Opening the Season [WaDI - 04.09.2019]
Hello everyone! This is the first time in the history of this newsletter that I’m sending this to more than 100 people. So, welcome to everyone who recently joined and thanks to everyone who shared it. Let’s begin.
September always feels like the start of the new season to me. Part of it because I always had a tie with academy and also Göki, my partner, is a teacher. September always means beginning of the work season in my head. Even though there is no holiday period in freelance life.
But this mindset helps me to program myself. Although I keep working through the summer, around mid-August my head starts planning for the new season. Then I start cleaning anything that needs to be cleaned and organized in work sense. Try to make sure that I can start to September with a slate as clean as possible.
But this year it felt like September really the start of a new season. Many projects and new works either starts this month or if it’s already going on, refreshes itself. This means more stuff to do and I’m glad I cleaned my desk (both figuratively and literally) before September.
But at the same time, first Monday of the September started with a surprise power and water outage. Now I’m not sure whether that was a sign about the future or just the usual infrastructure issues of Turkey.
From the Blog
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Earlier today, I delivered my thesis proposal to the university. It’ll be officially accepted after the bureaucratic part is done but technically, I’m allowed to tell you that I’ve started to writing my Masters thesis.
It’s going to be about post-truth, journalism ethics and the right-wing media. There is so much to talk about it and you can be sure that I’ll be writing a lot about all of that both here and over the blog. But there’s something else in my head that’s also sort of connected with this.
I was feeling that there’s a common conversation going on around the #GlobalFrequencyofWeird circles and although the feeling was there, I couldn’t put my finger on it. Until Corey J. White wrote this blog post. To summarize, I’m going to quote Corey:
I don’t know what the answer is. I’m not even sure of the question. But I agree with Damien that our culture is sick. Our precarious worklives, the way our agency and freedoms are slowly being stripped away from us due to “threats” of “terrorism” and the ubiquity of surveillance apparatus, the flood of social/media outrage keeping us agitated – all of it works to ensure that we are too tired and/or depressed to create or consume anything that is truly new. We need the familiar because it is all we have the energy to digest.
I don’t want to drown you in quotes so you should definitely read it.
There’s so much to unpack in this conversation. We need to have a serious conversation about the current status of the culture we’re living in. And how to built a new one. Because it’s obvious that current culture is either already dead or having it’s last moments. To me, all of the conversations about post-truth, propaganda, issues about journalism and media connects to that. Not just because those are also part of the culture but these are also feeding it too.
Right now, many different things connecting inside my head. I want to say a lot of stuff but if I say it now it’ll probably mean nothing to anyone, including me. I’m going to let these thoughts connect and grow inside my brain and will come up with an article soon.
WaDI Filter
This article about the story of Metal Gear games is the reason why I love the series. Not just the games has an amazing story, it also teaches everyone how to tell your story through video games.
In Johannes Kleske’s words: “If this conversation doesn‘t convince you that we maybe shouldn‘t leave the future to these two [Musk and Ma], I don‘t know what will…”
An academic paper from 1992: “It is proposed that happiness be classified as a psychiatric disorder and be included in future editions of the major diagnostic manuals under the new name: major affective disorder, pleasant type.” (via Oliver at Restricted.Academy)
If you always wondered why tech companies patent all that weird stuff, this article is for you. (TL;DR: they don’t want anyone else to invent new stuff.)
Song for this week’s newsletter is September by Jungle Funk. Since my brother discovered them, listening this song at the beginning of September become a tradition for us. Also Jungle Funk is a great band. Shame they only have one album.
Okay, that’s all I have for this week. Take care of yourself and use every tool you have to create your own culture. It’s either that or what Disney thinks worth making.
See you next week!
Who Writes This?
Ahmet A. Sabancı (that's me), writer, journalist and researcher. Writing about many things including technology, surveillance, censorship, philosophy, science fiction and futures and occasionally about politics and Turkey. There’s a good chance you found me through my blog or Twitter. You can find more about me here and small selection of my writings here.