Category: politics
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Recommended reading: Religion and neoliberalism
James Chappel reviews four books in the Boston Review that dig into the link between neoliberalism and religious institutions. I found this piece enlightening just from its perspective on the rise of neoliberalism in general. The idea that neoliberalism is merely “sophisticated common sense” explains its common appeal… just like religion. Below are a number…
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The superficiality of living small
Downsizing (or minimalism) is often portrayed as anti-consumerist and eco-friendly. Living small means you buy less stuff, produce less trash, and have a smaller environmental footprint in terms of heating/cooling your home. Plus, if you position your home close to amenities, you walk/bike more and drive less. Secondly, living small is about removing oneself from…
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Learning about the Syrian crisis
The five year long Syrian Civil War is one of the largest conflicts in our world at this time. 250,000 dead (possibly more than 470,000 by some estimates), 6 million refugees, 11 million IDPs — the Syrian Civil war is a disaster and it doesn’t look to be ending soon. The Middle East is not…
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Helping Syrian refugees
Out of 11 million people diplaced during Syria’s five year long civil war, more than four and a half million are languishing in camps in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon and other countries. Many have been in the camps for years. At the end of October 2015, our new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his intention…
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A slim crisis — a review of Disruptive Power
Disruptive Power: The Crisis of the State in the Digital Age by Taylor Owen From the book: Coupled with the power that is derived by the state’s increasing sophistication in this space — whether through automation, biometrics, or the new forms of social control and the violence they enable — there is reason to question…
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China’s Inconvenient Truth
Photo: Residential buildings in Wuhan, Hubei Province. Darley Shen/Reuters. In late February, Under the Dome, a documentary by former television news anchor and investigative journalist Chai Jing, was released criticizing China’s environmental record. Her quiet, understated approach is charismatic. Armed with statistics, footage and interviews from a number of impressive sources, she flexed her investigative…
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More than computers — A recap of LinuxFest Northwest 2015
For me, this year’s LinuxFest Northwest 2015 was learning more about the politics of the Free Software movement. This track featured some excellent and eminent speakers, and I enjoyed it very much. Here is a short recap of each session: 1. Deb Nicholson, the Director of Community Outreach at the Open Invention Network gave an…
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Technology is a symptom
As “software eats the world,” further intertwining with our daily lives, more and more discussions that are ostensibly about tech are at heart political discussions. What looks like technology criticism is actually political critique, and therefore cannot be countered by arguments resting entirely within the niche of technology. That is why I do not look…
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War in the East China Sea… or lack thereof
Foreign Affairs is being unnecessarily alarmist on China-Japan relations in the East China Sea. Take these quotes: A military conflict between China and Japan would have catastrophic consequences and would almost certainly involve the U.S. military. And: The cost of any military conflict between China and Japan would be immense, and neither side wants a…
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Long Morozov
The New Left Review has an excellent in depth interview with Evgeny Morozov called Socialize The Data Centres! Too bad that was the headline they went with, because his argument is more subtle than that, and the article contains so much more. For example, we learn about Morozov’s upbringing in Belarus and his early intellectual…