Diabolical-dialectical - A's Blog Thingy

EPISODE 400: Sky's the Limit

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the hadron collider is like an angel to me

“You don’t miss college, you miss communism”

It’s a little bit silly, but I have this little Hippocratic oath for data designers in the book. There are two basic questions I encourage them to ask themselves. One is, does it increase self-determination of poor people? And two, if it was aimed at anyone but poor and working people, would you be able to do it? And if you answer “no” to either of those, don’t do it. You’re on the wrong side of history.

The High-Tech Poorhouse

“The ‘natural’ is not necessarily a ‘human’ value.”

The Problem of Sex

That chapter is really saying, “If you do everything right, and you’re still living in a society that is deeply impacted by its hatred of the poor and its fear of precarity, you’re still going to create systems that punish, police, and profile.” And that’s the most frustrating place that people get to. Because then they’re like, “Well then, what do we do?” And they want me to give them a ten-point plan for creating better technologies. And I’m like, “Well, what we do is, join in social movements, and end poverty everywhere, and forever.” And I’m sorry that that’s a frustrating answer. But it’s the real answer.

The High-Tech Poorhouse

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/01/virginia-eubanks-interview-automating-inequality-poverty

Rudolf Bauer Space, 1932