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Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky: State of the World 2017
permalink #151 of 198: Jon Lebkowsky (jonl) Thu 12 Jan 17 12:07
permalink #151 of 198: Jon Lebkowsky (jonl) Thu 12 Jan 17 12:07
If you want to get a better sense of the world, read GlobalVoices: https://globalvoices.org/ Here's a sampling: Digital activists are disappearing in Pakistan: https://globalvoices.org/2017/01/12/digital-activists-are-disappearing-in-paki stan/ "... reports are emerging from families and civil rights organizations that as many as nine Pakistani bloggers went missing within the first week of 2017. Four of the missing activists are known for their secular and left-leaning views." Kenyans fear a possible Internet shutdown during their 2017 presidential election: https://globalvoices.org/2017/01/12/kenyans-fear-a-possible-internet-shutdown- during-2017-presidential-election/ "Kenyans online have started expressing fears of a possible shutdown of social media by the government in the run up to the 2017 presidential elections, set to take place in the month of August." (Such a shutdown in the USA would've put @realDonaldTrump out of business...) Ukraine bans Russia's one independent TV station: https://globalvoices.org/2017/01/12/ukraine-bans-russias-one-independent-tv-st ation/ "According to a press release posted on the council's website, the decision to ban Dozhd, the last remaining Russian TV station licensed to be broadcast in Ukraine, was made after the channel aired two films on December 31, 'Faster than Rabbits' and 'What Else Do Men Talk About?', which popularized 'the law enforcement agencies of the aggressor-state [Russia].'"
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Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky: State of the World 2017
permalink #152 of 198: Jon Lebkowsky (jonl) Thu 12 Jan 17 12:14
permalink #152 of 198: Jon Lebkowsky (jonl) Thu 12 Jan 17 12:14
The press pool at Trump Tower happened to notice that Marine Le Pen was hanging out there, sipping coffee: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/01/what-is-marine-le-pen-doi ng-at-trump-tower/512951/ Neither Trump's people, nor Le Pen's, say the two were scheduled to meet. Maybe she thinks the Trump tower has better coffee than France? "The visit comes at an important time for Le Pen, who is scheduled to officially launch her presidential campaign next month in Lyon and who is expected to reach the second round of the presidential election this year. Le Pen is one of the clarion voices of the European nationalist right, and has in recent years made efforts to reform her partys xenophobic image in a 'de-demonization' campaign." Trump has a convincing argument by now that demons are really okay to have around; no "de-demonization" necessary this side of the pond.
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Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky: State of the World 2017
permalink #153 of 198: Jeffrey Vagle (jvagle) Thu 12 Jan 17 12:40
permalink #153 of 198: Jeffrey Vagle (jvagle) Thu 12 Jan 17 12:40
Le Pen and Lombardi stopping to have coffee in Trump Tower (before Hollande has set foot in the place) is not likely to go unnoticed by France, Germany, and the UK, who could read this as a signal of US-Russia alignment along far-right lines and US meddling in their domestic affairs.
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Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky: State of the World 2017
permalink #154 of 198: Bruce Sterling (bruces) Thu 12 Jan 17 13:05
permalink #154 of 198: Bruce Sterling (bruces) Thu 12 Jan 17 13:05
*Getting up to speed with European digital politics. Even most Europeans never get wind of this stuff. ======================================================================= 5. EDRi.org: Best of 2016 ======================================================================= One of EDRi's goals for 2016 was to reach a wider audience and raise awareness of the digital rights issues. As it turns out, with the help of our members and supporters, we were successful! Our blogposts and articles were read widely, and our most popular publication was downloaded more than 23 000 times. Here is a selection of the most read articles. Net neutrality wins in Europe! We are not able to report on positive policy developments as often as we would like. However, we were happy to report that the new net neutrality guidelines from the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) confirmed strong protection for net neutrality and for the free and open internet. Readers were just as excited as we were: this was our most read article in 2016. Read the blogpost here: https://edri.org//net-neutrality-wins-europe/ Big Brother Awards Belgium: Facebook is the privacy villain of the year Our readers appreciated the news on the Belgian Big Brother Awards 2016, where the negative prize for the worst privacy abuser was unanimously granted to Facebook for harvesting and generating personal data from people all around the world, particularly in the context of the acquisition of WhatsApp. Recent news from the European Commission show that we were not alone in our concerns. Read the blogpost here: https://edri.org//bba-belgium-2016/ ----------------------------------------------------------------- Support our work with a one-off-donation! https://edri.org/donate/ ----------------------------------------------------------------- New copyright directive fails at every level There were some legislative proposals worse than others, but the queen of all was the Copyright Directive. It includes a proposal to potentially filter all uploads to the internet in Europe a provision that would require internet companies to block uploads of perfectly legal material. Read the press release here: https://edri.org//press-release-new-copyright-directive-fails-every-level/ Next year, youll complain about the Terrorism Directive In December 2015, the European Commission proposed a Directive on combating terrorism. The proposal was drafted in two weeks, with no impact assessment. Since then, the legislative process has been rushed through. Provisions that undermine human rights online and offline have been added. Despite a difficult political environment, we did manage to achieve some successes in the Directive. We dont give up and keep pushing for human rights. Read the blogpost here: https://edri.org/enditorial-next-year-youll-complain-about-the-terrorism-direc tive/ Your privacy, security, and freedom online are in danger The EU has a chance to protect citizen's rights and freedoms in the upcoming e-Privacy reform. At the same time, we want people to learn about how to actively defend their privacy and to keep enjoying their freedoms. Our series of blogposts on privacy, security, and freedom proved to be a success. Read the blogpost series here: https://edri.org/privacy-security-freedom/ New leaks confirm TiSA proposals that would undermine civil liberties Trade agreements pose potentially serious threats to freedom of expression and protection of personal data of European citizens. In November 2016, German blog Netzpolitik.org in association with Greenpeace published leaked documents concerning the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA). The documents confirmed that TiSA would undermine civil liberties. Read the blogpost here: https://edri.org//new-leaks-confirm-tisa-undermine-civil-liberties/ Your guide to Digital Defenders In 2016 we also witnessed an increase of downloads of our publications. A big success came with the privacy for kids booklet, which was downloaded more than 23 000 times. The booklet will soon be available in many other languages, and so we expect the number to continue rising. Download the booklet in English here: https://edri.org//files/privacy4kids_booklet_web.pdf Download the booklet in other languages here: https://edri.org/digital-defenders-help-kids-defend-their-privacy-around-europ e/ Our other popular publications were, among others, booklets on data protection and net neutrality. Download the data protection booklet here: https://edri.org//files/paper06_datap.pdf Download the net neutrality booklet here: https://edri.org//files/EDRi_NetNeutrality.pdf (Contribution by Zarja Protner, EDRi intern)
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Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky: State of the World 2017
permalink #155 of 198: Bruce Sterling (bruces) Fri 13 Jan 17 03:52
permalink #155 of 198: Bruce Sterling (bruces) Fri 13 Jan 17 03:52
*Investigations are continuing in the Occhionero Italian cyberspy case. Even though this is a super-contemporary case, and a clear harbinger of things to come, and therefore of interest to a WELL SOTW, I really dislike writing about computer crime suspects as if they were already convicted. It has an unethical witch-hunt ambience. The defendants are not proven guilty of anything. *But man, are this brother and sister pair ever in all kinds of trouble. They'd be lots better off if they'd broken all four of their thighbones. *There's some suggestion that the Occhionero pair will claim that they themselves are victims of hacking; that their computers were penetrated and they themselves had no idea of the mayhem going on. I've seen that tried before in major computer crime cases. You might call that the "wasn't me, it was the Unknown Illuminati" defense. I don't think I've ever seen it work, except with somebody's open wifi. *Also, it's clear that whoever was doing this spy work was really patient, really sly, really interested in the sort of things that would interest a paranoid, snoopy Roman real-estate guy, and not very technically skilled. Why the sister was also arrested, that's not clear yet. I'm guessing that, like a lot of low-key geek guys with an amazing secret life, he badly needed someone to confide in. The psychological pressure must have been terrifying.
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Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky: State of the World 2017
permalink #156 of 198: Bruce Sterling (bruces) Fri 13 Jan 17 03:53
permalink #156 of 198: Bruce Sterling (bruces) Fri 13 Jan 17 03:53
*On the plus side (if there is one) it appears that, although the malefactors were using ten-year-old RAT remote-access malware, they didn't actually use it for ten years. They used it for more like a year and a half, before the FBI caught on, because, for some reason, they were spying on Italy from out of the USA. I wouldn't have picked that locale as a platform for intra-NATO raids, but, well, there's no accounting for taste. *Also, the Italian Mom entered the picture, because, being Italian, she's still alive, though her kids are in their mid-forties. She points out in the Italian press that her kids drive used cars and eat pizzas, they can barely afford to go on vacation. Not exactly the profile of high-end cyberthieves or foreign espionage assets. *Maybe they were really clever and hid their insider-trading money in Delaware. Due to centuries of practice, Italians can be extremely good at money-laundering. But even a guy with an IQ high enough to boil water would be hard-put to spy on dozens or hundreds of politicians, and also deftly cash-in, through running a two-man operation. How would the guy find the time? *In any case, the Italian press and public seem much less frantic than they were a few days ago. The moral panic has faded quickly, Andrei Karlov style.
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Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky: State of the World 2017
permalink #157 of 198: Bruce Sterling (bruces) Fri 13 Jan 17 03:57
permalink #157 of 198: Bruce Sterling (bruces) Fri 13 Jan 17 03:57
*In similar unbelievable modern-hacker news, "Guccifer 2.0," the hacker who penetrated the Democratic National Committee and probably dumped it to Wikileaks, is complaining that the CIA is libeling him by claiming he's a Russian. I frankly doubt that Guccifer is a Russian or even in their pay. The odds seem quite high that Guccifer is basically just another Occhionero. Occhionero is an existence-proof that pretty much any patient, committed guy can pull a Guccifer. *I think that the CIA probably sincerely believes that he's Russian, though. If you're CIA it's existentially horrifying to think that a no-nothing clean-skin non-threat like Occhionero can knock over democratically elected governments. With what? Nothing more than a little spearphishing and a bad attitude. *Far, far better, far less disturbing, if it really is a peer-competitor intelligence agency. In that case, you've still got a reason to live. To ask for funding. Otherwise you're like an elephant perishing from asymmetric, profoundly malarial mosquito bites.
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Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky: State of the World 2017
permalink #158 of 198: Bruce Sterling (bruces) Fri 13 Jan 17 03:58
permalink #158 of 198: Bruce Sterling (bruces) Fri 13 Jan 17 03:58
*Also, who exactly isn't a Russian agent now? Snowden's supposed to Russian, Assange is supposed to be Russian, Trump is supposed to be Russian, all of Trump's advisers are supposed to be Russian how plausible is all that? Before the Trump election, nobody but cranks would allege such things. *If you go looking from some actual secret Russians, like, say, The Vladimir's older daughter, it turns out Masha Putin is married to some nice Dutch guy and living in The Netherlands.
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Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky: State of the World 2017
permalink #159 of 198: Julie Sherman (julieswn) Fri 13 Jan 17 22:41
permalink #159 of 198: Julie Sherman (julieswn) Fri 13 Jan 17 22:41
From Brian Slesinsky, via email: I'm wondering what our shiny new machine learning infrastructure looks like when it's become old and decrepit. This paper suggests that if you start cutting back on maintenance, it might go downhill quickly: "As a special case of glue code, pipeline jungles often appear in data preparation. These can evolve organically, as new signals are identified and new information sources added. Without care, the resulting system for preparing data in an ML-friendly format may become a jungle of scrapes, joins, and sampling steps, often with intermediate files output. Managing these pipelines, detecting errors and recovering from failures are all difficult and costly. Testing such pipelines often requires expensive end-to-end integration tests. All of this adds to technical debt of a system and makes further innovation more costly." Machine Learning: The High Interest Credit Card of Technical Debt https://research.google.com/pubs/pub43146.html What happens to a Stack when it becomes yesterday's news, starts losing money, and talent heads elsewhere? Last year's big example was Yahoo, which shows what happens when you cut back on security. But that was older tech, mostly.
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Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky: State of the World 2017
permalink #160 of 198: Ted Newcomb (tcn) Sat 14 Jan 17 05:29
permalink #160 of 198: Ted Newcomb (tcn) Sat 14 Jan 17 05:29
Virtual Design: http://www.bitrebels.com/technology/virtual-architecture-reality-designers/?ut m_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+bitrebels+%28Bit+Reb els%29 Kind of cool...we've come a long way from CadCam
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Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky: State of the World 2017
permalink #161 of 198: Jon Lebkowsky (jonl) Sat 14 Jan 17 07:11
permalink #161 of 198: Jon Lebkowsky (jonl) Sat 14 Jan 17 07:11
<scribbled by jonl Sat 14 Jan 17 07:13>
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Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky: State of the World 2017
permalink #162 of 198: Jon Lebkowsky (jonl) Sat 14 Jan 17 07:13
permalink #162 of 198: Jon Lebkowsky (jonl) Sat 14 Jan 17 07:13
<scribbled by jonl Sat 14 Jan 17 07:13>
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Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky: State of the World 2017
permalink #163 of 198: Jon Lebkowsky (jonl) Sat 14 Jan 17 07:14
permalink #163 of 198: Jon Lebkowsky (jonl) Sat 14 Jan 17 07:14
Sorry about those scribbles... trying to get the links right... It's hard to resist focusing on the Trump election, and I suppose the "state of the world" depends on it. Journalists and comedians are feasting. The world feels broken and uncertain, if you think it's held together by national politics. But people go on about their business, and the world is arguably getting better for the crazy humans that are bounding across its surfaces. The Economist in September wrote "People are predisposed to think that things are worse than they are, and they overestimate the likelihood of calamity. This is because they rely not on data, but on how easy it is to recall an example. And bad things are more memorable. The media amplify this distortion. Famines, earthquakes and beheadings all make gripping headlines; '40m Planes Landed Safely Last Year" does not." This in a review of the book "Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future" by historian Johan Norberg. http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21706231-human-life-has-improved- many-ways-both-recently-according-swedish-economic And I mentioned earlier the optimistic outlook of Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker - here's that link again: http://www.vox.com/2016/8/16/12486586/2016-worst-year-ever-violence-trump-terr orism I've studied and practiced journalism in the past, and I understand why reporting is saturated with bad news inspiring fear, loathing, doubt and pessimism. It's a survival-enhancing characteristic of the human species to scan for alerts, to be watching for danger - and there's always plenty of that, too. We've seen terrible wars, famines, dictatorships, criminal conspiracies etc. Seeing the prevalence and persistence of these manifestations of humanity's darker side, it's hard to see progress and hope as present, persistent, and viable. Especially if you're a victim, or if you know victims; if your own life is weighted with tragedy. I'm hopeful when I consider something like the bodhisattva ideal in Buddhism, which is personified in anyone who foregoes personal 'nirvana' to help others out of suffering. However terrible humans have been and can be to each other, to the planet, to its other inhabitants - however prevalent the darkness - we also have potential lightness of being, we have people who put compassion ahead of self-interest. I suppose it's most realistic to see a balance in the world of pessimism and despair with optimism and hope, and the best hope is that we find ways to help each other out...
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Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky: State of the World 2017
permalink #164 of 198: Jef Poskanzer (jef) Sat 14 Jan 17 07:55
permalink #164 of 198: Jef Poskanzer (jef) Sat 14 Jan 17 07:55
It's certainly possible to build software that keeps working indefinitely with no maintenance. But yeah, most people don't. Kids these days.
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Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky: State of the World 2017
permalink #165 of 198: Jon Lebkowsky (jonl) Sat 14 Jan 17 08:26
permalink #165 of 198: Jon Lebkowsky (jonl) Sat 14 Jan 17 08:26
Steven Levy: "We will try to err on the side of accuracy. More than ever, we believe that must be a reporters job in 2017." https://backchannel.com/what-a-reporters-job-is-in-2017-a20e77457ca2#.olrkwret i
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Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky: State of the World 2017
permalink #166 of 198: Jon Lebkowsky (jonl) Sat 14 Jan 17 08:41
permalink #166 of 198: Jon Lebkowsky (jonl) Sat 14 Jan 17 08:41
From a useful interview with Joi Ito, who as Director of MIT's Media Lab is what you might call a pragmatic futurist: "People want a culture change, and this moment reminds me of the beginning of punk rock, or the beginning of the hippie movement. But Id hate for Trump to be our millennial Sex Pistols or Timothy Leary or the Beatles. We need something like the Beatles that captures the hearts and minds of people. Were ripe for a new cultural movement. Culture movements and art and punk rock thrive under bad presidents. The music was better under Reagan and Nixon than it was under Obama. I think that the doomsday scenarios tend to promote the arts." Also (re. compassion): "Ive been working closely with a monk named Tenzin Priyadarshi. We teach a class together called Principles of Awareness. He used to work with the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa. He talks about discipline and compassion. Compassion is just being able to be nice to compassionate people you like. Discipline and compassion is to be able to be compassionate and loving to people you hate or are otherwise harming you. Its something youve got to train. What I want to do is take kids along a journey where they have a path to nonviolence." https://backchannel.com/joi-ito-explains-why-donald-trump-is-like-the-sex-pist ols-943db42c9f47#.7h9qcba2n
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Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky: State of the World 2017
permalink #167 of 198: Bruce Sterling (bruces) Sat 14 Jan 17 09:11
permalink #167 of 198: Bruce Sterling (bruces) Sat 14 Jan 17 09:11
*The Global Risks Report from the World Economic Forum. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/GRR17_Report_web.pdf *Yeah, I also read that thing. Every year. Also, I find it a lot more credible than the similar patriotic effort from the United States "intelligence community." *The spooks are not a "community." Too bad for them. The planet's Davos rich guys are much more a "community." Too bad for us.
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Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky: State of the World 2017
permalink #168 of 198: Ted Newcomb (tcn) Sat 14 Jan 17 13:50
permalink #168 of 198: Ted Newcomb (tcn) Sat 14 Jan 17 13:50
LOL...*The spooks are not a "community." Too bad for them. The planet's Davos rich guys are much more a "community." Too bad for us. It irks me that they are such a rich resource of materials...I get a lot of good stuff from WEF
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Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky: State of the World 2017
permalink #169 of 198: Roland Legrand (roland) Sun 15 Jan 17 01:45
permalink #169 of 198: Roland Legrand (roland) Sun 15 Jan 17 01:45
Not the WEF, but Human Rights Watch here: they just published a lengthy report about populist demagogues. End next week the mightiest nation on this planet will have a president who suggests the use of torture, mass deportations and who blocks unfriendly media. In Europe we had Farage, the man who admitted happily that he lied during the Brexit-debate, while Le Pen in France, Wilders in the Netherlands and Grillo in Italy want to destroy the European project which helped us live in peace and democracy for all those years. Social media and comments sections in newspapers are overwhelmed by people who, in their fear and uncertainty, embrace those populist leaders and admire folks like Putin. There is too little pushback by those who realize what's really happening. It's not enough to preach to the choir. We should keep discussing with the others, tell them their fears and the problems they perceive are real, but that the solutions proposed by the populists are fake. https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/01/12/world-report-2017-demagogues-threaten-huma n-rights
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Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky: State of the World 2017
permalink #170 of 198: Jon Lebkowsky (jonl) Sun 15 Jan 17 06:28
permalink #170 of 198: Jon Lebkowsky (jonl) Sun 15 Jan 17 06:28
Theres a danger on the internet that you think youre accomplishing something. So you see an article about a disease and retweet it and think Its cured now! And youve fooled yourself into thinking that youve done something productive.... Im trying to transition from making comments on social media to choosing one or two organizations to work with and support so that I feel like Im actually being a positive part of the process. You dont want to be a crank. ~ Judd Apatow, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/14/opinion/sunday/judd-apatow-freaking-out-ove r-donald-trump.html
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Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky: State of the World 2017
permalink #171 of 198: Mark McDonough (mcdee) Sun 15 Jan 17 06:37
permalink #171 of 198: Mark McDonough (mcdee) Sun 15 Jan 17 06:37
Newspaper comments sections are a whole nother story (excepting a few cases like the NYT where they are moderated). But if the lot of ordinary people is fear and uncertainty, bad things will happen on the political front, as we have just seen here in the US.
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Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky: State of the World 2017
permalink #172 of 198: Ted Newcomb (tcn) Sun 15 Jan 17 15:44
permalink #172 of 198: Ted Newcomb (tcn) Sun 15 Jan 17 15:44
<170> think that nails it Jon...We might get a few SOPA petitions stopping things...but the real work is local, drudgery and time consuming...it's not click
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Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky: State of the World 2017
permalink #173 of 198: Bruce Sterling (bruces) Mon 16 Jan 17 03:34
permalink #173 of 198: Bruce Sterling (bruces) Mon 16 Jan 17 03:34
*Well, we're about to roll it up for 2017, and I've got to leave town and head for the mountains for a few days. So, I thought I'd conclude with a few potentially useful musings. https://voicerepublic.com/talks/digital-bauhaus-summit-2016-end-talk-luxury-co mmunism-what-is-to-be-done *Here I am hanging out on stage in Germany with some colleagues of differing disciplines, thinking about radically different economic models than the toxic one we've got. "Luxury Communism" after a universal income is somehow administered, that sort of thing. *Prominent among my colleagues is the late Mark "K-Punk" Fisher, a talented intellectual who got into pop music and kinda graduated into new-media, political theory, left-wing economics, etc. A guy whose sensibility was always grimmer than mine, but definitely a man of my milieu. *Mark had been struggling with depression since his teen years, but it looks like 2016 finally got on top of him. So Mark killed himself. *Okay, don't do what he did.
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Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky: State of the World 2017
permalink #174 of 198: Bruce Sterling (bruces) Mon 16 Jan 17 03:35
permalink #174 of 198: Bruce Sterling (bruces) Mon 16 Jan 17 03:35
*If you're some brainy WELL fringe-pundit who is similarly upset like Mark was, you should gain a few useful lessons from Mark's action here. Mark's on the gallery floor with Andrei Karlov, only by his own hand, and, y'know, that did not improve our general situation. In fact, if Mark was still around now, he'd probably be doing the same acerbic, melancholy stuff he'd been doing for donkey's years, only he'd have more credibility and a bigger audience. *I'm not religious, so I'm not going to do all kinds of moral finger-waving about Mark's willful act of ending his own life, but, frankly, this should be judged as a vicious activity. Think of the host of young, vital guys who are driving jihad suicide trucks nowadays. Even if you think you're downing your Oxycontin for some entirely different motive than these kamikazes, these guys are your true contemporary colleagues. In fact, they're your avant-garde and you're a mere copycat by comparison. You don't want to be shoulder-to-shoulder with them. They're not proper thought-leaders. *The clock's gonna continue to tick, and some day this will all be quaint period retrospect, just like our other WELL musings. Continuing to live, keeping your eyes and ears open, that's just a better idea all around.
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Bruce Sterling and Jon Lebkowsky: State of the World 2017
permalink #175 of 198: Bruce Sterling (bruces) Mon 16 Jan 17 03:35
permalink #175 of 198: Bruce Sterling (bruces) Mon 16 Jan 17 03:35
https://thewalrus.ca/bring-on-the-flood/ *A critic really digging the dystopia here. He jabs his thumb deep in it when he declares that the true joy of the post-apocalypse is getting today over with. *Okay, I get it why dystopia is popular now, but that is a genuinely problematic sensibility. Today really WILL be over with, it's crumbling, we're gonna be knee-deep in the ruins of the unsustainable. However, we don't have to get all ruin-porn about that. Even if that is our cultural sensibility, we could up our game and do it with better taste. *Scary political disaster, Nazism, Fascism -- okay, a lot of people simply lived through that historic period. It didn't last all that long. In fact it was only melodramatic creeps like Hitler who really thought it was a Thousand Year Reich that deserved to end in a totalizing scorched-earth Gotterdammerung. If you tremble all over from a prospect like that, you're actually buying into the worldview of the problem. *Germany, Italy and Japan were all smoldering ruins in the 1940s and quite lively, prosperous, inventive places in the 1960s. Strange, but true.
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