“But if we apply to the present the lessons of the past, we realize that the reappearance of witch-hunting in so many parts of the world in the (19)’80s and (19)’90s is a clear sign of a process of primitive accumulation," which means that the privatization of land and other communal resources, mass impoverishment, plunder, and the sowing of divisions in once-cohesive communities are again on the world agenda.”
― Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch
Since the debates about technology are often just masked debates about capitalism’s inescapability, the critiques tend to resolve into the same shape, highlighting the same problematic business models, the same disregard for the populations put at risk, the same speculative frenzies, the same modes of overpromotion and distortion.
As I said, really good article…
Thanks to @baldur for sharing… good article.
It is all too easy to see them as gratuitous innovations whose imagined use cases seem far-fetched at best and otherwise detrimental to all but the select few likely to profit from imposing them on society. They make it starkly clear that the main purpose of technology developed under capitalism is to secure profit and sustain an unjust economic system and social hierarchies, not to advance human flourishing.
“10 oz plant-based beef crunmbles.”
If you are going to go vegan, go vegan. None of these “I wish I still ate meat” substitutes!
Beautiful Mind boxes? Is it possible there was more delusion than already has met the eye?
“Well, of course, there’s Cormac,” he said.
[Long pause] “But he’s in a class by himself. So let’s talk about some others.”
heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-15…
There are two ways of viewing the government’s duty in matters affecting economic and social life. The first sees to it that a favored few are helped and hopes that some of their prosperity will leak through, sift through, to labor, to the farmer, to the small businessman. The other is based upon the simple moral principle: the welfare and the soundness of a nation depend first upon what the great mass of the people wish and need; and second, whether or not they are getting it.
— FDR
Based on recent reading I think one could evolve a thesis that Capitalism is under threat and consequently is lashing back through a variety of channels of oppression, oppression of women being one of them, and child labor being another…
But, now, thanks to a red-hot labor market that is driving up wages, immigration bans, and an influx of unaccompanied minor children who have been released to sponsors after arriving in the U.S., child labor is on the rise.
4 rolls, 4 books, two copies each… in final production mode for Unfolding Vision, a show centered on Leporello books curated by Eleni Smolen. Opens July 08.
Specifically looking at probability distributions for text-to-text and image-to-image AI generative models, the researchers concluded that “learning from data produced by other models causes model collapse — a degenerative process whereby, over time, models forget the true underlying data distribution … this process is inevitable, even for cases with almost ideal conditions for long-term learning.”
And this…
In other words, the witch-hunt came to an end, by the late 17th century, because the ruling class by this time enjoyed a growing sense of security concerning its power, not because a more enlightened view of the world had emerged.
– Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch
This seems important to me…
… there is no evidence that the new science had a liberating effect (on the attitude towards witch hunting in the 17th century). The mechanistic view of Nature that came into existence with the rise of modern science “disenchanted the world.”
– Sylvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch
From this morning’s walk…
After relating the history of the Civil War and Richard M. Nixon, Heather Cox Richardson concludes:
Holding a former president accountable for an alleged profound attack on the United States is indeed unprecedented, as his supporters insist. But far from being a bad thing to stand firm on the rule of law at the upper levels of government, it seems to fall into the category of “high time.”
What do we mean by meaning? If it means anything, meaning must surely go beyond rule-following (merely putting together a grammar book with a lexicon) and on into the heart of messy human experience.
— The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World by Iain McGilchrist a.co/fb59wzu
Every time I think I have my app configuration settled and functioning smoothly, something comes along that questions it, which as often as not leads to reconfiguring it. Is it boredom?
From this morning’s walk…
Something about this array of wood planes makes me think spike heel shoes… rather sexy in a masculine sort of way… pronouns them/they.
“I’m Exploring Life”: 50 Years of Tom Wood’s Photos of Britain
Photie Man: 50 Years of Tom Wood at Liverpool’s Walker Art Gallery is the most comprehensive exhibition to date of the work of Wood, who is one of Britain’s most important image-makers. “It was something I wanted to do for the city,” Wood says. “The work was made here and I’ve had big shows all over the world; Moscow, France, China even, but not Liverpool.”
This morning’s HCR is an upbeat assessment of the moment. The Regan movement is petering out.
That battle to divide the American people along cultural lines in order to dismantle the federal government has, after forty years, led to a Republican Party that has embraced Christian nationalism, abandoning not only the policies of democracy but also democracy itself.
Today we get to see how much of a problem Judge Cannon might be.
From this morning’s walk…
Something tells me Puerto Rican day is coming soon…
