1,037 Matching Annotations
  1. Jun 2015
    1. Most people reading this will already be fairly tolerant. But there is a step beyond thinking of yourself as x but tolerating y: not even to consider yourself an x. The more labels you have for yourself, the dumber they make you.

      The only counter-argument that comes to mind for me didn't form itself until I had read this last paragraph a few times.

      If your identity marker connotes tolerance then it hopefully has the opposite effect. Insofar as the experience of marginalization promotes empathy such identities might be good evidence for intelligence, and I do think individuals who feel oppressed or marginalized tend to empathize with others who suffer for different, marginalized identities.

      These identities will only breed stupidity if the individual feels a competition for scarce resources that overwhelms their empathy, whence the perniciousness of the belief in zero sum attention economics as a greater threat to activism than inaction, ignorance, and exhaustion.

    1. The data show that in some circumstances in which a woman may choose to end a pregnancy, majorities of Americans — Democrats and Republicans — are on the same side, sometimes supporting the legality of the procedure and sometimes not.
  2. May 2015
    1. Gridlock

      I find myself thinking here about intersectionality, and about a certain critique of identity politics which seems to target those whose identities are marked. White men e.g. can critique and transcend the grid, while those whose positions in it are sites of political organizing are accused of reifying the grid. Not sure if Massumi is even in that neighborhood...

    1. inspirational organizational

      Indeed, it becomes a matrice. It is not a coincidence if free software share its source : the core of the paradigm is both the source and the sharing itself. It is a recursive and viral paradigm.

  3. Apr 2015
    1. The children who thought that having a black president, despite the fact that he was, on domestic policy, worse than EVERY other democratic nominee, are why the US is so fucked right now.

      Wow. Hadn't heard it put so bluntly before.

    1. “Honestly,” said Wiener, “it is perplexing to me why people are so insistent that local communities should not have control. The behavior we see on (our) street is a very localized issue. We should be able to address it.

      Our local communities passed sit-lie, Scott. Not only that, but on the very same ballot was a measure that would increase foot patrols.

      We can't, from one side of our mouths, say that we should have local control, and then from the other side that police don't get discretion in how they address use of public space but instead must enforce a law like sit-lie.

      Our local community got it wrong. If we can get it right at the state level, then fine.

      I don't care at which level it happens, I care that our laws encode compassion.

    1. There were actual politics at stake, and it would’ve been an ridiculously dangerous move to substitute identity affinities for political analysis.

      Yes!!! Reminds me of this quote from Graeber's "Democracy Project": https://instagram.com/p/tjcYY9Og32/?taken-by=tilgovi

  4. Feb 2015
    1. "We provide half a billion dollars (annually) to the District. One would think they would be much more compliant with the wishes of Congress," Rep. Andy Harris, a Maryland Republican and one of the most vocal pot opponents, said in an interview Thursday.

      It's almost unbelievable to me that a representative can say something like this. It really speaks to how comfortable we've gotten with money politics.

    1. At a World Cancer Day symposium, Shripad Naik, Minister of State for AYUSH, asked scientists to look to traditional Indian medicines to treat the disease.

      The Minister of State for Ayush is an idiot. They should be the one asking scientists for advice, not the other way around.

  5. Jan 2015
    1. After 2004, I believed the story that the protesters in Ukraine and elsewhere were mobilized through text messaging and blogs.

      believes the story ... it's a story he believes.

    2. We were supposed to be saving the world by helping to promote democracy, but it seemed clear to me that many people, even in countries like Belarus or Moldova, or in the Caucasus, who could have been working on interesting projects with new media on their own, would eventually be spoiled by us.

      Applies to these activities wherever undertaken, including any country in the West, he just so happens to be interested in former Soviet Block countries

    3. If you’re trying to figure out how a non-neoliberal regime can function in the twenty-first century and still be constructive towards both environment and technology, you have to tackle these kinds of questions. There’s no avoiding them.

      Inter alia neo-liberalism is reactionary.

    4. It’s primarily from data and not their algorithms that powerful companies currently derive their advantages, and the only way to curb that power is to take the data completely out of the market realm, so that no company can own them. Data would accrue to citizens, and could be shared at various social levels. Companies wanting to use them would have to pay some kind of licensing fee, and only be able to access attributes of the information, not the entirety of it.

      Yes, well at present the security services are complicit with the present economic and legislative model, and this makes imagining any change to existing structures very difficult because such changes will be resisted by the rather shadowy security services. Cameron does a deal with them, he makes a point somewhat in support of their agenda in return for which he bigs up his position on security with the cost of looking an idiot - not a huge cost for a politician it seems.

    5. But if you turn data into a money-printing machine for citizens, whereby we all become entrepreneurs, that will extend the financialization of everyday life to the most extreme level, driving people to obsess about monetizing their thoughts, emotions, facts, ideas—because they know that, if these can only be articulated, perhaps they will find a buyer on the open market. This would produce a human landscape worse even than the current neoliberal subjectivity. I think there are only three options. We can keep these things as they are, with Google and Facebook centralizing everything and collecting all the data, on the grounds that they have the best algorithms and generate the best predictions, and so on. We can change the status of data to let citizens own and sell them. Or citizens can own their own data but not sell them, to enable a more communal planning of their lives. That’s the option I prefer.

      Very well thought out. Obviously must know about read write web, TSL certificate issues etc. But what does neoliberal subjectivity mean? An interesting phrase.

    6. On the one hand, we can foresee these companies extending their reach ever further into everyday life, to a point where it would become difficult to even articulate why you would want a different model, since our use of these technologies and the politics embedded in them also permits or restricts our ways of thinking about how to live.

      The indoctrinated future - probably closer than we think.

  6. Nov 2014
    1. When we get to the point where someone sees the mere existence of a political conflict that requires us to criticize allies as a no-win scenario, something has gone very wrong. For the actual work of politics– convincing people to come over to our side in order to make the world a more just and equitable place– those politics have utterly failed. We have been talking about privilege theory for 30 years. We’ve been talking about intersectionality for 25 years. We’ve been getting into cyclical, vicious Twitter frenzies for a half decade. This is not working. And I doubt hardly anyone actually believes that this is working. They’re just having too much fun to stop.

      I've recently decided, for myself, that Twitter is not a viable platform for political discussions. I simply can't do it anymore. I spend more time getting derailed by confusion stemming from trying to be terse when discussing subtleties than I do actually discussing the issues I wanted to discuss.

    1. Perhaps a belief endures in these women that sidling up to men with power, rather than organising for it collectively, will yield individual gains.
    2. The recognition of feminism is that women exist at a social disadvantage to a history that privileges and resources men at their expense.
    3. ...and yet they really do believe that by pandering to the blokes, they'll be treated with respect and equality!

  7. Aug 2014
    1. Of course, the radical feminist position that masculinity is natural and healthy, and femininity artificial and harmful, is also inherently sexist

      Of course. That's an important theme. It's as though it's being suggested here that radical feminists chose this view, when I think it's more correct to say that they are reacting to it.

    2. In contrast, she mentions and quotes a total of four trans women (zero from books), and two of them are quoted to supporting the radical feminist position.

      Might one argue that since these feminists feel their fight has been co-opted and, despite the many ways trans individuals are less assured of their safety and rights than cis women, the radical feminist is actually the more oppressed insofar as identity politics has left them behind? In which case, might we celebrate that time is given to this minority rather than criticize the piece for being one-sided?

    3. frequently providing physical descriptions

      I count only three instances, none of which are offensively dwelling on appearance in the way that media often is scrutinizing women's bodies. One of these descriptions is particularly well meaning: it is given only to color the story of abandoned transition with the image of hormone-induced stubble. To mention that there are physical descriptions of any of the activists in the piece here is obvious pandering.

  8. Feb 2014
    1. In addition to broad economic trends affecting domestic politics evenly, Fisher also notes the uneven distribution of effects stemming from intellectual property rights (1999, Sect. II. C.). The positive effects of intellectual property rights accrue strongl y to a small number of rights - holders (the paper assumes that there are no significant negative effects to rights - holders); for this reason, rights - holders have significant motive (and potentially greater means) to overcome the significant barriers to acti ve political lobbying.
  9. Jan 2014
    1. Let's rethink the idea of the state: it must be a catalyst for big, bold ideas

      Reframe role of government

    1. This map requires Adobe Flash Player.

      Get the data and ask them to redraw it using D3.js

    1. The formula is simple: divide the population by the number of congressional or legislative districts and use the existing geo-political boundaries to come as close to the required number as possible.

      How can we get this enacted/mandated?

    1. The federal government already spends enough on student aid to cover tuition for every public college student in America. Maybe it's time to try.

      How can we start this moving in Congress?

  10. Oct 2013
    1. larger fight over limiting the filibuster and restricting how far the minority party can go to thwart a president’s agenda.

      yep, the fight is what it's all about, eh?

    1. powers of persuasion most of all enhanced by a knowledge

      Rhetoric not solely as skill in speaking, but also as being knowledgeable about a subject/having something real to say.

    2. The political speaker will also appeal to the interest of his hearers, and this involves a knowledge of what is good. Definition and analysis of things "good."

      Sounds like a politician, always telling people what they want to hear.

    3. In urging his hearers to take or to avoid a course of action, the political orator must show that he has an eye to their happiness.

      Their is no distinction between acting concerned and genuine concern for "their" happiness.

    1. we should know the moral qualities characteristic of each form of government, for the special moral character of each is bound to provide us with our most effective means of persuasion in dealing with it

      I didn't know that different types of government had different moral characteristics. With the type of politicians we elect I feel like we should be pretty low on the list.

  11. Sep 2013
    1. Hence rhetoric may be regarded as an offshoot of dialectic, and also of ethical (or political) studies.

      of philosophical and of ethical or political studies

    1. urging all his fellow-countrymen to be nobler and juster leaders of the Hellenes

      Positive political oratory, as opposed to the view that all court rhetoricians are corrupt.

    1. Neither will he be the friend of any one who is greatly his inferior, for the tyrant will despise him, and will never seriously regard him as a friend.

      I don't know how politics was viewed during Socratimes, but I think this isn't relevant today. Lying and fake-friendships run rampant in the states.

    2. I answer, Socrates, that rhetoric is the art of persuasion in courts of law and other assemblies, as I was just now saying, and about the just and unjust.

      here rhetoric is dependent on audience? Rhetoric primarily meant for politics?