nothing here but toothless protest

issue 134 - 18th April, 2021

CJW: Welcome to another instalment of nothing here. I hope you’re all doing well. These are trying times, but we’re getting through, and we’ll continue to get through it.

• Our latest bonus was A Eulogy for Micajahala.
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The Team

• Corey J. White (CJW) - Give it away give it away give it away now.
• Marlee Jane Ward (MJW) - I’m also this guy. 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: Triggering the Right: The Role of Language in the Culture Wars - Simon Mair at Current Affairs

Naming neoliberalism and capitalism is the first step in breaking capitalist realism’s hold over us. By using historically specific terms, we are implicitly highlighting that the economy as we know it today had a starting point. This is useful because it drags the idea of the economy into the realm of time. No longer is the neoliberal capitalist economy something outside of the cycles of birth and death that govern all life. Instead it is something that began. And things that begin are things that can end.

A great piece on language in regards to discussions about the economy and capitalism more generally.

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CJW: What good is a right to toothless protest? - Adrian Kreutz at Roar Mag

If the bill goes ahead, the threat of police violence will loom over any public gathering or event. Combined with the Spy Cops Bill, the Crackdown Bill grants draconian powers to the British police; powers that do not require any checks or safeguarding whatsoever. The police may forcefully crackdown on public gatherings anywhere, anytime, without reasonable suspicion.

The shameful and disgusting crackdown on the peaceful, candle-lit vigil for Sarah Everard at Clapham Common in March 2021 was a prefiguration of the poignancy of the Crackdown Bill and the startling new powers granted to the Metropolitan Police. This time the lockdown-restrictions served as justification, next time it will be the bill.

On the recently proposed Crackdown Bill in the UK, designed to quell dissent and give the police carte blanche to violently crackdown on protestors. When a bill like this is proposed in the aftermath of protests against systemic racism and racist violence, sexist violence, and police violence, it is incredibly worrying.

I’m surprised Australia isn’t leading the charge here, honestly… I guess that’s one of the upsides of having a government that is as inept as it is corrupt - they’re unlikely to do every fucked up thing they’d like.

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CJW: Indigenous deaths in custody: inquests can be sites of justice or administrative violence - Alison Whittaker at The Conversation

Kumanjayi Walker murder trial will be a first in NT for an Indigenous death in custody. Why has it taken so long? - Thalia Anthony and Eddie Cubillo at The Conversation

For any overseas readers, these two articles are a pretty good indication of what form the BLM movement has taken in Australia, focusing on Aboriginal deaths in police custody.

Aboriginal deaths in custody have been constant since… well, since European settlement, and little has changed in the 30 years since a Royal Commission into the issue passed down over 300 recommendations. In fact (if my math is correct), more Aboriginal people have died on average in the years since the RC than died in the decade of violence that spurred the RC in the first place. I’m hopeful that the increased visibility of BLM and anti-racist rhetoric, as well as increasing activism will apply enough pressure that we’ll see substantive changes in the coming years, but it’s far too late. It has been far too late for decades now. Abolish the police. ACAB forever.

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MKY: Here’s a lil roundup on the state of climate (in)action rn… see if you can spot the difference.

• Climate Crisis: Why 2050 Goals Aren’t Good Enough
• The Pandemic Remade Society. Now It’s the Climate’s Turn
• ‘Failure is not an option’: after a lost decade on climate action, the 2020s offer one last chance
• David Attenborough documentary The Year Earth Changed suggests silver lining ahead of Earth Day 2021
• World’s wealthiest ‘at heart of climate problem’
• New Zealand Just Passed a Climate Change Law No Other Country’s Dared to Tackle

It’s ok tho, there’s something else we can look forward to adding to a future diet of insects and tubers, sea grass! - The rice of the sea: how a tiny grain could change the way humanity eats:

Lab tests hinted at its tremendous potential: gluten-free, high in omega-6 and -9 fatty acids, and contains 50% more protein than rice per grain, according to Aponiente’s research. And all of it growing without freshwater or fertiliser.

DCH: All the more reason for Silicon Valley billionaires to continue their doomsday prepping in NZ I guess.

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CJW: Should We Block the Sun? Scientists Say the Time Has Come to Study It - Christopher Flavelle at New York Times

What could possiblie go wrong?

MKY: ~SCREAMING BURSTS FROM INSIDE MY HEART~ I’ve literally been hearing ppl arguing for this kinda ‘Moon Shot’ technosolutionism bullshit since the 90s… and if we’d just done something to curb our emissions since then and transform our global society into a regrowth culture, instead of an aggressively multiplying cancer its worst people wanna spread to other worlds, we wouldn’t have to hear this shit still. Still, it’s a cool plot for a shitty scifi show for us to watch in our bunkers in the near future, as we slave in the content mines for our daily oxygen allowance.

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MJW: The Road to TERFDOM

Mumsnet’s women’s rights forum didn’t just offer women a safe space to organize. By providing a platform that tolerated TERFism, it had also handed users a convenient scapegoat for all of their problems — not austerity, not misogyny, but the relatively tiny and extremely marginalized and oppressed trans population.

It’s just awesome when a group who feels disenfranchised in turn attacks an even more disenfranchised group in a twisted grab for any power they can get, instead of going after the systemic societal causes of their marginalisation. Bringing down the patriarchy is hard, it’s so much easier to have a small group to single out for attack.

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DCH: Researchers have found people trust algorithms over humans - by Mehreen Kasana at Input

A research paper from the University of Georgia found that people showed more trust in an algorithm’s answer when the problem presented to them got more complex over time. Given that algorithms essentially govern our daily lives — by way of online retail, advertising, streaming TV shows or films, looking for live events, consulting Google Maps, determining “beauty scores,” or even trying to find love — this kind of reliance and confidence in such technology is a bit of concern for anyone remotely familiar with artificial intelligence’s numerous flaws.

We’re doomed.

Newsletters

DCH: 404ever

Visual artist and writer Lordess Foudre is publishing her first long-form cyberpunk story via her new newsletter. Check it out.

URL

CJW: Blinding the Cyclops—Wrecking the Panopticon: Camera Hunting in the Metropolis - Anon at Crimethinc (via Butch Anarchist)

When I see cameras staring at me today, I still feel that initial anxiety. Studies have shown that humans behave very differently when they know they are being watched; they try harder to conform to social norms, not to stand out. They become anxious and irritable, yet ultimately they adapt emotionally, accepting the surveillance and anxiety as normal. I too have always behaved this way: eyes forward, keep walking, unconsciously weighing how my every movement might be interpreted. But now it’s different: after the initial moment of anxiety, I remember that I am undercover, plotting, watching back.

This is a fun piece of fiction, and not actually a story about how and why you (yes, you) might start dismantling security cameras in your city.

MKY: big fan of their work. I’ve also been eyeing another of their zines for some reason this week.

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MJW: Fuck me, Hazlitt has some excellent longform pieces, or so I remembered the other night when I fell into a Hazlitt hole until 3am. Some of the ones that kept me awake: Perverts Like Us, Living with Slenderman, and Magic Eraser Juice

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CJW: Hello Goodbye - Kevin Munger at Real Life Mag

To restore intentionality to social conversation means deliberately reintroducing the bumps, the odd angles of ourselves that automated workplace communication and predictive text seeks to sand away. This means paradoxically trying to purposely add purposeless or “useless” qualities to conversations. Yet the bar on uselessness is constantly rising: The more our conversations are monitored and processed as data by machines, the more difficult it will become to introduce something that feels as though it came from outside that system — that feels like a computer could not have produced it for us.

Related to another recent RLM piece I (think I) shared previously. I do think the increased precaritisation of work means could lead to exactly the sort of streamlined, impersonal communication discussed here. Can’t afford to talk around the water cooler if you don’t even have time to piss. If they can’t automate certain jobs, they’ll do their best to automatonise us. Fight back with rambling emails filled with tangents. CC the entire office to tell them about your recent break-up, or the consistency of that morning’s dump. Be human.

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CJW: QIKIQTAĠRUK - Lauren Oakes at Emergence Magazine

“My kids and my grandkids will probably never hunt a seal on the ice,” she repeats. “Six hundred years of hunting seals is gonna stop with us or with you, because it’s not safe, and because it’s further out, and because we don’t have the ice that we used to have.”

This is a great piece about the challenges the Iñupiat people in Kotzebue are facing - the effects of climate change, compounded by the pandemic - and the impact that has on individuals, families, and their culture and traditions.

“If you’re an Alaska Native,” she told me in August, “you’re meal planning for the whole year right now.” Because of a way of life, yes. Because of tradition, yes. But also because of climate change. Because of management and rights and access and supply chains.

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DCH: Apocalyptic Infrastructures - Laleh Khalili at Noema

Across political divides, all infrastructures share one common feature: their detrimental environmental effects. Dams destroy riverine ecosystems and leach the soil. Cement factories and coal-powered electricity spew out pollution across the globe. Sewer lines pour into sensitive riparian and coastal biospheres. Oil fields and pipelines contaminate vast swathes of land, leaking into fragile water tables. Data centers produce carbon dioxide and heat on a monumental scale.

Nice 10-minute-ish read calling for more open, egalitarian and environmentally militant processes when it comes to the built world.

Video

CJW: A Machine for Viewing (via Hoshio at VHS)

A video essay/experiment about cinema and the cinema, using a VR cinema performance as it’s basis. Some really interesting ideas in here that I hope to see explored further.

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DCH: Why you can’t compare Covid-19 vaccines

The best vaccine is the first one you can get.

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DCH: Murder Offsets (via Cory Doctorow at Pluralistic)

A brilliant video from the Climate Ad Project about the truth behind carbon offsets and other greenwashing tactics that will kill us all.

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DCH: World Futures Day: Decolonizing Futures

My friends Lidia Zuin and Monika Bielskyte and other top-notch futurists got together on World Futures Day to discuss strategies for decolonizing mainstream views of the future. Well-worth a watch and a read.

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DCH: Can technology bring back lost nature?

While exploring the “de-extinction” movement, artists and designers are also questioning its motives, highlighting its shortcomings and challenging the promise that we can resurrect the animals and plants that we have driven to extinction.

Régine Débatty of We Make Money Not Art recently hosted artists Tanja Vujinović and Jakob Kudsk Steensen, synthetic biologist and science writer Christina Agapakis, designer Tina Gorjanc and sound artist Sally Ann McIntyre in a panel discussion. A lot of smart voices calling bullshit on techno-solutionism. Worth your time.

Data Viz

DCH: Variant of concern Jitesh Chowdhury, Simon Scarr, Andrew MacAskill and Andrew R.C. Marshall at Reuters

At the start of the pandemic Boris Johnson loudly proclaimed the UK would have a world-beating response to it. I don’t think the B.1.1.7 variant of coronavirus is what he had in mind though…

Music

CJW: Dream Weapon by Genghis Tron

It had gotten to the point where I’d given up on Genghis Tron ever coming back from their hiatus. Their previous full-length album from 2008, Board Up the House, is fucking phenomenal - a brutal and vibrant bit of electo-hardcore, unlike anything I’d heard before or since.

When they released a preview track from Dream Weapon I was a little disappointed because their sound had changed and I’d never get a true follow-up to Board Up the House, but before the track was even over I realised it was actually exactly the sort of evolution I didn’t know I wanted from the band. BUtH is heavy, loud, almost overpowering, but with Dream Weapon they’ve taken the metal guitar riffs, the punishing synth and the relentless drums (now provided by a flesh and blood drummer Nick Yacyshyn from SUMAC), and have almost diffused the sound. The elements are there, but they’re beneath a dreamy synth haze, reinforced by the softer vocals from new singer Tony Wolski. Mookie Singerman’s* screaming was such a distinctive part of GT’s sound, but/and I’m glad the band didn’t try and get someone who sounded the same, because it never quite works. They went in a completely different direction and the result is an incredible sound that is recognisably GT, just as dynamic as their old work, and, again, unlike anything I’ve heard before.

If they’d delivered something just as brutal as BUtH, I would have loved it and listened to it rarely because my tastes have skewed more ambient and drone-y in recent years (I’m sure part of that is down to most of my music listening being in the background while I write). But I’ve had Dream Weapon on heavy rotation since it dropped last month - listening to it 18 times already. It’s so rare that a band’s sound evolves in line with your own tastes, but I feel like this album was made with me in mind.

*A name I took at face-value for far too long, and once I realised it was a joke I had to steal it for a character name. With Genghis Tron’s hiatus he went off to tour manage for Purity Ring, who’s first album I adore, because I contain multitudes, etc.

The Self-Promotion

CJW: Repo Virtual Paperback Giveaway!

Though the hardcover, ebook, and audiobook have been out for almost a year (a year?!), the Repo Virtual paperback is due for release on the 20th April. I received my box of comps the other day, and wanted to run a giveaway for our newsletter readers.

I’ve got 5 copies to give away, and I’ll send them anywhere in the world (though if you live somewhere where you’ll need to pay an import tax just to receive the books, that’ll be up to you to take care). To be in the running, all you’ve got to do is reply to this email with some version of “Gimme the book.”

I’ll wait five days, to give people a chance to respond, and after that I’ll pick 5 winners at random. I’ll reach out to the winners via email to gather postal addresses.

Cutting Room Floor

• NFTs Were Supposed to Protect Artists. They Don’t - Anil Dash at The Atlantic
• Law Students Denounce Chevron’s Law Firm Over Steven Donziger Case - Sharon Lerner at The Intercept - CJW: I first heard about Donziger’s case on Chapo Traphouse where they’ve interviewed him twice recently. Important stuff if you care about environmentalism, the American judicial system, and the intersections thereof.
• Facebook’s Algorithm Practices Gender Discrimination - Sam Biddle at The Intercept
• Shaking the foundations: the hidden roots that prop up capitalism - Architectural Review - Eleanor Beaumont at The Architectural Review
• Just 3% of world’s ecosystems remain intact, study suggests - Damian Carrington at The Guardian
• US climate research outpost abandoned over fears it will be devoured by sea - Oliver Milman at The Guardian
• Reforestation Is Great! But We’re Running Out of Seeds - Jesse Klein at Wired
• Marine life is fleeing the equator to cooler waters. History tells us this could trigger a mass extinction event - Anthony Richardson, Chhaya Chaudhary, David Schoeman, Mark John Costello at The Conversation
• Sea-level rise is creating ‘ghost forests’ on an American coast - Emily Ury at The Guardian
• The CIA’s Tweets About Tupac Are ‘Vital to the Legitimation of the Agency’ - Matthew Gault at Vice
• Adam Curtis Talks to Jacobin About Power, Politics, and His New Film - Miles Ellingham at Jacobin