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Category Archives: economics
Plenty more fish not in the sea
This is very very interesting and depressing stuff. http://www.hogsalt.com/wp-hogsalt/2013/04/the-stades-last-stand/ The tl;dr. We trash the joint. Then invent new technologies to trash new joints. See also Marvin Harris’ “Cannibals and Kings“. And Charles Tilly’s “Coercion, Capital and European States 990 to … Continue reading
Posted in apocalypse, death, economics, fear, natural world
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CEOs as replicants?! #empathy #bladerunner #dilbert
From here You’re allowed to like both Tom Tomorrow and Scott Adams, right?
Posted in economics, framing, humour
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Read This Now: On scapegoating, benefit-claimants, and the long view
The guy who wrote this is, I am very proud to say, a friend of mine. I couldn’t excerpt it, it’s all too good. So I have reposted the whole thing from here. OK, now this is all getting pretty … Continue reading
Of Gods and monstrous supermarkets #Barthes #FT #HarryEyres #Fetishes
“I’ve always thought, and argued from time to time, that the appeal of supermarkets was largely mystical, or, in the sense used by Roland Barthes, mythological. The mystique or mythology is a combination of unlimited material abundance and modernity: these … Continue reading
Posted in a little self-knowledge, death, economics, fear, Financial Times
Tagged Fetishism, Financial Times, Harry Eyres, supermarkets
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Gamification On! From Winston Smith winning bonus points to Mario (Big) Brothers to…?
Mark Carrigan is a cool sociologist looking at various things like asexuality, technology and so on. Here’s from his latest – “+1 for Efficient Labour: Gamification, Capitalism and Intellectual Responsibility“; Earlier this week, it was reported in a number of outlets … Continue reading
Posted in competence, economics
Tagged Andon Boards, Games, gamification, gaming, Mark Carrigan, panspectron
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Off-the-scale badness (no, not #Manchester for once). Beijing, going through an Industrial Revolution all of its own…
Often I rant about the smugosphere. Today I post about the smogosphere. Dirty coal, doncha just love it… (NB, story is from Jan 12, 2013) BEIJING — One Friday more than two years ago, an air-quality monitoring device atop the … Continue reading
Posted in apocalypse, death, economics, fear
Tagged Beijing, China crisis, Smogosphere
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The Panopticon, the Panspectron – look at Gaza and see how the world will be…
Have just read a fascinating and terrifying academic article called “The Gaza Strip as Panopticon and Panspectron: The Disciplining and Punishing of a Society.” [pdf] It’s by Michael Dahan (PhD) of Sapir College, Israel. The take home is that Gaza … Continue reading
Posted in activism, apocalypse, bureaucracy, climate, death, economics, fear, politics, technoscience
Tagged Deleuze, Michael Dahan, Michel Foucault, panopticon, panspectron, participatory surveillance, surveillance
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I love watching illegitimate three-ways
Lemme explain; Here in the United (cough cough) Kingdom (cough cough), there’s been this self-regarding thing about how generally un-corrupt public life is. Elections don’t get rigged, you don’t have demagogues, your advancement in life doesn’t depend on who your … Continue reading
Posted in apocalypse, competence, economics, fear
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Aggression “natural” dominance “human nature” blah blah blah yadder yadder yadder
I am so unbelievably sick of the “just-so” stories that are propagated as means of justifying the crappy things we either do or allow to be done. From the Catholic Church and its “original sin” to the lunatic right and … Continue reading
Posted in death, economics, fear, natural world
Tagged aggression, babboons, hierarchy, pecking order, Stan Goff
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JK Rowling on taxes – magic!!
Never read the Harry Potter books – might read the new one, for adults.
