Robin D. G. Kelley: What Is Racial Capitalism and Why Does It Matter? (YouTube)
“The purpose of racism is to control the behaviour of white people, not Black people. For Blacks, guns and tanks are sufficient” Otis Madison
Tag: capitalism
868 – William T. Vollmann
The Most Honest Book About Climate Change Yet
“Vollmann’s undertaking is in the vanguard of the coming second wave of climate literature, books written not to diagnose or solve the problem, but to grapple with its moral consequences.”
No Immediate Danger: Volume One of Carbon Ideologies
No Good Alternative: Volume Two of Carbon Ideologies: 2
William_T._Vollmann
William T. Vollmann | Carbon Ideologies
|YouTube
858 – Roger & Me (1989 documentary)
timespace coordinates: 1980’s Flint, Michigan
Roger & Me is a 1989 American film written, produced, directed by and starring Michael Moore. Moore portrays the regional economic impact of General Motors CEO Roger Smith‘s action of closing several auto plants in his hometown of Flint, Michigan, reducing GM’s employees in that area from 80,000 in 1978 to about 50,000 in 1992. As of August 2015, GM employs approximately 7,200 workers in the Flint area, according to The Detroit News, and 5,000 workers according to MSNBC. In 2013, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.” (wiki)
Pets or Meat: The Return to Flint (1992)
0848 – New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future by James Bridle (2018 book)
As the world around us increases in technological complexity, our understanding of it diminishes. Underlying this trend is a single idea: the belief that our existence is understandable through computation, and more data is enough to help us build a better world.
In reality, we are lost in a sea of information, increasingly divided by fundamentalism, simplistic narratives, conspiracy theories, and post-factual politics. Meanwhile, those in power use our lack of understanding to further their own interests. Despite the apparent accessibility of information, we’re living in a new Dark Age.
From rogue financial systems to shopping algorithms, from artificial intelligence to state secrecy, we no longer understand how our world is governed or presented to us. The media is filled with unverifiable speculation, much of it generated by anonymous software, while companies dominate their employees through surveillance and the threat of automation.
In his brilliant new work, leading artist and writer James Bridle surveys the history of art, technology, and information systems, and reveals the dark clouds that gather over our dreams of the digital sublime. (VERSO)
James Bridle on New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future
man always makes it clear to himself: “You are using things which have the intention of not being penetrable.” 1180
840 – Savages – The Story of Human Zoos (2017 documentary)
834 – Lola rennt (1998)
timespace coordinates: 1998 Berlin, Germany
(FAST, smart & fun)
Run Lola Run is a 1998 German thriller film written and directed by Tom Tykwer, and starring Franka Potente as Lola and Moritz Bleibtreu as Manni. The story follows a woman who needs to obtain 100,000 Deutsche Mark in twenty minutes to save her boyfriend’s life. (wiki) imdb / rt / THEMES
Wir lassen nie vom Suchen ab, /
und doch, am Ende allen unsren Suchens, /
sind wir am Ausgangspunkt zurück /
und werden diesen Ort zum ersten Mal erfassen. /
(T.S. Eliot)
828
“(…) perhaps the crash will look like a string of blockbuster movies pandering to right-wing conspiracies and survivalist fantasies, from quasi-fascist superheroes (Captain America and the Batman series) to justifications of torture and assassination (Zero Dark Thirty, American Sniper). In Hollywood, studios run their scripts through the neural networks of a company called Epagogix, a system trained on the unstated preferences of millions of moviegoers developed over decades in order to predict which lines will push the right – meaning the most lucrative – emotional buttons. Their algorithmic engines are enhanced with data from Netflix, Hulu, YouTube and others, whose access to the minute-by-minute preferences of millions of video watchers, combined with an obsessive focus on the acquisition and segmentation of data, provides them with a level of cognitive insight undreamed of by previous regimes. Feeding directly upon the frazzled, binge-watching desires of news-saturated consumers, the network turns upon itself, reflecting, reinforcing and heightening the paranoia inherent in the system.
Game developers enter endless cycles of updates and in-app purchases directed by A/B testing interfaces and real-time monitoring of players’ behaviours until they have such a finegrained grasp on dopamine-producing neural pathways that teenagers die of exhaustion in front of their computers, unable to tear themselves away. Entire cultural industries become feedback loops for an increasingly dominant narrative of fear and violence.”
TimeSpace Warps 