postcapitalism
2015-08-24
The end of capitalism has begun | Books | The Guardian
New forms of ownership, new forms of lending, new legal contracts: a whole business subculture has emerged over the past 10 years, which the media has dubbed the “sharing economy”. Buzzwords such as the “commons” and “peer-production” are thrown around, but few have bothered to ask what this development means for capitalism itself.
I believe it offers an escape route – but only if these micro-level projects are nurtured, promoted and protected by a fundamental change in what governments do. And this must be driven by a change in our thinking – about technology, ownership and work. So that, when we create the elements of the new system, we can say to ourselves, and to others: “This is no longer simply my survival mechanism, my bolt hole from the neoliberal world; this is a new way of living in the process of formation.”
Social science as sin
2015-08-10
The ideological roots of Stephen Harper’s vendetta against sociology
So what does Harper have against sociology? First, Harper is clearly trumpeting a standard component of neo-liberal ideology: that there are no social phenomena, only individual incidents.
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But there’s yet another reason this ideology is so hostile toward the kind of sociological analysis done by Statistics Canada, public inquiries and the like. And that has to do with the type of injustices we can even conceive of, or consider tackling, as a society.
Happiness is not so simple
2015-08-07
“Positive Attitude” Bullshit: On the dangers of “radical self-love”
Radical self-love gurus do not tend to promote or even really engage in discussions on privilege or the disadvantages people are born into; that shit would undermine the cause of “changing yourself, not the system.”
The third Red Noise album
2015-03-03
mostly done on the night of February 28, 2015.
https://soundcloud.com/red_noise/sets/apropos-of-nothing
Is saving Newcastle a mission impossible?
The bins were overflowing. A few passersby suggested that newly arrived Roma people from Slovakia were to blame; others said that was unfair, and pointed out that the city council had lately halved its bin collections, and reduced street cleaning.
Therefore, life is unfair
2015-02-05
Believing that life is fair might make you a terrible person
Confronted with an atrocity they otherwise can’t explain, people become slightly more likely, on average, to believe that the victims must have brought it on themselves.
Ursula Le Guin tells it like it is.
2014-11-27
Bill Mantlo
2014-11-10
Bill Mantlo was a legendary writer for Marvel Comics in the 1970s and 1980s. But today, he inhabits a broken body abandoned by both the health insurance industry and the federal healthcare reform meant to help people like him. This is his story.
Probably my most hated comics writer once i got to teenage years, when i realized he was writing to an audience that was now below my intelligence. But that is a quibble in comparison to what happened to him in the American health system.
