CJW: Welcome to another edition of nothing here. It’s a comparatively skint issue this time around - if I’d realised this is how it would pan out I could have held something back from the last overstuffed issue.
Let’s pretend we’re giving you a light one so you can focus on Thanksgiving (where applicable), and that it’s not because the last week or so has been pretty bad for your favourite (?) newsletter family.
Our latest bonus was Blackbird, a personal essay of mine that originally appeared in Creeper Magazine Issue 1. I’m really proud of this piece and think it came together quite well in the end. I hope to write more in a similar vein down the track.
For future bonuses and access the full archive, just go here to become a supporter. Unlocked bonuses are here (and yes, I’m unlocking new posts every couple of weeks, so it’s worth keeping track of).
The Team
Corey J. White (CJW) - m1k3y’s Wallbreaker. Naarm/Melbourne.
Marlee Jane Ward (MJW) - Author. I’m also this guy. Your fabulous goth aunt. Living and working 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: Delivery Workers, Trapped in the System (via Ospare)
![[Delivery rider wading through a flood from heavy rain]](https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdec9111d-1d6f-41cc-9bc0-e6119f8d08c1_700x440.jpeg)
Every rider must balance the trade-offs between safety and pay. As a temporary participant observer, Caodao pinpointed the plight of riders: all delivery platforms strive to maximize profits, and in the end they will shift the risk to those with the least ability to negotiate: the delivery riders.
[...]
In the first half of 2017, there was a delivery rider casualty roughly every two days, according to data from the Shanghai Public Security Bureau’s Traffic Police. In the same year, 12 delivery riders were a casualty of traffic accidents every quarter in Shenzhen. In 2018, Chengdu’s Traffic Police reported less than 10,000 traffic violations by delivery riders, 196 traffic accidents, and 155 casualties. Roughly one delivery rider violated traffic laws or was involved in an accident every day. In September 2018, Guangzhou Traffic Police reported 2,000 traffic violations by delivery riders, with half committed by Meituan riders and Ele.me taking second place.
This long read from Chuǎng (translated from a piece in one of China’s most widely read magazines, Renwu) goes into great detail about the plight of delivery riders in China, the physical and psychological tolls, worker rights (and the lack thereof), the systems of gamification, and the algorithmic control of their work and lives. Skip the long intro and go straight to the translated article itself. There are bits that feel like they could inform a Chinese cyberpunk deathrace movie. DELIVER DEATH. Seriously, it's fucked up.
And anyone in California who was suckered into voting Yes on prop 22 - this sort of reckless endangerment of (non-)employee's lives is exactly what Uber et al spent hundreds of millions of dollars campaigning for. These companies don't care about the people that provide the foundation of their business. They see only data points delivering them profits.
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CJW: Race Consciousness: Fascism and Frank Herbert's “Dune” - LARB
Any speculative text that contains Jews, Muslims, or people of color therefore becomes a threat to [the alt-right's] entire political project. This is why recent developments in fields such as Afrofuturism and Black horror are so crucial. They provide a critical alternative to the alt-right’s exterminationist fantasy of an all-white future. Just as importantly, they offer readers other ways of thinking about time that do not fall in line with the fascist dream of a history that unfolds step-by-step along the lines of the Aryan dictator’s master plan.
On far-right (and far wrong) readings of Dune and some broader context on the current state of sci-fi.
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MKY: Heatwaves caused record deaths as Britain struggled with coronavirus: study
Researchers said high temperatures alone could not explain all the deaths, raising questions over whether the pandemic may have served to amplify the impact of the heat.
Some experts have questioned whether people might have hesitated to seek help for heat-related complaints for fear of catching COVID-19 in hospitals.
Or, there is only life in the multi-causal, ‘wicked problems’ future now.
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MKY:Big dish of Arecibo observatory has reached the end of the line
RIP to a real one.
We’ll always have the Arecibo message tho - and if one was [inclined to become] an inked-up space freak, there’s worse things to get tattooed (and then have to constantly explain this ain’t no Space Invaders fan art)
CJW: I expect to see a youtube video with a montage of all the Arecibo pop-culture moments played in slow-motion with Sarah McLaughlin singing sadly over the top.
Books
MJW: For some no doubt fucked-up reason, at the moment I’m only interested in reading (and when I say reading, you know I mean listening to audiobooks from the memory-foam throne I call my ‘launch chair’ instead of sleeping...) where was I? Oh yeah, I’m only reading non-fiction about awful shit, or listening to audiobooks of massive tomes from my childhood that are read by soothing and skilled voice actors.
May I recommend the following (for awful shit): Ginger Gorman’s Troll Hunting, and Zoe Quinn’s Crash Override, for the very worst of humans on the internet. (True story: I met Zoe Quinn at the Hugo ceremony in 2018 and she was quiet and lovely and much shorter than I expected.)
And check out the Jurassic Park audiobook, read by Scott Brick. 15 hours of soothing science for those nights where you don’t sleep at all!
Movies + TV
CJW: UStopia
I never planned to watch more of the US Utopia remake (which I’m calling UStopia) after the atrocious first episode, but my co-op gaming buddy suggested we watch it and talk shit over it (he’s also a huge fan of UKtopia), so I’ve watched the whole first season now, and holy shit it’s terrible.
I’ve been drinking my way through it, so possibly I’m not a great judge, but it really seems like it doesn’t cohere at all. Things keep happening because they happened in the original series, but I’m not sure if they’re actually unfolding in a way that makes sense for this remake. It’s also just completely flat and poorly acted, there has been no care taken in the production design and cinematography (the latter of which was consistently interesting and dynamic in the original), and there have been literally no memorable scenes whereas the original series had at least one memorable scene per episode. For instance, in episode 4 or 5 of UKtopia, one of the bad guys lays out their ideology/plan and the scene is very simple and yet still really compelling.
They’ve simplified elements of the story and increased the episode count from 6 to 8, and yet it feels both harried and hollow. The actors are all terrible (apart from the 2 children, and when you’re being shown up by child actors you know you’re doing something wrong), and the characters are boring and 2-dimensional, so I can’t tell if it’s a problem with direction, the script, or the actors themselves (most of whom I’ve seen performing much better elsewhere).
I expected to hate it because it was streamlined and simplified, but I still expected the show to be good on its own merits. It’s not. Literally the only good thing about the show is the fact that Amazon has made the original series more accessible (though they’ve also censored at least one scene...).
In short:
And that’s my rant.
MKY: thank you for your service.
DCH: Siri, show our readers my views on child rearing courtesy of UKtopia…
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MKY: The Queen’s Gambit [Netflix]
Or, if I’d known going in that this was an adaptation of a book that was basically the middle ground between The Man Who Fell To Earth and Hustler/The Color of Money I’d have been less surprised about just how much I liked it. Apparently I’m the only one weirded out by the subliminal messages being broadcast when she’s dancing along to a music program on the television. But there’s a whole slew of coded messages in her wardrobe alone, so...
Podcasts
MJW: There Are No Girls on the Internet is pretty fucking good, and I’m loving Why Are Dads? and Maintenance Phase from the folks who bring you You’re Wrong About. These aforementioned podcasts appeal to me because I have daddy issues, I struggle with my weight, and am often wrong about things.
Why Are Dads? features YWA’s Sarah Marshall and Alex Steed talking movies about dads, and Maintenance Phase is YWA’s Michael Hobbes and Aubrey Gordon (of Your Fat Friend) busting myths about fatness and diet culture, in a podcast that gets me right under my skin (where my fat is!)
Video
MKY: RUSSIAN CYBERPUNK FARM (thx @aem76us)
Mebbe u need a palate cleanser after learning that RP2 exists? This might help.
The Self-Promotion
CJW: If you’re looking for some Xmas gift ideas, maybe have a look at this post I put together for the last issue.
CJW: And there you have it.
After months of heavy lockdown measures, here in Victoria we’ve had a full 28 days of no new Coronavirus infections, a week of no active cases at all, and I’m not even sure how long it’s been since our last death. I’m such a pessimist that part of me wants to say “Sounds fake, but okay,” but even my broken brain can’t argue with those figures.
I’m not going to lie - it was tough, and it helped that a chunk of lockdown happened over winter when we’re already less-inclined to go out and do things. But we did it, and from where I’m sitting it was worth it. That’s why it’s so disheartening to see thousands of Americans dying every day while people cry out “but my freedoms.” Those hundreds of thousands of dead people don’t have much freedom to speak of now, do they? And how many families are going to have their freedoms curtailed as they struggle under medical debt from the treatment of their now deceased loved ones?
These selfish responses to pandemic-fighting measures are an unsurprising side-effect of Western society’s hyper-individualism, which apparently has a much stronger grip on the US than it does other Western nations.
And then there’s also this:
I don’t wish to make light of the many dead, but this is such a concise encapsulation of the capitalist mandate at all times, and especially in times of disaster.
It feels like so much of this year has been spent fighting to get back to “normal,” and I can’t help but wonder how many disasters it will take before people realise that “normal” is the reason why we’re in this mess. We deserve better than the old normal. All of us do - not just those of us living relatively comfortable lives in the West, but everyone. The old normal was built on a global system of exploitation and degradation. We might have to give up some comforts, but it’s worth it if everyone can live a life of dignity, and the Earth’s natural environmental systems can have a chance to recover and thrive.
Anyway.
Look after yourself. Give thanks for the good people in your life and not for the cheap crap you’re able to buy on special.