MJW: I’ve emerged momentarily, from my months-long migraine fog to write one single paragraph in this fortnight’s edition, so I took the reins on the intro too. Look at me, I’m performing functionality! If I keep this up, maybe I’ll be a real girl again soon (tho not likely.) This week there’s the usual: other newsletters (we’re not the jealous type), thoughts on various Media Content, and more links to hectic news shit that you can follow if you are able to engage with the world at all (say hi for me, I’m not ready yet!). Enjoy.
I wrote our latest bonus issue - Gould’s, about the kinda-traumatic experience that made me the only book-obsessive who hates the smell of old books. For future bonuses and access the full archive, just go here to become a supporter. Unlocked bonuses are here.
The Team
Corey J. White (CJW) - manic Wallfacer dream girl. Naarm/Melbourne.
Marlee Jane Ward (MJW) - I’m also this person. Quite mental. On Wurundjeri land.
m1k3y (MKY) - Wallfacer / ecopoet // Dark Extropian Musings / pryvt.rsrch
Daniel Harvey (DCH) - Designer, writer, provocateur. Pro-guillotine tech critic. @dancharvey
Articles
CJW: It's Not “Ecofascism”—It's Liberalism
The high risk that sustainability will be pursued in an unjust way is one of the many reasons socialists need to lead this transition: if they don’t, liberals or open fascists will, and their efforts are likely to be violent, unequal, and racist. The socialist approach, after all, is to ensure that all people can live equitably with material abundance. This is not possible with the kind of frenetic consumption and extraction that has characterized liberal capitalism so far, nor with state communism (or their hybridized forms), for that matter.
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Bolsonaro and Trump himself are the logical, necessary extensions of an ideology whose sole axiom is the transformation of every inch of land and water into individually owned wealth. Despite the political labels of “conservative” or “right-wing,” Bolsonaro, Trump, and Boris Johnson are hardly an outrage to liberal capitalist sensibilities; instead they are its honest renderings.
I came across this piece from March by Samuel Miller McDonald because he was on an episode of the Neighbor Science podcast, which I got onto because Ryan from that podcast was on an episode of the SRSLY WRONG podcast about how Economics is Horseshit (which I’ve long believed to be true, so I like to be proven correct by people who are smarter than me).
Anyway, this is a great piece. In these pages we’ve lamented about various ecofascist tendencies that have become prevalent and which will continue to play out across the coming decades, and this piece demonstrates that so-called ecofascism actually falls neatly beneath the umbrella of modern liberalism. Well worth a read.
And it ends with this thought:
Proponents of economic liberalism will continue exterminating non-privileged populations as ecological crises intensify, leaving elites to choose who to save and who to damn. By focusing on ecofascism as a new threat, and a separate entity, we continue to fortify the strong public inertia against anything “eco”. As we panic over a scary new monster, we’re taking the heat off the far deadlier one.
MKY: Did somebody say “an ideology whose sole axiom is the transformation of every inch of land and water into individually owned wealth” - California Water Futures Begin Trading Amid Fear of Scarcity.
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DCH: The Christchurch Shooter and YouTube’s Radicalization Trap
This “step-ladder of amplification” is in part a byproduct of the business model for YouTube creators, says Lewis. Revenue is directly tied to viewership, and exposure is currency. While these networks of creators played off each other’s fan bases, the drive to gain more viewers also incentivized them to post increasingly inflammatory and incendiary content.
It’s not a byproduct. Outrage is the business model.
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MKY: Mohsen Fakhrizadeh: 'Machine-gun with AI' used to kill Iran scientist
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was shot dead in a convoy outside Tehran on 27 November.
Brig-Gen Ali Fadavi told local media that the weapon, mounted in a pick-up truck, was able to fire at Fakhrizadeh without hitting his wife beside him. The claim could not be verified.
[...]
Gen Fadavi, the deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards, told a ceremony in Tehran on Sunday that a machine-gun mounted on the Nissan pick-up was "equipped with an intelligent satellite system which zoomed in on martyr Fakhrizadeh" and "was using artificial intelligence".
CJW: Come for the “machine gun with AI” stay for the analysis?
MKY: but wait there’s also: Gangsterism as Foreign Policy: Assassinations are Becoming the New Norm.
CJW: On twitter the overwhelming response to this assassination seemed to be people making Breaking Bad references, but this is exactly where my mind went. Assassination increasingly becoming the new norm seems too serious to dismiss with a gif from a TV show… but hell, culture is also how we understand the world, so what do I know?
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CJW: The Xinjiang Data Police - NOEMA
As the scholar Lilly Irani has noted, cutting-edge algorithms built by tech conglomerates around the world are often managed and monitored by low-wage technicians. Much of this work is done through platforms like the Amazon-hosted contractor network called Mechanical Turk. These “data janitors,” as Irani refers to them, train software to recognize and digitize material objects, behaviors and people.
In northwest China, data janitors became data police.
[...]
Unlike justice for data janitors who build the algorithms of American tech companies, justice for data police in China is not simply a question of better work conditions or the freedom to quit. They exemplify a more fundamental question of whether people are the authors of their own lives. Data police like Baimurat are witnesses to the new unfolding of a banal power over life itself.
This is the darker side of the coin to those articles we have previously shared about Facebook content moderators, except that it’s worse in every way. People with little opportunities taking these governmental jobs only to be forced to spy on people from their own communities as part of the system that has imprisoned over a million Uigher in an attempt to eradicate their culture and their way of life.
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CJW: The World Is a Factory Farm
Under a regime of biosecurity, living beings are flattened into momentary vectors of capital or disease. Containment of all kinds becomes the goal. These new frontiers in biosecurity are accompanied by a cultural pendulum that swings from normalcy to alarm alongside the constant search for an elusive sense of security in our ever-uncertain world.
But if biosecurity is an ideology, a practice, and an economy that makes the nation-state secondary to the forces of tech capital and technology, its recent appearance is testament to its own fragility. The fact that biosecurity needs to exist is a reminder that the project to contain and control the unpredictability of living beings is ultimately futile. There are numerous ways to intervene in these hulking systems of capital that would like us to believe there is no outside.
This links to that brilliant Social Contagion piece we shared at the start of the pandemic, though this piece is a bit lighter.
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CJW: Human-made materials now outweigh Earth's entire biomass (via Jane Rawson)
Their research shows that human activity including production of concrete, metal, plastic, bricks and asphalt has brought the world to a crossover point where human-made mass – driven mostly by enhanced consumption and urban development – exceeds the overall living biomass on Earth.
[...]
“The face of Earth in the 21st century is affected in an unprecedented manner by the activities of humanity and the production and accumulation of human-made objects,” the researchers say.
Here’s a link to the paper for those with a Nature subscription.
This is precisely why I don’t trust any people, organisations, corporations, or governments that talk about green growth (a particularly dangerous oxymoron). Our collective footprint is already far too large.
Related: Europe's Green Deal offshores environmental damage to other nations (via Ospare)
Carbon accounting under the Paris agreement covers only emissions produced within a nation, not those embedded in goods consumed there but produced elsewhere. Each EU citizen currently ‘imports’ around 1 tonne of carbon dioxide per year in goods entering the EU. The Green Deal risks perpetuating this misstep. Instead, the EU should assess, publish and try to decrease its global carbon footprint.
There’s plenty more to read at the link.
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MKY: New Zealand declares a climate change emergency | World news
fuck, Jacinda, just takeover Australia already. Nobody would object. Cause here, ‘the end of the world has bipartisan support’.
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CJW: R2D2 as a model for AI collaboration | by Alexis Lloyd (via Sentiers)
My hypothesis is that this whole anthropomorphic model for robots is fundamentally just a skeuomorph because we haven’t developed new constructs for machine intelligence yet, in the same way that desks and file drawer metaphors were the first attempts at digital file systems [...]
Instead, a more compelling approach would be to exploit the unique affordances of machines. We already have people. Humans are already quite good at doing human things. Machines are good at doing different things. So why don’t we design for what they’re good at, what their unique abilities are and how those abilities can enhance our lives?
This ties in to my recent Centaur Futures bonus piece and the work of Holly Herndon, Mat Dryhurst, et al - discussing a future where collaboration with AI is the path taken as opposed to domination/subjugation.
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DCH: We read the paper that forced Timnit Gebru out of Google. Here’s what it says.
Gebru’s draft paper points out that the sheer resources required to build and sustain such large AI models means they tend to benefit wealthy organizations, while climate change hits marginalized communities hardest. “It is past time for researchers to prioritize energy efficiency and cost to reduce negative environmental impact and inequitable access to resources,” they write.
The big tech companies had a very bad week on the public image front. First with Google being dragged for firing the Timnit Gebru but then also…
DCH: Google illegally spied on workers before firing them, US labor board alleges
Google violated US labor laws by spying on workers who were organizing employee protests, then firing two of them, according to a complaint filed by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) today.
...for being outed as hiring the fucking Pinkertons to union bust and shit.
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DCH:US and 48 states sue Facebook in major antitrust actions
“Today, we are taking action to stand up for the millions of consumers and many small businesses that have been harmed by Facebook’s illegal behavior. Instead of competing on the merits, Facebook used its power to suppress competition so it could take advantage of users and make billions by converting personal data into a cash cow.”
But even Google didn’t have as shitty a week as Facebook. I’ve had such a raging erection since this news broke. I need to go see a doctor I think.
Newsletters
CJW: Gen Dread - Undeniable (via Inhabit)
The American Psychological Association describes eco-anxiety as the “chronic fear of environmental doom,” but at its simplest, at this late stage in the climate crisis, it is merely a sign of attachment to the world. Eco-anxiety isn’t listed as a medical condition in the DSM, and many mental health professionals say it is important that it remains excluded. After all, the last thing we want is to pathologize this moral emotion, which stems from an accurate understanding of how grave of an ecological mess we’ve made.
If, like me, you both struggle with eco-anxiety and mental health issues more generally, this Gen Dread newsletter by Britt Wray looks like a worthy subscribe. This particular issue went out before the recent US election, so some of it will be dated, but there’s still some good stuff in it.
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DCH: RUDOLPH GIULIANI IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF WARREN G. HARDING
But something that’s bugged me, this past four years, about all the Hitler parallels to Trump, is that they help us avoid looking at homegrown antecedents and themes. It’s not as if some outside force, alien to our democratic republican spirit—un-American, really—invaded our politics four years ago. (It’s worth remembering that Nazi racial policy was explicitly influenced by U.S. racial policy, but maybe that’s a theme for another time.) If we do look at our homegrown history, as I like to do in this newsletter, one thing that’s definitely not unique about the Trump administration is the rise and sway of Giuliani types. The types who seem funny until they’re not. The types who seem anything but funny until you find yourself busting a gut laughing. I wonder if that’s a peculiarly American mood-swing.
My friend Bill Hogeland is a hell of a historian and a wicked writer. Give this recent issue of his newsletter a read and give him a subscribe if it ticks your boxes.
Movies + TV
MKY: Happiest Season
Judging by convos at the dog park, the word is already out about this ‘queersmas’ movie. But if you haven’t already heard, the winner for the best ?unintentional? horror moviesince Passengers goes to…. -drum roll-
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MJW: Look, I know MKY talked about Queen’s Gambit in the last newsletter, but I’m gonna do it again cause I’m so fucking proud that I’ve finally been able to watch a TV show! It’s been months! Migraines teamed up with the ADHD tendency of not being able to decide on anything, and I canceled most of my streaming access. I kept Netflix though (more for the friends and family members who use my account than anything) and I heard whispers of this show about a neuroatypical girl who liked chess…
Anyway, MKY said a bunch of good stuff about this already, but I saw a piece on medium by Devon Price (okay I saw it reposted in someone’s insta stories) that said this:
Not all Autistics are well-behaved, khaki-wearing nerds who never leave the house, you know. Some of us are shoplifting, hard-living hellions in pretty dresses.
Seeing addiction presented in this light was just a little bit refreshing (refreshing? idk.) It’s that whole thing about how it’s comforting to see parts of yourself represented in media. More nuanced takes on neuroatypicals, pls.
URL
CJW: Girls Like Us - Mckenzie Wark (via Ospare)
I want to write about your pain. Do you take Venmo, PayPal or Cash App? It’s curious how in bourgeois culture it’s not respectable to pay people for pain, in much the same way that it’s not respectable to pay people for sex. There’s a slippage from ‘it ought not to be a commodity’ to ‘I won’t pay for it’. The origin of bourgeois property is always to take something – land, labour, love, stories – without return. As if it were the proper thing to do.
About pain, authenticity, literature and not, and who gets to tell whose story - told from one trans woman to another.
We’ve recently shared other stuff by and related to Wark, but focused on capitalism and technology. Unsurprisingly she also writes brilliantly about trans literature and literary culture more broadly.
There are things girls like us don’t talk about in front of the cis. That’s a double bind, though. Anything you say or write about how raw you are can be used to vilify all of the sisters. And at the same time, you are constantly accused of not being frank with the world about who you are. There’s no ‘free speech’ for us. Anything you say will be used against you, usually in the court of Twitter.
Podcasts
MKY: 478 - World Tree Center (12/8/20) by Chapo Trap House
If you appreciate takes like this:
Then you might also appreciate the Chapo bros making a solid case for Avatar being a genuine piece of revolutionary art. It was def food for thought for this typing monkey.
MJW: Seeya next time, Nothing babes. Until then: wear your masks, take care of your neighbors, engage with your wider community, join a mutual aid org, donate to some worthy causes, pat a cat or a dog or your preferred furred creature, punch a nazi, give your bigot uncle the finger at the family Xmas Zoom lunch, make a pie for your nan (I’ll have some too!) and most of all: stay safe and well.
Cutting Room Floor
Research details Black Summer wildlife toll in the billions - just in time for the burning season to start all over again.
Is China using its clash with Australia as a warning to the world? - great recent Boonta Vista episode on this too, particularly focusing on the gormless response by Australian media and politicians.
Until recently, pressure on Australia to drop carryover credits had little impact. But times change | Richard Denniss - Related to the above.
China Just Switched on Its 'Artificial Sun' Nuclear Fusion Reactor - dead planet with clean energy watch continues… Or, the Bunker Era awaits.
AlphaFold: a solution to a 50-year-old grand challenge in biology
Civic Logic: Social Media with Opinion and Purpose - on civic (rather than social) networks.
Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos Use Opportunity Zone Tax Breaks for Private Space Race
Lab-Grown Meat Is Approved for Sale in Singapore - let them eat lab meat.
Kim Stanley Robinson Is One of Our Greatest Ever Socialist Novelists (via Dan Hill)
Meet Shameika Stepney, Inspiration to Fiona Apple on Fetch the Bolt Cutters - CJW: I still need to listen to the album, but this was really interesting.
A Founding Father of Cyberpunk Isn't Surprised By Its Comeback (DCH: Don’t call it a comeback…)