Iraqi Women.” Middle East Institute, 8 Dec. 2020, mei.edu/publications/constitutional-and-legal-rights-iraqi-women.

    1. For those awash in anxiety and alienation, who feel that everything is spinning out of control, conspiracy theories are extremely effective emotional tools. For those in low status groups, they provide a sense of superiority: I possess important information most people do not have. For those who feel powerless, they provide agency: I have the power to reject “experts” and expose hidden cabals. As Cass Sunstein of Harvard Law School points out, they provide liberation: If I imagine my foes are completely malevolent, then I can use any tactic I want.

      Underlying emotional drivers of Trump supporters, conspiracy theorists, and Republican psychology

    2. You can’t argue people out of paranoia. If you try to point out factual errors, you only entrench false belief. The only solution is to reduce the distrust and anxiety that is the seedbed of this thinking. That can only be done first by contact, reducing the social chasm between the members of the epistemic regime and those who feel so alienated from it. And second, it can be done by policy, by making life more secure for those without a college degree.

      Solutions to divided political landscape -- it can't be done head-on just by winning arguments through logic -- but instead will require community work, personal relationships, and educational policies

    1. KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation) @KFF (2020) RT @KFF @DrewAltman discusses two fundamental policy decisions made by the Trump administration that set the U.S. on the controversial an…

    1. The last several years, Mr. Obama says, have made it clear that “the normative glue that holds us together — a lot of those common expectations and values have weakened, have frayed in ways that de Tocqueville anticipated” and that “atomization and loneliness and the loss of community” have made our democracy vulnerable.

      Drivers of the current state of democracy and psychology of America.

      A view that is very similar to David Brooks'.

    1. There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

      Not just in the US but increasingly seen around the world as part of the anti-intellectualism associated with the Wokeness.

  16. Nov 2020
    1. Today, thanks to the GOP, compromise has gone out the window in Washington.

      Would a tit-for-tat strategy be a useful one for Biden? Perhaps leveled at individual people if not the Republican party as a whole?

  17. Oct 2020
    1. John Glubb and Avoiding the Fate of Empires

      John Glubb was an English Army officer who created a theory called the "Fate of Empires", which catalogues the typical rise and fall of hegemonic orders and attempts to explain why they fall. He wanted to understand where the North Atlantic European Hegemonic Order is in its cycle, in the hopes that we could avoid making the same mistakes as those before us.

      This is the typical cycle of empires:

      1. Age of Pioneers

      A small and insignificant nation on takes over its more powerful neighbors. This new nation is driven by a need to grow and improve, to become the power they took over. This phase is characterized by an optimistic sense of improvisation and initiative.

      1. The Age of Commerce

      The new empire has a lot of new territory, which is safer due to recent military successes. This sets the stage for economic growth. The conquering class benefits from the merchants but aren't motivated solely by material gains.

      1. Age of Affluence

      The ruling class look for ways to spend their new-found wealth, and because they still feel an idealistic sense of noble nationalism, they spend their money on large-scale civic and building projects and invest in art and culture.

      1. The Age of Intellect

      Gradually this material success corrodes the values of the ruling class and material wealth replaces nationalism as the primary virtue. This phase is characterized by a defensiveness and the need to protect what they have. Wall building comes at this phase.

      Often seen as a golden age, this is the phase that often comes before its downfall.

      1. The Age of Decadence

      The ruling class is completely disengaged from the issues of the state and are focussed almost completely on sport, entertainment, and personal gain.

    1. It happened in 2000, when Gore had more popular votes than Bush yet fewer electoral votes, but that was the first time since 1888.

      it happened again in 2016

    1. Produc într-adevăr alegerile un guvern legitim și responsabil? Alegerile produc un câștigător și un învins. Iar învinsul este neconsolat. Realitatea este că trebuie să inversăm ordinea. Nu politica e prima; ci e de fapt ultima. Politica devine mai facilă pe măsură ce deceniul trece, dacă o construim pe un fundament de securitate și creștere economică. Refacerea prosperității. 
    1. For the past four years, I’ve followed a group of steelworkers in Indiana — men and women, Black and white — who had worked at a factory that moved to Mexico. I watched them agonize about whether to train their Mexican replacements, or stand with their union and refuse. I watched them grieve the plant like a parent. I followed them as they applied for new jobs, some of which paid half as much as they made before.A machinist named Tim carried his steelworker union card in his wallet for years after the factory closed, just to remind himself who he was. Tim grew up in a union household. His dad had been an autoworker; his grandfather, a coal miner.“We always voted Democrat because they looked after the little man,” Tim told me. “My father went to his grave and I can guarantee you he never voted for a Republican.”Tim had such faith in Democrats that he didn’t worry when President Bill Clinton pushed the North American Free Trade Agreement over the finish line in 1993. Nor did he worry when Mr. Clinton normalized trade with China in 2000. But then the factory where Tim worked moved to Shanghai. And the next one moved to Mexico.Editors’ PicksA Korean Store Owner. A Black Employee. A Tense Neighborhood.The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation5 Things to Avoid on Prime DayAdvertisementContinue reading the main storyBy the time I met Tim, he loathed the Clintons and the Democratic Party. Democrats had gotten in bed with the corporations, while no one was looking. Tim felt betrayed, and politically abandoned — until Mr. Trump came along.

      By the time I met Tim, he loathed the Clintons and the Democratic Party. Democrats had gotten in bed with the corporations, while no one was looking. Tim felt betrayed, and politically abandoned — until Mr. Trump came along.

      +1

    1. Historians and political scientists see the matter differently today. Kennedy’s own vote counters later conceded that he lost 59 out of 70 white precincts in Gary. While Kennedy’s internal polls showed him faring better than might be expected among former supporters of George Wallace’s bid for the Democratic nomination four years earlier, he nevertheless struggled to retain working-class, white ethnic voters and relied instead on robust turnout in minority neighborhoods for his electoral cushion.

      Democrats were already on the trajectory of losing blue-collar whites by the end of the 60s.

    1. usually overwhelmed by misconceptions (the charitable interpretation) or lies and propaganda (the more accurate one). Some of the most prominent politicians in the country — notably Senator Ted Cruz — routinely lie to the public about what the law says and how courts have interpreted it.

      LOLGOP

    1. However the political crisis within the state apparatus develops over the next month, American democracy is at death’s door. The serendipitous accident of the White House pandemic cannot restore health to a social and political system that is rotten to the core.
    1. “Using Twitter to bypass traditional media and directly reach voters is definitely a good thing,” Newt Gingrich said, in 2009.

      Is this because it makes it easier for misdirection and outright lies to reach an audience without being checked and verified? Very likely.

    1. anomie

      I feel like this word captures very well the exact era of Trumpian Republicanism in which we find ourselves living.

    1. When people do inexplicable things, it’s always tempting to project qualities onto them that would offer a more innocuous explanation of their behavior than bad judgment, fecklessness, or stupidity. And this particular bias has infected contemporary political analysis with a virulence that rivals Ebola. Even when the subject’s motives are as transparent as Donald Trump’s, there will always be a class of pundit who insists that Trump is playing 3-D chess, when, as one anonymous staffer put it, “more often than not he’s just eating the pieces.” 
    1. Most previous explanations had focussed on explaining how someone’s beliefs might be altered in the moment.

      Knowing a little of what is coming in advance here, I can't help but thinking: How can this riot theory potentially be used to influence politics and/or political campaigns? It could be particularly effective to get people "riled up" just before a particular election to create a political riot of sorts and thereby influence the outcome.

      Facebook has done several social experiments with elections in showing that their friends and family voted and thereby affecting other potential voters. When done in a way that targets people of particular political beliefs to increase turn out, one is given a means of drastically influencing elections. In some sense, this is an example of this "Riot Theory".