You academic (political) types sure know how to make a simple thing complicated.
~Gerald Murnane, Goroke, December 2017
A Modest Proposal
- Algorithms and the end of taste. Taste is a moral capacity, an ability to recognize truth and beauty. It was once a human quality. Now it's a digital product Marginal Seats and Revolutions
How to Sway a Baboon Despot
What other species can teach us about democracy
World Bank recommends fewer regulations protecting workers Guardian. Note that the World Bank is yet another neoliberal enforcer, just not as visible as the IMF. Bill F:
Greens want donation reform after a look at minister's diary - The Fifth EstateThis one should send chills down everyone’s spine. Looks like a synthesis of corporate economic thinking on a world-wide scale. This kind of dangerous nonsense calls into question the (not so) long-term viability of capitalism
Peter Hartcher is the political editor and international editor of The Sydney Morning Herald. He is a Gold Walkley award winner, a former foreign correspondent in Tokyo and Washington
One of the central themes of ANZAC commemorations is that Australians have long fought and died for freedom and democracy.
Today, those appear to be lost causes. A few years ago the US academic Larry Diamond declared that a "democratic recession" had set in after about 2006. The long global expansion of democracy that began with the fall of the Soviet Union faltered. Worse, it then started to reverse.
If it was a recession then, it's full-blown depression today. A Washington-based watchdog, Freedom House, this year titles its annual assessment of the state of freedom in all the countries of the world "Democracy in Crisis".
All things to all people …
… that he might win their votes: NY Gov. Cuomo Says He's Muslim, Female, and Jewish, Among Other Things | Video
AMAZON GETS TAX BREAKS WHILE ITS EMPLOYEES RELY ON FOOD STAMPS, NEW DATA SHOWS The Intercept (furzy)
Bid to repeal rent-control limits in California could be headed to ballot San Francisco Chronicle
Homeownership Does Not Guarantee Middle-Class Prosperity American ConservativeHow the Loss of Union Power Has Hurt American Manufacturing NYT. Uh, Duh. So obvious even the Grey Lady gets it.When Robots Take Our Jobs, Platform Cooperatives Are a Solution Reader Supported News
The new language of precarity Financial TimesFor those who receive — and deliver — Meals on Wheels, more than nutrition is on the menu Boston Globe (furzy). If I ever have time and money to retire, this is the sort of thing I would do (well, except it seems to require a car and I want never to own a car). I give now to charities that feed homebound people.Artificial intelligence will wipe out half the banking jobs in a decade, experts say San Jose Mercury NewsSt. Louis Park unanimously passes first-of-its-kind tenant protection Minnesota Public Radio News (UserFriendly)
Due Process: Lamenting the death of the rule of law in a country where it might have always been missing. Lewis Lapham
Government Accidentally Releases Documents on “Psycho-Electric” Weapons Popular Mechanics. This should not be news. Not long after the USSR fell, one of its prominent scientists wrote a book about the government’s parapsychological research program, which was investigating things like mind control and long-distance messaging. They concluded that there were people with real psychic abilities, vastly above random, but still not reliable enough to use for military purposes. The book said the US has a similar research problem….and not the one later described in The Men Who Stare at Goats, which may well have been the DoD funding some cranks to provide cover for their serious programs.Singapore conquers the sea
‘No Company Is So Important Its Existence Justifies Setting Up a Police State’ New York Magazine (Paul R). Today’s must read.Gmail to introduce new privacy features, including ‘confidential mode’ and self destructing emails Thai Tech (furzy)Tis not the first time that, dreaming of freedom, we build a new prison.
-- poet Maximilian Voloshin
Last known survivor of the 19th century has passed away. And a related thread. Jozef Imrich was born in 1911 Maria Imrichova was born in 1917 both were born under the Hungarian Austrian empire and they were forced to go though the feudalism, brif journey though democracy 1918-1938 - then Fascism, Communism, and back in 1989 when they were both still alive they came across the light of democracy again ... However as Havel used to say human have a habit of exchanging one brutalism with another ...
The importance of local milieus, “How important are local inventive milieus: The role of birthplace, high school and university education,” by Olof Ejermo and Høgni Kalsø Hansen
At least since Aesop, animals were seen as symbols useful for understanding human morality. Then, in 1668, Descartes’s work changed everything... MEda Dragon