I really enjoyed this interview from Rev Left with Julia Salazar. Discusses some of the questions around the utility of engaging in electoral politics vs grassroots organising outside of the system. Reminds me a bit of some of the discussion in Jackson Rising.
Kind: Listens
Listened to this interview discussing the book “Bit Tyrants: The Political Economy of Silicon Valley” with Rob Larson on Rev Left Radio. The bit tyrants here being the 5 big ones, Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook.
The discussion touches on the “two guys in a garage” origin myth of lots of big tech, and the narrative that these new corporations are somehow better than the oil and steel monopolies of old, that they’re ‘good capitalism‘ with no violence. But there’s plenty of violence and exploitation – just hidden away somewhere in the supply chain.
They also talk about how they got where they were mainly from network effects built off of the back of research from the public sector.
The proposed solution of “online socialism” seemed a bit barebones – just focusing on organising and unionising of tech workers. Probably expanded upon more in the book, but here at least there wasn’t any mention of building or using alternatives.
Also its apparently one chapter at the end of the book. Fair enough, it’s good to have scene-setting and an evidence-base of what the problem is, but I’m more interested these days in ideas for the solution.
This episode of Rev Left Radio sums up most of my views around the recent election pretty well: on Corbyn, the media, Brexit, limits of our electoral system, where to focus for these next five years.
I like the use of the phrase ‘social industry’. I think it’s a good framing to use rather than social media. It brings to the fore the co-optation by industry of what Ton calls social software, turning it into an industry.
In the Novara interview, Seymour talks about how when using social media (controlled by social industry) you are in some ways interacting more with a machine than with other people. Likes, retweets, etc, are part of this machinery. These have become industrial abstractions of actual social relations.
Analagous in some ways I feel to how Taylorism abstracted the movements of skilled labourers into smaller and smaller discrete motions, which could then be mechanised and repeated monotonously without skill or craft.
Digital time-and-motion men have abstracted social interactions into meaningless facsimiles of real interaction, real desire or affection.
Better a social craft than a social industry I think. Small tech and social software can be part of a that I think, but re-repurposing or even breaking some of the frames that industry co-opted and mechanised.
Writing a blog post, or a considered reply to someone else’s, takes more time and emotional craft than a like. But it’s more rewarding overall. It’s hopefully less alienating.
I really worry that the Johnson/Cummings approach will go down well in a general election. The narrative that they’re trying to deliver the will of the people, but having to battle a meddling legislature, resonates with many. Never mind that BJ+co are privileged shits who couldn’t care less about the general public. Somehow people ignore that.
This is a good podcast talking about views from the North-West, anywhere but Westminster really.
Two years after Grenfell, there has been little change or progress in the provision of safe social housing in the UK.
Summed up in the podcast as being down to a lethal mix of indifference, incompetence, and dicking about with Brexit.
This podcast made me very angry. The effects Tory austerity has had on disabled people in the UK. After a lot of hard-won gains for disability rights in the 80s and 90s, the Cameron government rolled most of those gains back in the bogus pursuit of austerity.
I love maintenance. I don’t know why it has a bad reputation.
There’s a growing movement trying to get maintenance held again in the high esteem that it should be.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0005mrj
#Maintenance #TheMaintainers
David Shanske from david.shanske.comOur first episode since January. David Shanske and Chris Aldrich get caught up on some recent IndieWebCamps, an article about IndieWeb in The New Yorker, changes within WordPress, and upcoming events.
GWG: “If you’re not there, it isn’t raining”
Came for the IndieWeb. Stayed for the poetry.
(Learned about some nice new features in IndieWeb WordPress too – including On This Day posts, and being able to have a feed where you exclude certain post types.)