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hellomynameisbisexual · 3 years

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“Personally, I think choosing between men and women is like choosing between cake and ice cream; you’d be daft not to try both when there are so many different flavours.” This endearing analogy, uttered by equally endearing Icelandic icon Björk, stresses her steadfast opinion that “everyone is bisexual”. But even if bisexuality doesn’t describe everyone, it makes up the largest proportion of all people non-compliant to the adjective ‘straight’. Simply put, bisexuality is a term to describe individuals who feel romantically and/or sexually attracted to both sexes, meaning their preference is neither exclusive to men nor women.

But despite its sizeable demographic, and the numerous studies which conclude pure hetero- or homosexuality to be a myth, bisexuals often fall victim to social ostracism. Too gay for straights, too straight for gays, bisexuals are too frequently labelled as frauds or experimentalists, incapable of committing to one sole party. And as society’s understanding of sex and gender progresses, leaving little room for binaries, ‘bi’sexuality becomes increasingly complex.

Bisexuality Pride LGBTQ David Bowie Lady Gaga Freddie Mercury Music Pop Culture Pride 2019 Pansexual Queer Think Piece

A constant and bothersome companion to bisexuality is its apparent ambiguity—society’s inability to grasp the potential for erotic or amorous interaction with not just one of the two sexes has wrongfully made bisexuality a matter of superstition. A recent study found that bisexuals, of all sexual minorities, are the most likely to suffer from mental illness along the lines of anxiety and depression, stemming from both internalised and externally inflicted biphobia on account of stigmatisation and discrimination induced not only by straight people, but by members of their own community as well. The most prevalent vehicle for intolerance of bisexuals is (surprise, surprise) the narrow-minded idea of there only being two sides to pick from, leading to nonsense-assessments à la “bi people are repressing something”, “bi people are on the verge”. Moreover, male-identifying bisexuals are regularly pigeonholed as gay men who want to feel more “normal” every now and then by strutting alongside a woman, whereas many bisexual women endure belittlement, their experiences reduced to mere trial and error phases of rebellious college years.

But what does being bi even really mean in an age when dating apps such as Tinder offer more than 20 options to describe one’s own identity? How timely is the concept of bisexuality when we’re on the cusp of throwing out expired definitions meant to mathematise human sexuality and identity politics? Connecting the dots—ranging from those force-feeding frequently surreal interpretations of bisexuality to the rusty roles and rules of gender coinciding herewith—brings along another, very new problem for and with the titular term. Bisexuality is rooted in duality—its name is predicated on the ‘fact’ that there are two genders: male and female. Present day’s discourse, however, has done its best at dismantling said duality, pushing the notion of gender as a social construct. What makes bisexuality a problem for mainstream culture to comprehend is the underlying, subtle reality that it ultimately caters to everyone but the straight cis-man—unfathomable for a mindset cemented in patriarchal convictions. It, with other things, then leads to a phenomenon called bi-erasure, and furthermore to bigotry at its broadest, sourced from wide-spread disregard for sexual fluidity and refusal of the concept that one doesn’t feel exclusively drawn to one thing in favour of the other.

It’s this exact type of treatment that exhibits the general populace’s insufficient degree of sensibility in dealing with matters “out of the ordinary” and why, despite it’s historic prolificacy (ancient Greek, Japanese and Roman depictions of bisexual relationships were fairly common), sexual fluidity didn’t gain mainstream momentum until the 70s, when Freddie Mercury and David Bowie emerged as two high profile beacons of the cause. Where previously bisexuality had been the product of retrospective speculation—Hollywood figures such as James Dean, Marlon Brando and Greta Garbo were ‘outed’ after their careers ended—pop music popularised bisexuality in the present—and for an audience beyond the queer underground.

That’s not to say Bowie’s take on bisexuality exactly exuded ‘Pride’—in fact, the artist explained more than once that officially coming out did him more harm than good. Still an undeniable legend in- and outside of the LGBTQ+ cosmos, Bowie—just as other people in his shoes—had difficulties with the term in question, revoking or minimising claims again and again—to the point that, to this day, biographers, fans and exes alike remain unsure wether or not he felt honestly attracted to women and men, or was merely intrigued by bisexuality on a shock value- or curiosity-level. It resembles the kind of borderline sensationalism that brought forth Madonna and Britney’s VMA kiss, vague-at-best comments by celebs in interviews and other question-worthy instances of how bisexuality has been brushed up against, but rarely embraced on a genuine level by people of public interest.

It all charts back to what is referred to as the male gaze—the filter through which we’ve been taught to consume our environment, particularly by way of media. Even the little bits and pieces one does see tapping into alternatives to classic hetero monogamy are mostly blemished by negative stereotyping and bizarrely hypersexualised scenes fresh out of frat-bro wet-dreams. Going against this grain is Desiree Akhavan’s series “The Bisexual”, in which the 35-year old actress, director and HBO’s “Girls”-alumna has managed to entertainingly and thoughtfully depict what might be be one of the first examples of how to pop culturally handle the often conflicting topic of being bisexual with care.

Aforementioned proceedings considered, execution and a heightened awareness for cause-and-effects are why a new generation of vocal youth has, across all platforms, boosted a conversation to crack open the boxes we are either placed in, or choose to place ourselves in for fear of bad resonance. More modern, more inclusive designs like pansexual—the tendency to sexually or romantically like someone in spite of biologically- or self-ascribed traits of gender or sex—are on a rise. To many, ‘queer’ is the least restrictive of all labels, indicative of liberation from the binary. In this instance, it seems as though bisexuality in its traditional sense no longer remains the most politically correct of all notions.

But that being said, we mustn’t forget: labels can do harm, but they also set free. The ability to engage in conversations like these is a privilege we’ve been afforded in the West—a privilege that’s important to remember at the time when our part of the globe celebrates Pride, while others in the LGBTQ+ community elsewhere are being imprisoned or even killed for their sexual identities. Bisexuality, and everything that has branched from it to articulate sexual fluidity, needs to be taken seriously within our own, local spaces—just as serious as every other letter in the line-up that constitutes the LGBTQ+ umbrella. Resisting to defy suppressions of any kind—even if you’re not personally vulnerable to their consequences—results in nothing. It’s only through efforts to increase visibility inside our already comparatively progressive realms that we can transport Pride’s cause to places still at unease with non-heteronormativity, and actually feel proud.

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amxwolf · 3 years

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Here is why conventional healthful-thinking is not working on Millennials.

Have you ever had that terrifying dream where you are stuck in a dark forest or sketchy alley, frantically running for your life from some kind of feral monster or mad man? Most of us can personally recall at least once being roused from sleep in a cold sweat because their brain had spent the last few hours perfecting the latent image of a made-to-order nightmare. While that experience is certainly not exclusive to Millennials (rather quite the opposite), the waking reaction or at least how it is processed later by this roughly categorized group of mislabeled people is unique to say the least.

For years now, people in marketing have been fervently dissecting and attempting to recreate what has been loosely categorized as "Millennial Humor". And in all of their efforts to connect with this flock of black sheep, the grand majority of them seem to be missing a key factor in the psychology at work here. For all the unwarrantable bilge that modern advertising haphazardly cobbles together, only a small percentage of the nonsense is seasoned perfectly with the secret ingredient. What is this singular spice? Well, while indulgent to profess and speculative, from someone "sitting in millennial class”, it's obvious: A touch of salt.

Never will I sit here and cry to the general public about how unhappy I am that the modern advertising industry is just not scratching my itch for the wares it’s peddling, but I think it's important for us now to look at how this systemic lack of understanding is reaching beyond the world of subliminal profiteering. Society has other significant quality-of-life effecting systems that are also missing the mark when trying to aim and reach out to help this specific group of people. Puns aside, "a touch of salt" as I quipped, is flavoring the lives of a lot of people in their mid to late 20's and early 40's. And the most frustrating and difficult to reconcile attempts that I personally have made to better myself, have been those that were guided by people who just cannot seem to put their brain into that salty head space.

For example, trying to focus on and internalize a well-organized medical presentation about the encompassing negative effects of stress or insomnia and its seemly simple solution of just "changing your thinking", is about as easily digestible as a two-decade-year-old fruitcake for someone who is imprisoned daily by the symptoms of chronic stress. While I may sit there and give listening (ironically) "the old college try", the sound quickly turns to fuzzy white noise the deeper the lecture dives into positive thinking.

You see, Millennials are not generally fluent in positive thinking. More and more of them seem to be speaking a very distinctive dialect of realism, which incorporates a robustly cultivated sense of sarcasm and a somewhat grim shade of hopelessness. A lot of millennials grew up with a laughably poetic twist on "Growing Up" and "Being Successful", which in turn has colored their day-to-day interactions and created this defeatism-culture. Millennials will openly joke about their death as a needed release, their eulogy as a retirement card, or emotionally decompile themselves over something simple like saying "you too" in a situation that doesn't warrant it.

A good percentage of Millennials were old enough to understand the destructive consequences of the most recent housing market disaster on a very personal level; At an impressionable age, watching their own parents, who may have worked excruciatingly hard at the expense of any number of personal or family goals, lose just about everything resonated in a way that cannot be unheard. Then add the borderline criminal and unscrupulous "sheep-shearing" that became common place when the generation was herded off to college, trade school, or other form of career-building education. Not to mention the fact that upon completing said programs, a proverbial "step-in-the-right direction", a substantial number of these "hopeless wanderers" were faced with yet another barbed-wire hurdle when the job market in countless fields were oversaturated with potential employees. Many positions had not been vacated as they normally would have been with the age of retirement being stretched further and further down the road due to increased cost of living and financial demands; the finish line or lap marker was just not getting any closer. To add insult to injury, Millennials, sometimes unbelievably hardworking, are frequently being listed as perpetuators of the clashing reality we have today. This being what the modern media is calling "The Great Resignation"; a dubious combination of a labor shortage amidst an unemployment spike fueled by uncompetitive wages left unchecked, the government's inability to reel in the situation, and a general devaluing of laborers overall.

Oh. And also, we were killing the diamond industry at the same time. Or was it simultaneously the marriage and divorce industry? Wait! I think it was cinema? Or no....maybe it was fabric softener. For a complete dissertation of all the things Millennials brutally murdered over the last two decades, perhaps I'll include a link below if for no other reason to drive my point home.

You have this group of people who are conditioned to endlessly swimming upstream, against the current, with nothing but chastising and bitterness to listen to. So, when it comes to something universal like learning to "sleep better" or "problem solving", the indifferent but somehow time-honored approach of saying "it's as easy as just taking control" is over time if not immediately rejected as dissonant information.

These people don't feel like they have control; some of them feel like they never had any to begin with.

Why is this a problem?

Our society is not developing a taste for "salt" at a pace in which it can prepare social-sustenance for its population. We're not getting any younger, and neither are the generations in front of us.

Millennials are already, by some definitions the mass-population of workers, voters, and other titles that we've yet to embrace. And our lack of interest is not because we do not have a passion for positive change (even on a global scale). Millennials have voiced over time that they feel they are the silent majority amidst a group of people who will not give them breathing room and don't respect the validity of their opinions and ambitions. And it is by no means restricted to one region or country on this planet. This is a global phenomenon.

I could spin a vast yarn about the political ramifications of continuing to exclude the Millennials from the metaphoric Counsel of Elders, but I'm more concerned about the neglect that is spreading elsewhere. We need our leaders in the medical and social fields to really respect and dig deep into how to incorporate "Millennial Thinking" into their treatment and development plans. A large amount of the global population is going to need carefully tailored treatment for things as old as depression, bi-polar tendencies, or schizophrenia as well as newly discovered mental encumbrances like imposter-syndrome.

While “positive-thinking” may have been easily cultivated in the past, we may need to start from a more negative approach and build from there to educate and treat a group of down-on-their-luck millions. Pumping drugs into a populace is not going to permanently patch the leak either, so there truly is precedence for a rehashing of how we should prioritize mental health in modern society.

Stop spending so much time and energy assigning blame to modern technologies and social norms. Are these going away? No? In that case, those things are much like our other daily stresses that are unavoidable. Yes, you can change your nightly routine to de-stress the same way that you can change a job or a daily commute, but there needs to be a fundamental shift in accountability divvied to circumstances out of a person's control rather than scolding them for not being able to manage it.

Do I have all the answers? No.

But this was less about offering a solid a solution and more about opening a dialogue. A starting point.

So yeah. I've had that dream of being chased through the woods by a life-leeching alien. It felt very similar to being sucked dry of my pitiful wages for an education that was at the time, barely panning out. Even now, as a 32-year-old, slightly more successful version of the starving student I've become, I still feel as though my rat race will end when my heart gives out; and all I can hope for is enough money when I drop to cover the ambulance ride to the over-crowded emergency room and a large pit to rot in. But I just hope that the generation behind me has the benefit of a system that understands how to create and sustain “Millennial Inspired” social structures that will allow them to flourish in what little we can leave behind for them.

Also, could you pass the salt?

#rant #millenials #heavy thoughts #random thoughts #seriously though modern mental medicine is a joke

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espressotw · 4 years

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The Need for Ethical Brainwashing

Historically we've seen dramatic changes in thought, culture, and politics that shaped the word and the future of humanity relatively quickly. Events like the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, and even the psychedelic movement of the 60's demonstrated society's ability to pick up new systems and new worldviews and in doing so, designing a new way of life for our species around them. But none of that comes close to what humanity faces now. Change of that level is simply incomparable to the change on our horizon. With the exponential growth of computing power and various technologies, ranging from biotech to deep learning to quantum processing, we find ourselves faced with the potential to wake up in a world damn near incomprehensible.

At the same time, we are seeing many relics of the old system beginning to fail us. American democratic processes are being called into question, threatening the 150 year streak of relative domestic peace that the country boasts. While China and the US grapple for global economic dominion, India and Brazil threaten to displace the global balance of power. The year 2020 has been a roller coaster of international events that make the stomach churn.

The more interconnected our world becomes, and the more connected we become as individuals, the more our stories must be able to line up. It is no longer feasible for us to fight a battle between American democracy and Chinese communism; clearly neither is creating a widely healthy and successful populace. Both have severe pitfalls, as well as distinct advantages over the other. Beyond that, neither has had any real success in tackling the impending ecological crises that threaten our very existence, they being only a portion of the existential threats that we face as a species.

In such a fragile state we find ourselves on the cusp of discovering and inventing technologies and systems that could change life in such profound ways that it's really difficult to even imagine. AI and machine learning alone could (and already has) drastically change the way society operates. Combine that with DNA sequencing technologies. Combine that with nanotechnologies. Combine that with a deep understanding of fundamental physics and chemistry; the very building blocks of matter. The possibilities only multiply with every step we take. How much could we really change life as we know it?

With this massive influx of information and capability, we must redesign our own nature to be able to discern and to act in a responsible manner, or any one of these new technologies could end up where the older ones- like nuclear power -nearly brought us: mass extinction. We need to take our discussions of ethics and accountability to a much deeper level, and fast. Thus we have a need for what Hanzi Freinacht terms meta-narratives. In his own words:

"When a multiplicity of things explode all at once, in a multidimensional crisis-revolution, our linear models of the world rarely work out – they cannot take on so many different variables (and variables with qualitatively different properties) and their mutual interactions. But that does not mean we should refrain from attempting to understand the times we live in; au contraire, we have even greater reason to analyze society and to try to see the deeper patterns that connect in the chaos.

We need directions, but these directions must necessarily be of an abstract, open-ended nature. We don’t need cookbooks; we need general ideas on how to create good cookbooks, so to speak. We need stories about stories. Meta-narratives.

In circumstances such as these, it is only seemly to anticipate corresponding changes of the political system and how society functions in daily life. Indeed, to ignore the necessary adaptations of political, cultural and psychological development in the face of a multidimensional crisis-revolution would be highly irresponsible. In order to take responsibility we must use an intricate understanding of psychology – the science of the human soul and the behavior of the human organism – to develop social technologies that address the deeper issues at hand." (The Listening Society)

I argue, and Hanzi would undoubtedly agree, that public education has already established a large-scale and surprisingly reliable brainwashing program. We can argue about the truth of that statement in another essay, because it's really not worth my time to prove what should be obvious right now. But the fact that we have yet to acknowledge this as a society means that the ethicality of it is questionable at best, and more likely horrifically lacking. So instead of arguing about weather or not our education system is brainwashing our children (it is), we ought to get on with discussing how we ought to be brainwashing our kids. And we must use every resource in our grasp to do so, because they are growing up in a world where their adulthood is not guaranteed, and if it is, it will be a world unlike any of us have ever experienced. To brainwash them into a dead system is what it sounds like: grooming them to die.

As a last word, I want to clarify that I do not hold a grim view of the future. Actually I'm quite excited. I dream of the amazing things that I and my posterity will be able to experience. The potential of DNA technology, AI, and space travel are exhilarating and frighteningly realistic. But life has exactly one most fundamental function: to solve problems. And right now, that might demand all of our collective will to accomplish.

Written 17 Nov. 2020

Hanzi Freinacht is a philosopher and the author of several books including The Listening Society and Nordic Ideology. He is a leading voice in the realm of Metamodernism.

#Metamodernism #Ethics #Society #Hanzi #Philosophy

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somnilogical · 4 years

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<<Over the past year, however, Google has appeared to clamp down. It has gradually scaled back opportunities for employees to grill their bosses and imposed a set of workplace guidelines that forbid “a raging debate over politics or the latest news story.” It has tried to prevent workers from discussing their labor rights with outsiders at a Google facility and even hired a consulting firm that specializes in blocking unions. Then, in November, came the firing of the four activists. The escalation sent tremors through the Google campus in Mountain View, Calif., and its offices in cities like New York and Seattle, prompting many employees — whether or not they had openly supported the activists — to wonder if the company’s culture of friendly debate was now gone for good.

(A Google spokeswoman would not confirm the names of the people fired on Nov. 25. “We dismissed four individuals who were engaged in intentional and often repeated violations of our longstanding data-security policies,” the spokeswoman said. “No one has been dismissed for raising concerns or debating the company’s activities.” Without naming Berland, Google disputed that investigators pressured him.)>>

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/02/18/magazine/google-revolt.html

<<“Of the five people that were fired, three of us are trans women,” Spiers said. “That is either an unbelievable coincidence or Google is targeting the most vulnerable.”

“Trans Googlers make up a very small percentage of Googlers,” she added. “They make up a slightly larger percentage of organizers, but not 60%.”>>

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/17/fifth-google-worker-activist-fired-in-a-month-says-company-is-targeting-the-vulnerable

i too am transfem and would "violate longstanding data-security policies" if my organization were being unjust. i wouldnt say that unless it were already obvious by what bits ive leaked to people about my life, because otherwise i could suppress this information and whistleblow more.

if you were an evil corp at this point youd probably try to avoid hiring any trans women in the first place because given this happens to you, its likely done by a transfem. not that this saved CFAR, who never hired a trans woman, from having a bunch of transfems whistleblow on them despite not being employees.

from what ive read from transfem google employees who are or were involved in activism, the degredation of google's culture. their complicity with ICE and weapons manufacturing mirrors CFAR's with OpenAI and DeepMind; authoritarianism and expulsion of transfems who object to this among a myriad of wrongs. to protect the territory of injustice and complicity with organizations like ICE, google needs to import "a consulting firm that specializes in blocking unions", CFAR needs to violate their whistleblower policy. if you once protect injustice, justice is ever after your enemy. morality isnt some modular thing such that you can be comitted to protecting injustice and not have this choice spiral into also invoking and protecting systems that protect injustice and invoking further things to protect those, recursively. all the way down to doing really dumb and obvious unjust things like transmisogyny (lots of future posts), changing your fundraiser after its clear its losing money, announcing that this year you got way below your donation target and claim to have no idea why.

well *i* know the compact generator for all of these things, and that makes me strong. unlike MIRI/CFAR who like the CDC rely on gaslighting the populace for myopic gains. i also wore a particle mask during the time that the CDC claimed that they were useless to preventing spread of disease, so it was really important to give them to doctors and nurses.

after so much gaslighting, *i* have built up general capabilities at arbitraging the difference between what agents claim and the truth. people who say:

<<Edit: This is a type of post that should have been vetted with someone for infohazards and harms before being posted, and (Further edit) I think it should have been removed by the authors., though censorship is obviously counterproductive at this point.

Infohazards are a real thing, as is the Unilateralists’s curse. (Edit to add: No, infohazards and unilateralist’s curse are not about existential or global catastrophic risk. Read the papers.) And right now, overall, reduced trust in CDC will almost certainly kill people. Yes, their currently political leadership is crappy, and blameworthy for a number of bad decisions—but it doesn’t change the fact that undermining them now is a very bad idea.

Yes, the CDC has screwed up many times, but publicly blaming them for things that were non-obvious (like failing to delay sending out lab kits for further testing,) or that they screwed up, and everyone paying attention including them now realizes they got wrong (like being slow to allow outside testing,) in the middle of a pandemic seems like exactly the kind of consequence-blind action that lesswrongers should know better than to engage in.

Disclaimer: I know lots of people at CDC, including some in infectious diseases, and have friends there. They are human, and get things wrong under pressure—and perhaps there are people who would do better, but that’s not the question at hand.>>

https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/h4vWsBBjASgiQ2pn6/credibility-of-the-cdc-on-sars-cov-2/comment/uDYbgf3QtEQirbsJk

havent. its easy to see how peoples minds are warped when its someone elses glowy thing, when its someone elses friends working for an institution that that someone else routed their hopes through.

its easier to recognize betrayal and see knowledge beyond the veil when its happening to someone else, instead of you.

until you build up general skills for recognizing it, this sort of betrayal isnt infinitely powerful. and like how you might expect that smart people who live for predation would do anti-inductive smart predatory things, but they end up converging on child sex rings; institutions that betray you, because justice is their enemy will start doing dumb unjust things like banning two people from speaking about their irl experiences with anna salamon, saying their first-hand accounts werent evidence and then citing anna salamon's first-hand account of the meeting as evidence. when i objected that this was a fucked up self-serving ontology of "evidence" they acted like i was objecting to "beliefs flow from evidence" and they acted as if what i was saying was obscure and beyond their ability to comprehend. their "incomprehension" was fake, downstream of a fear to dynamically compute things in front of other people that might end up outside the orthodoxy. the result of which is they display a blue screen of death and say “i just dont understand and aaa dont explain this to me!!!”. and then people agree that it "seems like it could be an infohazard" because when your goal is the preservation of the matrix, everything that tears it down looks like hazardous information.

or a cfar employee, in response to claims that anna's transmisogyny influences CFAR's hiring choices, claiming that anna salamon, head of CFAR, is not involved in CFAR's hiring. until i post proof from another CFAR employee pursuing personal vengeance against the org for hiring their rapist where its tangentially mentioned and they suddenly "realize" that anna salamon, head of CFAR, is involved in CFAR's hiring process.

or a thousand other injustices that have burned themselves into my brain during my months of talking with people under the assumption that they were simply mistaken in their path to saving the world. when they were actually un-mistaken in their path to having babies and a low chance of personal death. hoping and expecting someone else will take heroic responsibility for the planet.

like when you drill down to the base of injustice, it bottoms out in dumb and petty injustice. like the structure doesnt go infinitely high and complex, if you go down to the base level, you just need a bit of courage to not flinch away from what you see even if it seems that it means the ruin of something you ran your hopes and dreams through.

"isnt this a little... extreme?" i hear some people ask. ""dont protect regions of injustice?" that sounds like the end product of obsessive compulsive fixation on virtue at the expense of practicality."

well, assuming the algorithm seeding this response is a systemic reasoning tool, it should forkbomb when you consider if youd output ""dont protect regions of untruth?" that sounds like the end product of obsessive compulsive fixation on virtue at the expense of practicality." in response to eliezers essay. the principle behind both is the same such that if you hold by one you should hold by the other.

all of these things have parallels. if you want to see what is happening with MIRI/CFAR, theres a lot of mutual information with whats happening with Google.

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classyfoxdestiny · 3 years

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How residents are living in Vermont, America's most vaccinated state

They clasped hands and rock stepped and spun in and out of quick embraces to swinging jazz rhythms on one of the last hardwood ballrooms in Burlington.

“I thought partner dancing was always going to be the last thing to come back from the pandemic because there’s so much interaction,” said one dancer, Lorilee Schoenbeck, a naturopathic physician.

“It’s aerobic in each other’s faces and you’re constantly changing partners… In this dance venue, this would be an absolute super spreader.”

But these dancers are all vaccinated. They reside in America’s most vaccinated state — 83.7% of Vermonters 12 and over have received at least one shot, according to health officials.

Throughout Vermont, hospital Covid-19 units are mostly empty. Bars and restaurants are hopping again. In remote rural towns, diners, country stores and campgrounds are filling up.

As the national health crisis evolves into “a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” in the words of US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, Vermont health officials tout the Green Mountain State as the safest place in America.

Many Vermonters are venturing out, unmasked and with no fear, just as the CDC recommended on Tuesday that fully vaccinated people wear masks indoors in US counties with soaring transmission rates.

“My question is, ‘Do you want to have a life again?'” Schoenbeck said. “We’re living. Get vaccinated. Get back in the game.”

Vaccination push continues

Around the corner from downtown Burlington’s bustling Church Street Marketplace, Dr. Mark Levine, state health commissioner, sat at a small conference table in his office and rattled off statistics that enabled Gov. Phil Scott to lift all Covid-19 restrictions in mid June.

Vermont was the first state to partially vaccinate at least 80 percent of residents 12 or older. The current rate of more than 83% compares with the nation’s 66.6% one-dose rate — according to the CDC — for the same age group.

More than 67% of the state’s roughly 624,000 residents have been fully vaccinated, compared with about 49% for the US overall.

The state has maintained one of the country’s lowest infection rates — currently at 1.6% for a seven-day average, according to the health department’s Covid-19 dashboard. Vermont has had 259 Covid-19 deaths.

“It’s the lowest number of deaths on the continental US,” said Levine, sitting in front of a bobblehead of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The state’s last Covid-19-related death was on July 10, Levine said. In June and July, the state has had four deaths. There are five Covid-19 patients hospitalized in the entire state.

Vermont’s first vaccine was administered in mid December. The state’s vaccination campaign isn’t done.

“The whole strategy is, we want a Vermonter to essentially stumble on the vaccine,” Levine said.

“If you’re at one of the beaches on Lake Champlain here in Burlington or you were … on Church Street, you’re not going to see a vaccine tent every day but you’re going to see it sometimes. That’s the sort of strategy. We’re going to make sure it’s all around you… If there’s a state fair, it’s got to have vaccine. If there’s a farmers’ market or a flea market, it’s going to have vaccine.”

Along Church Street Marketplace, visible from Levine’s downtown office, the wide four-block concourse is crowded with people — most not wearing masks. Its bars, shops and restaurants have been filling up. Outside Vermont’s own Ben & Jerry’s, dozens of young people — many not wearing face coverings or social distancing — line up in clusters for ice cream day and night.

The eastern shoreline of Lake Champlain, where signs with Covid-19 safety messages have been replaced with warnings of harmful cyanobacteria blooms in the water, teems with couples, children and pets. Burlington is in Chittenden County, which has a vaccination rate of 85.4%.

“We’re trying to tell people … fall and winter is what we’re worried about,” Levine said. “We want that vaccine rate up now in anticipation of the following winter so we don’t have to change our behavior at that time.”

Restrictions lifted ‘because it’s safe to do so’

On June 14, when Vermont became the first state to vaccinate more than 80% of its population over the age of 12, Gov. Scott, a moderate Republican, announced Vermont’s state of emergency would formally end at midnight.

“Why? Because it’s safe to do so,” the governor said.

At the same time, however, the Delta variant was starting to dominate the US.

A handful of states have been driving the bulk of the nationwide Covid-19 case surge and the threat of serious disease and death is to the unvaccinated, according to White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients.

Last week, just three states — Florida, Texas and Missouri — that share low vaccination rates accounted for 40 percent of all cases nationwide, Zients said.

And hospitals are filling up with Covid-19 patients again, this time with younger patients than before, according to doctors in Alabama, Mississippi, Florida and Missouri.

The only way to halt the resurgence, health officials said, is to get more people vaccinated.

“Even if somebody comes into Vermont and has the Delta variant … and they get sick and they’re infectious while they’re here in Vermont,” Levine said.

“If 83-plus percent of the population is vaccinated. That variant runs into a wall. Now, people who’ve been vaccinated … can still get sick with the variant. We’ve seen that all around the country. But the reality is its likelihood of creating any major outbreak is really small because it’s going to keep running into people that it can’t actually get transmitted from because they are going to be immune.”

‘Community response and collective action’

At Northwestern Medical Center in St. Albans, a community hospital about 28 miles northeast of Burlington, a staff member took a lunch break last week at the nurse’s station in the shuttered and dimly lit Covid-19 ward.

The hospital treated its last Covid-19 patient in early May, said Dr. John Minadeo, chief medical officer.

“It’s a sign of, at this point in time, your vaccination status in the community,” Minadeo said of the empty ward. “But I believe that’s why we don’t have patients in these beds… So this is evidence of — you’re in a vaccinated community, you’re not going to have hospitalizations.”

St. Albans is in Franklin County, where 73.7% of residents 12 or older have received at least one vaccine dose, according to the state health department.

Minadeo said the hospital was prepared to activate the ward if needed.

“We have to think the fall is coming and assume that, you know, it may happen again,” he said. “We’re in a little bit better shape because we’ve done it once before.”

Vermont’s success in vaccinating its residents is attributed to various factors, including the accessibility of vaccine sites; overall trust in the political leadership and science; an aging, mostly white and liberal populace; and a generally health conscious population with a strong sense of civic responsibility.

“A lot of people see Vermont as being exceptional in some ways,” said Anne Sosin, a policy fellow at the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.

“And it’s a really blue state but if you look a little bit closer … we’re a much more purple state than many understand. There are many rural barriers to health care and Vermont demonstrated that if you bring vaccines to places where people live, work and play that you can overcome many of the obstacles to achieving high rates of vaccination. Vermont not only used its health care system and large sites, but it’s also brought vaccines out to firehouses, schools, community sites, pop up clinics, gas stations and beaches.”

Sosin said rural Orleans County, in one of the most remote and conservative parts of the state, has a vaccination rate of 70.8%. She said she was vaccinated in an Orleans County firehouse.

Orleans is one of three far off Vermont counties — near the Canadian border — that make up a region known as the Northeast Kingdom, where residents take pride in their individuality and separateness.

“The high rates of vaccination are a testament not only to a really well run state program but to the vast community infrastructure in that part of the state,” Sosin said.

Another Northeast Kingdom county, Essex, has the lowest vaccination rate in the state at 58.5%. The other county, Caledonia, has partially vaccinated 70.8% of its 12 and over population.

“One really important lesson right now, as I think about what’s happening across the country, is the importance of community and solidarity,” Sosin said. “And I know that sounds kind of soft but we hear the CDC saying, ‘It’s in your hands.’ This is a very individualistic approach to the pandemic. Yet Vermonters really highlighted the importance of community response and collective action.”

‘A lot of older Vermonters … don’t like change’

At the Mooselook Diner in the Essex County town of Concord, about 90 miles east of Burlington, waitress Justine Alegria Cummins, 25, said neither she nor her children have gotten the vaccine because she fears “adverse effects” from the shot. The place was hopping during lunch hour one day last week.

“It never affected me in my personal life enough to make me want to get the vaccine,” she said of Covid-19.

Another waitress, Angela Marshall, 46, said she is not an anti-vaxxer but has not received the vaccine because she doesn’t believe enough time was spent researching it. She said she tested positive with Covid-19 about six weeks ago and was bedridden for two weeks.

“I couldn’t move,” she said. “I couldn’t do anything.”

She recovered but said she still won’t get vaccinated.

Down the road at the Pettyco Junction Country Store in St. Johnsbury, on the lower edge of the Northeast Kingdom, a retired 67-year-old contractor named Bernie Timson said he will remain part of the unvaccinated state population.

“They put you on a spot where they’re saying, ‘If you’re not vaccinated, you can come in my store but you’ve got to wear a mask,'” he said. “I’m not going to put a mask on to come in your store. I’m still going to store but I ain’t putting a mask on. There’s no way I’m putting the mask on because that just puts you as a mark — you ain’t vaccinated.”

At Moose River Campground, owner Mary Lunderville said the campground is full and that she and her husband have had to turn down reservations because there’s no room.

Lunderville, who wouldn’t give her age but described herself as an “early senior,” said the couple was initially reluctant to get the vaccine because they were “unsure if it was going to be safe.” When vaccinated friends did not become ill, she said, they agreed to get the shot in mid April mostly in order make their customers feel comfortable.

“I like to make sure my campers are happy and safe,” she said.

Lunderville said she still requires masks and gloves when people help themselves to food at the big holiday dinners on the campgrounds.

“There are more real Vermonters on this side than out of staters who moved to Vermont,” she said. “A lot of older Vermonters like my husband they don’t like change. It could be just because they’re afraid of change. It could be stubbornness.”

‘I don’t feel any fear going out’

At the sweltering Champlain Club in Burlington, bandleader Louis Prima’s famous combination of “Just a Gigolo” and “I Ain’t Got Nobody” blared from speakers as the swing enthusiasts switched partners.

“A-one, a-two, a-you know what to do,” said instructor Jean Elizabeth Shockley, using the phrase made famous by Lindy Hop pioneer Frankie Manning.

Shockley said there were at least 20 new faces on the dance floor on this Tuesday evening in mid July.

All participants had to show their Covid-19 vaccination card for admission to the weekly Vermont Swings class and the two-hour dance.

“There’s a different kind of energy here,” instructor Maria Garrido said. “People are proud and aware of what Vermont has done…. I’m personally worried about the variants and surges but I really am proud of what we accomplished. I feel that for the most part we’re able to get closer to normal and it’s really exciting.”

Trim and energetic at 73, David Rose lamented that his dance partner of eight years was absent this evening because of her refusal to get the vaccine.

“In fact, all during the pandemic she was saying, ‘Oh, David, we got to dance. We got to dance.’ And I said, Vermont Swings is opening up. Let’s go and she says, ‘I can’t do that. I’m not vaccinated.’ “

Rose said the state’s biggest challenge will be convincing the remaining unvaccinated residents to get the shot.

“It’s sad for me that she feels that way and that she can’t come in because they won’t let her in,” Rose said of his longtime dance partner. “I don’t want to offend her and push her… I asked, ‘Why don’t you want to get the vaccine?’ She says, ‘I think it’s some kind of game to make money by the pharmaceutical companies or the government telling us what to do.’ “

Natalie Nachtigal, 32, said she moved to Burlington in September from Florida, which reported an average of 10,452 new cases each day over the past week — more than triple the daily average from two weeks ago, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

“I don’t feel any fear going out and a lot of it has to do with a sense of community that Vermont really lets shine,” she said. “It’s very apparent in community members that it’s kind of like one-for-all rather than an all-for-one community mentality.”

Mark Jerome Feinstein, 26, moved to Vermont one month ago from California, where San Diego and Los Angeles counties both reported their highest number of cases since February, and hospitalizations in LA County more than doubled in two weeks.

“It was definitely a weight off my shoulders to realize that I was going to a place where life could be a little bit more normal,” Feinstein, a PhD student in psychology at the University of Vermont, said between dances.

“You don’t know whether Delta or Covid 2021 or 2022 is coming down the pike. And so you might as well go out and have some fun as safely as possible, as respectfully as possible, while you can.”

After all, he said, the dances they’ve been practicing came about in the wake of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, World War I and the Great Depression.

“It’s this funny little microcosm where we get to dance the same dances that they did so that they could celebrate being alive,” Feinstein said. “We can do the same thing.”

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blackcoverfan · 3 years

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Civilization VI: Gathering Storm shows video games can make us think seriously about climate change

A fresh out of the plastic new improvement has added environmental troubles to Sid Meier's Individual VI, the most forward-thinking in a favored arrangement of method PC game that has been running since the 1990s. The development - called Festivity Twister - adds pristine capacities to the computer game, most quite anthropogenic atmosphere adjustment and every single catastrophic event. The game involves building up a civilisation from its unassuming beginnings in the Stone Age to these days and past, while picking from a considerable scope of advances and social approaches. As the computer game just as the ages improvement, your capacity determinations wind up being progressively essential. Beyond question, Gathering Twister depends on a direct plan of an Earth-wide temperature boost wherein Carbon Monoxide ₂ emanations from energy assets incite ocean level increment, alongside much more consistent just as serious extraordinary climate condition events, for example, dry spells and tempests. Thus, these can have tragic outcomes on your urban areas and furthermore units, squeezing the gamer to consider diverse variation systems, for example, flood obstructions for seaside urban communities. The computer game even advances into a "future time", where gamers are provided alternatives like carbon catch and capacity developments or "seasteads" to house segments of the populace. From already, this fresh out of the box new advancement urges gamers to think about a few of the forthcoming enduring repercussions of activities that may give momentary advantages. One model would hack down woods to build creation or change land for different uses which, over the long haul, delivers a city significantly more in danger to flooding and limits the carbon sink capacity of your civilisation. At the point when asked about whether Festivity Tempest was fairly a political articulation, the lead engineer, Dennis Avoid, remained primarily rationalist: "No, I don't feel that is tied in with offering a political expression. We much prefer to have our interactivity show existing science." It is totally genuine that the game doesn't pressure players into taking any sort of specific pathway, yet it incorporates a "World Congress" in which atmosphere or logging arrangements and charitable guide can be approved. We would surely likewise say that the amazingly consolidation of anthropogenic atmosphere change just as a subsidiary arrangement of remunerations and punishments is innately a political demonstration. Also, in the social exploration investigations of logical examination, what one considers to be "available science" has political ramifications. On account of Social occasion Tempest, for example, in most of situations a player might keep on being a "without cost biker" and depend exclusively on innovative administrations. That is only conceivable because of the way that those cutting edge innovations are seen previously and furthermore gamers are offered essentially ideal data on the different phases of climate change and furthermore its effects. One of the repercussions is that the computer game basically kills the real capriciousness which is intrinsic to the "present logical examination" on environmental change and offers a feeling of specialized uplifting viewpoint whereby progressions alone can support human thriving. Rather we wish to outline precisely how various portrayals of things to come can limit or urge explicit strategies. The software engineers may have decided to make the impacts of climate change just as admittance to relieving developments substantially more irregular (despite the fact that we don't have a clue how troublesome that would absolutely be to execute by and by nor its effects on ongoing interaction). Frostpunk, and furthermore enduring the 'volcanic winter' As opposed to this by the way sure viewpoint, there is a captivating Shine PC game by the name of Frostpunk. The game's key situation contains enduring the colder time of year season- - which gets steadily colder as time continues - in "New London": a settlement of survivors accumulated around a colossal coal-fueled generator. The gamer should choose between various intense plans and furthermore choices to guarantee the endurance of the general population. These comprise of 1 day shifts, kid work, cadaver removal techniques and, all the more definitely, regardless of whether to welcome evacuees or deny them entrance. While Frostpunk doesn't straightforwardly take care of the issue of anthropogenic atmosphere adjustment, it inspires extraordinary logical situations (from the 1970s just as 1980s) of worldwide cooling just as atomic winters. The computer game additionally occurs in what we comprehend is Victorian England, embodying the modern upset and furthermore the beginning of the pristine land time we currently live in: the Anthropocene. Both these games go far in connecting just as edifying their gamers on environmental change, compeling them to deal with the sort of political just as good compromises that exist, all things considered, dynamic. We profoundly energize these advances, not just in computer games anyway much more by and large in overcoming any barrier between logical exploration and furthermore the computerized expressions. In the scholastic diary Natural Correspondence, we propose that logical examination just as the humanities (counting expressions of the human experience) need to cooperate with regards to complex issues, for example, environmental change, to all the more likely associate logical deduction just as its political repercussions. Computer games - as intuitive and furthermore energetic things - utilize truly incredible occasions to do exactly that. We welcome these endeavors with great affection, insofar as they keep on being capable and advance basic reasoning.

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townshade6 · 3 years

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How to Find Alternatives to Fight Coronavirus with Smartphones Concepts

Solutions, like Artificial Intelligencemight help tackle the covid-19 through applications which includes people testing, notifications of when to seek medical advice, and following how infection propagates. The Covid-19 outbreak has prompted strong focus on such apps, nonetheless it will take period of time before final results are noticeable. An electronic response to the COVID-19 pandemic can take multiple shapes and provide significant value. One particular necessary region in which there have been rapid innovations in the last few weeks can be brand-new applications of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) for verification of the populace and assessing infections risks. Screening the population to identify who is potentially ill is crucial for containing Covid-19. In Asia, which was strike first, traditional infrared image resolution scanners and mobile thermometers were introduced in multiple open public locations, especially in Beijing. Chinese AI agencies have now introduced more advanced AI-powered temperature verification systems in places including subway and railway stations. The advantage of these systems is they can display folks from a distance and within a few minutes can test hundreds of people for fever. In Asia fresh AI-powered smart phone applications are being designed to keep an eye on person's physical health and monitor the regional spread for the virus. Such apps aim to guess which areas of citizens and towns are most susceptible to the harmful impacts of the coronavirus outbreak, to allow patients to receive real-time waiting-time information from their medical providers, to provide people with advice and updates about their condition without them having to search for a hospital in person, and to notify individuals of potential infection hotspots instantly so those areas can be avoided. These technology generally need access to data transmitted by cell phones, including location data. While the equipment are being created, it is important to also develop a framework to allow them to be as effectual as possible used. Because of this, close coordination between specialists, telecoms providers, high-tech sector and research institutions is necessary. High-tech firms and leading educational institutions can provide the tools, telecoms companies can provide usage of individual's data, and regulators should make sure that data posting conforms with personal privacy rules and will not generate risks the info of people will end up being misused. For example, in Belgium, sets of data from telecommunications providers are coupled with wellness data under the supervision of the Belgian Data Protection Authority in order to generate aggregate and anonymity local-level datasets that can be used to review the way the trojan spreads and which areas are high risk. Similar initiatives are underway far away. In Austria, the biggest telecommunications operator obtained an agreement with the authorities to provide anonymity data, while, a similar anonymity customer data-sharing mechanism has been put in place to track and investigate people motions. Avoid Data Security Challenges Educational studies can also be helpful in illustrating how information sharing can be designed while circumventing privacy challenges. The Human Dynamics Group at MIT Media Testing center for example, has worked substantially with smartphone data to analyze the behavior of people while maintaining high personal privacy expectations. It recommends secure multiple parties computation to conserve personal privacy. MIT's secrecy-friendly personal data mechanisms is actually a basis for designing a data-sharing structure to control the pass on of COVID-19. A consortium of epidemiologists, technicians, data scientists, personal privacy activists, professors and analysts from various areas of the world are working on an open-source phone app to avoid the spread of the virus attack without building a security state. The software program probes for overlaps of user's GPS tracks with the trails of most contaminated subjects (whose anonymity personal data is supplied by health authorities), while cryptographic methods are used and there is absolutely no sharing of live data (personal data does not leave the device). This technique provides early alerts and personalized information that allow individuals who signed up towards the app to understand their own exposure and risks, predicated on earlier connection with infected patients. Disposition is using most current data mining ways to gather information regarding the rapidly changing situation from multiple resources. Included in these are case reviews from health authorities, details of symptoms in individuals and also fresh academic research on the condition. Every time there is a new outbreak, they can use the new data to test and enhance their models. We are collecting data about instances from around the world with as very much details as it can be, the onset of signs of illness, the travelling they made, contacts they had. The organization then blends this with information regarding human routines, such as for example daily activities and flight behaviour, so they can review exactly where else the outbreak could spread. At the start we were using air travel data to work through the way the coronavirus can disseminate of China. One of the teams in the project in addition has been using area data from mobile phones in China to check out how regular people moved around and interacted with each other. Technology is meant to be a tool, it really is meant to offer you superpowers. That's not what we're performing right now. All of us are passing over our ideals to a nonhuman entity that will not have our interests in mind. The organization just isn't saying people get rid of their Facebook accounts and chuck their mobile phones and notebooks into the bay. Nor is it recommending Facebook or Google shed a huge selection of vast amounts of dollars in market value and become nonprofits. The center is completely about trying to create all of these products we appreciate even more humane. The goal is to gather policymakers and doctors and technologists to talk about the dark side of social media marketing and additional apps that are on smart phones. The facility hopes to teach consumers and influence technology executives to improve business procedures that don't help customers. Facebook's latest problems over political election manipulation, hate conversation and data leaks are assisting to concentrate more attention for the center's announcements. It is time for any deeper, wider discussion about the info, who is the owner of it, who gets payed for it. We must challenge the frontrunners of these companies and market leaders of societies to make sure these technologies are working for us. Institutions like Facebook and Google present their technologies free. That means they depend on raising time spent on their applications and internet sites to increase advertising profits or even to mine information regarding users behaviors and preferences. Routine-changing concepts became crucial as they competed against one another for the interest of users. While using such information as an input, analysis on (social) networks is wanting to forecast how also to what extent the virus will spread, given a set of pre-determined parameters and characteristics. Authorities can use these scenarios to prepare their contingency plans in time. Employing information on enough time individuals spend in a particular location and on the amount of infections that take place there, scientists develop spatial types that depict the progression of contacts between contaminated people, to be able to catch how transmission evolves. One of the preliminary results of such efforts is that predicting the transmission of Coronavirus is trickier than for prior viruses because people can carry the disease without teaching signs of illness, and their viruses are as a result difficult to recognize. A large number of the infections in Wuhan seem to have been transferred through such asymptomatic carriers. So, intensive Coronavirus screening programmers (like this implemented in South Korea) are a good idea by providing data for the better efficiency of these models. AI may also be applied to the automatic detection and getting rid of false information related to the computer virus posted on social networks; producing extremely accurate and timely CT scans for the detection of virus-induced pneumonia; three dimensional printing to produce the tools needed for rigorous healthcare; search engine optimization of clinical studies of medications and potential vaccines; development of robotic systems to sanitize contaminated areas; and on-line systems for the medical study of individuals. Timing, of course, is critical (a report within the 1918 influenza pandemic implies that U.S. towns that followed non-pharmaceutical methods at an early on phase acquired peak death prices fifty percent less than those that did not). Governments have been criticised for failing woefully to acknowledge the severe nature from the coronavirus circumstance and not imposing synchronized methods in time.

#smartphones

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expatimes · 3 years

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Defeating fascism beyond the ballot

The world can breathe a sigh of relief that it will not know just how unhinged Donald Trump would have become with the validation of re-election, especially after already surviving literally hundreds of scandals and an official impeachment.

Trump’s defeat – largely to the credit of Black people, especially Black women – is immeasurably consequential for the planet. Even without a majority in the Senate (which Democrats still have a slim shot at winning in Georgia’s upcoming runoff elections), the United States can now work internationally and domestically to undo the damage Trump caused during four years of his presidency.

However, the US faces steep, deep-seated problems that neither began, nor will end, with Donald Trump. As liberals celebrate a “return to normalcy,” the people who delivered this victory will not be satisfied by a return to a profoundly violent status quo.

Trump and his disciples already plot a comeback, but if we study how he was narrowly defeated, we can prevent society from welcoming his brand of politics again.

Denormalisation

If liberals thought of Trump’s constant lying and false promises as “un-American,” they should listen to Native Americans and read about the long history of Indigenous genocide as nonpartisan US government policy.

This is a country built on Black enslavement and Indigenous genocide, constructed by a racist system of law and lifted by imperialism. Now, as the empire crumbles, it is also a country descending into a neo-feudal society only buttressed by a consolidating panopticon of state violence and corporate surveillance.

These are not problems that can be addressed individually and there are no cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all solutions. Rather, everyone has the power to wield, given their specific positions in society, and everyone must play a role if we want to change institutions and systems. Start exactly where you already are.

Trump has spent years broadcasting that he would try anything to maintain the presidency, including legal and clandestine voter suppression and intimidation. If the election’s integrity can be protected from Trump and his supporters’ ongoing attempt at a coup d’état, we will still emerge into a polarised country where nearly half of the voting population – roughly 70 million overwhelmingly white people – do not consider bigotry a deal breaker.

The ratio of people who approve of political violence is growing substantially across the ideological spectrum. Furthermore, a good portion of the populace has a twisted view of reality, where rumour and conspiracy are more important than critical thought or facts. Research shows that many of them can be converted, but how?

Personal relationships can slowly rebuild shared trust. In practice, this includes the sometimes difficult job of listening patiently and empathetically to friends who have fallen for concerted misinformation campaigns and more diffuse efforts of manipulation. Everyday compassion might be our best way out of the social media bubbles and conspiracy theories that cloud our collective foresight.

Undoing oppression cannot be a burden placed on the oppressed – people living at the intersection of marginalised social categories. People mobilised by this electoral wave must support and invest in communities of colour, but without demanding that marginalised people find “common ground” with fascism. The hard work of confronting and transforming this system must be carried out by those most structurally privileged.

Critique as a gift

One of the most important long-term strategies is scaling up this kind of work into intentional organising and community building everywhere: our work, families, friends, everyday interactions and wherever else possible.

The long-term political battleground is cultural, as Antonio Gramsci wrote from prison almost 100 years ago and US conservatives have understood since at least the 1970s. In the words of Republican media strategist Pat Buchanan, “if you capture the culture of the country, eventually you might prevail.”

The right-wing strategy of recapturing American culture after the anti-war movements of the 1960s and 70s explains why the strongest sources of censorship and “political correctness” in this country are not leftist “online mobs,” but rather conservative entities like the Texas State Board of Education, which has spent decades rewriting history with political intent.

In its narratives of exceptionalism and refusal to teach this country’s violent history, the board denies generations the opportunity to reckon with the structures that shape their present realities. And given Texas’s population size, textbooks produced for that state influence instructional materials in many other states, and the effects of this miseducation grow and become embedded over time.

Evidence of the “culture war” strategy is abundant today, well beyond Fox News. Spend a minimal amount of time on social media and you will come across the disinformation machine fuelled by millions of dollars of Koch money, propaganda videos on YouTube from accounts like PragerU (which is not a university of any kind), and thousands of similar copycat accounts that are likewise monetising narratives of white victimhood and paranoia.

We must learn and teach each other how to better recognise propaganda, appreciate difference and confront injustice. Furthermore, we must commit ourselves to more intentional and democratic relationships, contrary to the dominant paradigms where we are always in competition and our victories must come at someone else’s expense.

Breaking the grip of these ideas will require building an alternative through mindful practice – embracing constructive critique, learning to give and cherish feedback, knowing how to apologise and grow, and preferring strategic bridging over destructive sanctimony. Neither performative cruelty nor tone policing can help us get there. Accountability is not the same as fixating on someone’s small mistakes or clumsy language.

As bell hooks has put it, “Forgiveness and compassion are always linked: How do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?”

Uprooting arrogance at a societal level requires self-examination. We should support each other more and police each other less.

Merging left without compromising values

Lasting change will also require merging around a transformative agenda that speaks to different constituencies without sacrificing progressive values or pandering to colonial tendencies.

Among other things, this vision for systemic change must include Black reparations, radically curtailing or even withdrawing the state’s power to inflict violence on marginalised communities through policing and criminal punishment, honouring the treaties this country made with Native peoples, expanded equal access to rights like education and healthcare, demilitarisation, equal pay, progressive taxation on the ultra-rich, green jobs, decarbonisation and environmental justice.

The policies above are overwhelmingly popular with the electorate but they remain difficult under our current institutional design. Therefore, organisers must work community by community, state by state, and federally towards procedural reforms that can yield structural payoffs.

These include abolishing the electoral college, honouring Puerto Rico’s vote for statehood, instituting ranked-choice voting, protecting voter rights such as universal registration and mail voting, making election day a holiday, mandating voting as a civic duty, reforming campaign financing, instituting an independent commission to reverse partisan districting, democratising the Senate by making it proportionally representative of states’ populations, curtailing executive authority to make war and surveil the world, and more.

In all, our platforms must be driven by intersectional analyses attentive to how each policy will differently impact people depending on their various identities and social positions. We otherwise risk reproducing a long trend within so-called progressive movements led by men and white people, and especially white men, where their concerns become the default. Everyone else is dismissed with demands to “not be divisive” about our very real differences, which are treated as something to reduce or eliminate, rather than appreciate and welcome.

Personnel is policy: taking and making space

In the finer details, social transformation will require shifting the field organising strategy and infrastructure of political parties, especially the Democrats. The 2020 election cycle proved that the old guard’s strategies are ineffective, but also that their antidote is bottom-up energy. In particular, one of the most significant investments donors can make is in year-round community organising and canvassing efforts to build up sustained power.

Trump’s defeat belongs to social movements and activists, especially Black organisers and Black women in particular, who turned out to vote in record numbers.

Credit is also due to Indigenous voters who undeniably helped tip Arizona, Wisconsin, and played an important role in Democratic victories in other states, despite the disrespectful erasure of Indigenous peoples in corporate media coverage of the election. States like Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Michigan were likewise won by organisations like Mission for Arizona, spearheaded by young Latinas.

These organisations lack the resources of the Democratic establishment but did the hard work that paved the way for Trump’s defeat. Let us save the symbolic gestures of gratitude and actually provide these groups ongoing support and investment.

Incorporating these solutions requires altering not only policy platforms but also the makeup of the party. Democrats are more diverse than the Republicans in membership, but not much more in leadership. White consultants who occupy most positions of power inevitably approach issues with internalised biases, and thereby come to the “impartial” conclusion that “X community does not vote, so more resources must be redirected towards old white voters instead,” which only becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

As long as strategic decision-making remains dominated by white strategists, the party will continue redirecting resources away from its most important and yet most disrespected backbone of support – people of colour – thereby feeding apathy and disaffection. Do not expect marginalised communities to continue rescuing a party that refuses to hear or show up for its own base.

A politics of love

“Your Congresswoman-elect loves you,” Cori Bush declared during her acceptance speech. “If I love you, I care that you eat. If I love you, I care that you have shelter and adequate, safe housing. If I love you, I care that you have clean water and clean air, and you have a liveable wage. If I love you, I care that the police don’t murder you.”

Flawed as the electoral process is, it remains crucial to making social change. Elections provide a structure of opportunity, attention and resources to organise and reshape discussions about our material, everyday realities. Activists interested in changing society must therefore continue to engage their momentum and give them direction, all while changing their traditional model – from one where our energy flows upward to support the liberal establishment, towards one where we instead draw resources from electoral cycles to improve and sustain our communities beyond them.

Activists should remain critical of the risk of activist energy being co-opted by a Democratic Party that has presided over a bipartisan dismantling of public services such as housing, bloating and militarisation of a racist policing system, mass incarceration exacerbated by their own crime bills, mass deportation programmes, indiscriminate surveillance, growing inequalities, and a war and carbon-based economy.

At the same time, the work of groups like those mentioned above shows that it is possible to build electoral power without sacrificing organisational autonomy at the grassroots.

The pace of change in political institutions is unbearably slow by design. However, taking state power remains important to altering the daily realities of people’s lives. Around each new win up and down the ticket, no matter how small, we can rally new resources and recruits, feel our power through our results, and grow the fight for radical democracy, both within and well beyond the state.

Love is an everyday, radical mission. Collective liberation requires an ethic of care and a strategy for building political communities rooted in shared respect for all living things. In this, anyone can play a role, everyone is needed and everything must be built with intention – forging welcoming spaces, ceding space, redistributing power, organising solidarity everywhere, winning small battles, persuading the public and scaling upward to generate new possibilities in our unwritten future.

Given the interlinked crises facing humanity, radical change is more urgent now than ever, so let’s pick up a clipboard and do the work, following the leadership of the people of colour, especially Black people, and especially women, who won this election.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

. #world Read full article: https://expatimes.com/?p=15259&feed_id=21933

#DonaldTrump #Inequality #JoeBiden #Opinions #Politics #Racism #UnitedStates #USampCanada #USElections2020

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wormink70 · 4 years

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Powerful Artificial Intelligence Applications Start to Work Opposing Coronavirus

There are innovative medical smartphone products available to start the battle against the dispersion of coronavirus and whilst is accurate that all of these aplications are not a health care professional alternative, is mostly a good beginning to aliviate any recent demand concerns. simply click the next website page The Covid-19 outbreak has generated intense focus on such apps, nonetheless it will take period of time before final results can be noticed. An electronic response towards the COVID-19 pandemic may take diverse forms and bring significant value. A single significant region in which there were fast advancements within the last few weeks is usually fresh applications of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) for screening of the population and assessing disease hazards. Screening the populace to identify who is potentially ill is essential for containing Coronavirus. In Asia, which was strike initial, old fashioned infrared image resolution scanners and mobile thermometers were introduced in multiple public locations, especially in Beijing. Asian AI businesses have now introduced more complex AI-powered temperature testing systems in locations including subway and railway stations. The advantage of these systems is certainly that they can display folks from a distance and within a few minutes can check hundreds of people for fever. In China fresh AI-powered smart phone software programs are getting produced to track person's health care and monitor the regional spread of the virus. Such programs try to anticipate which areas of people and neighborhoods are most vunerable to the detrimental impacts of a coronavirus outbreak, to enable patients to get real-time waiting-time information from their medical providers, to provide people who have advice and updates about their condition without them needing to search for a hospital personally, and to notify people of potential infection hotspots instantly so those areas can be avoided. These systems generally need access to data transmitted by mobile phones, including locational data. As the equipment are being developed, it is important to also create a framework so they can be as effective as possible in practice. For this, close balance between regulators, telecoms operators, high tech industry and research companies is needed. High-tech companies and leading colleges can provide the tools, telecoms firms can provide usage of individual's data, and specialists should make sure that data sharing conforms with personal privacy rules and will not make risks the info of people will become misused. For instance, in Belgium, data from telecommunications providers are combined with wellness data beneath the supervision of the Belgian Personal Data Protection Authority in order to generate aggregate and anonymity territorial-level datasets you can use to check the way the trojan spreads and which areas are high risk. Comparable initiatives are underway in other countries. In Austria, the largest telecommunications operator obtained an arrangement using the authorities to supply anonymity statistics, while, an identical anonymity customer data-sharing mechanism has been set up to monitor and study human population movements. Personal Privacy and Securing Softwares Educational analysis can also be useful in illustrating how data sharing can be planned while avoiding privacy risks. The Human Dynamics Team at MIT Press Testing center for instance, spent some time working substantially with smartphone data to investigate the behavior of people while maintaining high personal privacy expectations. It recommends secure multiple parties calculation to keep personal secrecy. MIT's secrecy-friendly data systems is actually a basis for designing a data-sharing method to control the pass on of Covid-19. A consortium of epidemiologists, engineers, data scientists, personal privacy activists, teachers and research workers from different parts of the world are working on an open-source cellphone software program to prevent the spread from the virus without creating a monitoring state. The app probes for overlaps of user's GPS trails using the trails of most contaminated patients (whose anonymity data is supplied by health experts), even while cryptographic tools are used and there is no sharing of raw data (personal data does not leave the device). This technique provides early alerts and personalized information that allow individuals who signed up to the app to comprehend their own direct exposure and risks, based on earlier contact with infected patients. MOOD is using modern day data mining ways to gather information about the rapidly changing scenario from multiple resources. Included in these are case reports from health government bodies, information on symptoms in individuals and also brand-new academic research on the disease. Whenever there's a new outbreak, they are able to use the new data to check and enhance their choices. We are collecting data about situations from around the world with as very much details as you possibly can, the onset of symptoms, the travel they made, contacts that they had. The organization afterward combines this with information regarding human patterns, such as daily habits and travel patterns, so they can examine exactly where else the virus may propagate. At the beginning we were utilizing air travel data to work out the way the covid-19 might spread out of China. Among the teams for the project has also been using location data from mobile phones in China to look at how women and men shifted around and interacted with one another. Technology is meant to be always a tool, it really is supposed to offer you superpowers. That isn't what we're performing at this time. click over here now We are giving over our beliefs to a nonhuman entity that will not have our interests at heart. The organization isn't recommending people erase their Facebook accounts and chuck their cell phones and notebooks in to the bay. Nor is it suggesting Facebook or Google shed hundreds of billions of dollars in marketplace value and become nonprofits. The guts is entirely about hoping to make many of these products we appreciate even more gentle. The target is to gather policymakers and doctors and technologists to speak about the dark side of social media marketing and additional apps that are on smart phones. The company hopes to educate users and convince technology management to change business practices that don't support users. Facebook's latest problems over political election manipulation, hate talk and data leakages are helping to concentrate more attention over the center's communications. It's time for the deeper, greater conversation about the info, who is the owner of it, who gets paid for it. We have to challenge the frontrunners of these businesses and leaders of societies to make sure these technologies are working for us. Companies like Facebook and Google give their technologies free of charge. Which means they depend on increasing time allocated to their programs and internet sites to increase advertising income or even to mine information about users practices and preferences. Habit-changing concepts became important as they competed against one another for the interest of users. While using such information as an input, study on (social) networks is wanting to forecast how also to what extent the virus will disperse, given a couple of pre-determined variables and factors. Specialists can use these situations to prepare their contingency programs in time. Using details on enough time individuals spend in a particular location and on the number of infections that happen there, scientists create spatial models that illustrate the evolution of associates between infected people, in order to capture how transmission advances. One of the preliminary results of such efforts is that predicting the transmitting of Coronavirus is trickier than for prior infections because persons may carry the virus infection without showing signs of illness, and their infections are as a result difficult to detect. A large number of the issues in Wuhan appear to have been transferred through such asymptomatic carriers. So, intensive Coronavirus screening programmers (like this implemented in South Korea) are a good idea by giving data for the better performance of these models. AI can also be applied to the automatic recognition and removal of misinformation related to the virus posted on internet sites; producing extremely accurate and timely CT scans for the detection of virus-induced pneumonia; three-dimensional printing to create the tools necessary for intense healthcare; marketing of clinical studies of medicines and potential vaccines; advancement of robotic systems to sanitize infected areas; and on-line systems for the medical study of individuals.

Timing, obviously, is crucial (a report within the 1918 flu pandemic shows that U.S. cities that adopted non-pharmaceutical methods at an early phase acquired peak death prices fifty percent less than those that didn't). Governments have been criticised for failing woefully to understand the severity from the covid-19 circumstance and not imposing synchronized steps early.

#cellphones

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cdstore57 · 4 years

Text

Extraordinary Artificial Intelligence Tools Go to Work to Prevent Coronavirus

Artificial intelligencemight help fight the covid-19 thanks to applications including human population screening, notifications of when to seek medical help, and checking how an infection spreads. The COVID-19 break out has generated strong focus on such apps, but it will need period of time before results can be observed. A digital response towards the COVID-19 pandemic can take diverse shapes and bring significant worth. One particular critical region in which there have been rapid improvements in the last few weeks is definitely new software programs of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) for verification of the populace and assessing infection hazards. Screening the population to identify who is potentially ill is vital for that contains Covid-19. In Asia, which was hit initial, typical infrared imaging scanning devices and portable thermometers had been released in multiple general public locations, specifically in Beijing. Asian AI organizations have finally introduced more complex AI-powered temperature verification systems in places including subway and railway stations. The benefit of these systems is usually they can display screen people from a length and within minutes can check hundreds of individuals for fever. In China new AI-powered cellphone programs are being designed to track individual's wellness and monitor the geographical spread of the virus. Such applications try to anticipate which areas of people and towns are most vunerable to the unfavorable impacts of the coronavirus outbreak, to enable patients to get real-time waiting-time information using their medical providers, to supply people who have advice and updates about their condition without them having to search for a hospital personally, also to notify people of potential infection hotspots in real time so those areas can be avoided. These technologies generally need access to data transmitted by cell phones, including gps-location data. As the tools are being developed, it's important to also develop a framework to allow them to be as effectual as possible in practice. Because of this, close coordination between specialists, telecoms operators, high-tech companies and study institutions is needed. High-tech companies and leading universities can provide the various tools, telecoms companies can provide usage of individual's data, and authorities should make sure that data sharing conforms with privacy rules and will not create risks the info of people will become misused. For example, in Belgium, sets of data from telecoms providers are coupled with health data under the supervision from the Belgian Data Safety Authority to be able to generate combination and anonymity local-level datasets you can use to evaluate how the disease spreads and which areas are risky. Comparable initiatives are underway far away. In Austria, the biggest telecom operator obtained an understanding using the authorities to provide anonymity data, while, a similar anonymity customer data-sharing mechanism continues to be set up to track and investigate population movements. Prevent Data Security Threats Academic studies can also be helpful in illustrating how knowledge sharing can be designed while reducing personal privacy threats. The Individual Dynamics Team at MIT Media Testing center for instance, has worked substantially with phone data to analyze the behavior of individuals while maintaining high privacy expectations. It suggests secure multiparty computation to conserve personal privacy. MIT's personal privacy-friendly personal data mechanisms is actually a basis for developing a data-sharing model to limit the spread of COVID-19. A pool of doctors, designers, data scientists, personal privacy activists, educators and analysts from different parts of the globe are working with an open-source smartphone application to prevent the spread of the disease without building a surveillance state government. The app tests for overlaps of user's GPS trails with the trails of most contaminated subjects (whose anonymous data is supplied by health authorities), when cryptographic methods are used and there is absolutely no sharing of raw data (personal data will not leave these devices). This technique provides early notifications and personalized information that allow individuals who signed up towards the app to understand their own exposure and risks, based on earlier connection with infected patients.

MOOD is using most current data mining ways to gather information about the rapidly changing scenario from multiple sources. These include case reports from health government bodies, details of symptoms in sufferers and also brand-new academic analysis on the condition. Whenever there's a brand-new outbreak, they are able to use the fresh data to test and enhance their choices. We are collecting data about instances from all over the world with as very much details as it can be, the onset of symptoms, the travel they made, contacts that they had. The team then blends this with information regarding human behavior, such as for example daily habits and travel habits, so they can examine where else the virus may propagate. Initially we were using flights data to work out the way the covid-19 could spread out of China. One of the teams on the project has also been using location data from mobile phones in China to check out how people shifted around and interacted with one another. Technology is meant to be a tool, it is meant to offer you superpowers. That isn't what we're performing at this time. All of us are passing over our beliefs to a non-human entity that will not possess our interests in mind. The business just isn't saying people delete their Facebook accounts and get rid of their smartphones and notebooks into the bay. Nor is it recommending Facebook or Google shed a huge selection of vast amounts of dollars in marketplace value and become nonprofits. The guts is completely about hoping to make all of these products we love more humane. The target is to bring together policymakers and doctors and technologists to speak about the dark side of social media marketing and various other apps that are on smart phones. The center hopes to educate users and convince tech management to change business procedures that may not help individuals. Facebook's latest controversies over political election manipulation, hate conversation and data leakages are helping to focus more attention around the center's messages. It is time for any deeper, wider conversation about the data, who owns it, who gets paid for it. We must challenge the leaders of these businesses and market leaders of societies to make sure these technologies are working for us. Businesses like Facebook and Google offer their technologies free of charge. Which means they depend on increasing time allocated to their programs and internet sites to improve advertising earnings or to mine information regarding users practices and preferences. Behavior-changing technology became crucial as they competed against each other for the attention of users. By having such details as an input, research on (social) networks is wanting to forecast how and to what degree the virus will disperse, given a set of pre-determined guidelines and factors. Authorities can use these scenarios to prepare their contingency plans in time. Employing details on the time individuals spend in a specific location and on the number of infections that happen there, scientists make spatial types that show the evolution of associates between contaminated people, in order to capture how transmission evolves. Among the preliminary findings of such attempts is that guessing the transmitting of Covid-19 is trickier than for past infections because persons can carry the virus infection without showing symptoms, and their health problems are therefore hard to detect. A lot of the infections in Wuhan seem to have already been transmitted through such asymptomatic carriers. So, intensive Coronavirus testing programmers (like this applied in South Korea) can be helpful by giving data for the better overall performance of these versions. AI can also be applied to the automatic detection and getting rid of misinformation related to the pathogen posted on internet sites; producing highly accurate and timely CT scans for the recognition of virus-induced pneumonia; three-dimensional printing to produce the tools needed for rigorous healthcare; marketing of clinical trials of drugs and potential vaccines; development of robotic systems to sanitize infected areas; and on the web systems for the medical study of individuals. Timing, obviously, is crucial (a study for the 1918 flu pandemic implies that U.S. cities that used non-pharmaceutical measures at an early on phase experienced peak death prices 50 percent lower than those that didn't). Government authorities have already been criticised for failing to recognise the severe nature from the coronavirus circumstance and not imposing corresponding steps early.

#smartphones

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bctvega · 6 years

Text

When games get Meta, where do they go next?

Now that we’ve discussed the concept of meta and how all-encompassing it can be, we want to be able to break it. But in order to understand how to break away from meta, let’s backtrack a little bit and bring up a little history on and the potential future of video game development.

History of the Artform

youtube

Game Theory: Gaming is BROKEN! ...What Comes Next?

While doing some digging for videos to support research into the Philosophy Point, I immediately remembered this video by YouTube creator MatPat of the Game Theorists, uploaded in late November of 2017. During its runtime, MatPat postulates for his viewers a theory about where video games and its industry as a whole is heading. While more diluted with its presentation, with an audience aimed less at academia and more at (the gamer subset of) the general populace, the video still does a fantastic job of encapsulating its message in less than fifteen minutes.(1)

As an abstract of the video, Matpat first does a rundown of where video games stand as a medium in today’s industry. In a word: struggling, causing gamers to become more disillusioned with the Triple-A, what one would expect to be the best of the best. Here we segway to a short description of earlier video games, as well as a small focus on the current “Revolution” of Indie Games and Indie Development, a subtype of video game characterized by “often [being] created without the financial support of a publisher, although some games funded by a publisher are still considered “indie”.”(2) Matpat details notable examples, both old and recent, strange and stranger. When games become meta, Matpat drops the Game Theory on the viewer: he relates these trends in gaming to the movements in modern art history, stating that those trends can be used to predict the future of the video game as a medium. With brief explanations of these periods of art, citing notable figures and ideas in the movement being discussed, they get related back to the relevant period of gaming. From its real earnest start in the 80′s to the point video game growth followed the exponential growth of technology, to the way games are today, the theory makes an educated guess that video games of the foreseeable future will eventually follow these historical art trends that set their precedents decades ago.

That’s so meta!

Do you get what that means? To paraphrase Game Theory video example again, video games have evolved in stages of growth much if not exactly like eras (or macro-trends) of modern art, only at a much faster rate. History is repeating itself.

Before, the only limitations to video games evolving as a medium were the lack of technological sophistication, learning and understanding of the medium, as well as the lack of a more connected platform, the Internet and Internet-based distribution. But as technology advanced faster and faster, so too did the depth and complexity of video games. Much like how Modernism began and proliferated.

Modernism was a philosophical movement that shaped and transformed Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, described in the video with the catchphrase “Make it new!”

Likening this past and fast growth of the Video Game to the Modernism movement makes perfect sense in context. Modernist artists and writers wanted to break away from the meta, creating new, yet unthought and unseen ways of creating art. The same can be said of developers after the mid to late 2000′s, using every inch of new technology, ever new technique to make games that were better, deeper, more complex, lifelike, and emotional. Every innovation made used to chase the golden concept of Immersion. To feel enveloped in the narrative of the game or present inside the scene depicted by a modern art masterpiece, and nothing else, a temporary escapism of our world into the ones created for us.

Parallax

Where does that leave us right now? Back in the struggle of the face of the video game world, the Triple-A games that should represent the apex of the modernist video game movement, where the meta now is the expectation of the best. All those years of advancements culminating in the art of distilling the best stories, best graphics, best mechanics, best of action, emotion, drama, everything that makes a game lifelike and immersive. Except it’s not always like that, is it?

Well made sequels to triple-A games are getting lesser sales than their originals, even though they’re often only a couple years apart. Other titles are missing the mark for user interaction, making things feel less immersive than their marketing and budget would often suggest. What’s happening?

In the video, Matpat mentions the Indie Gaming Revolution that’s happening right now. Ever since the likes of Braid and Super Meat Boy, Indie Games have evolved alongside the mainstream, much like how Postmodernism was born before the end of Modernism. A subtle paradigm shift is happening.

(4)

The Postmodernism of video games is already here and steadily outgrowing the meta of idealistic photo-realism of modernist triple-A games, with the exception of a few new well-received titles here and there. Most of the attention of gamers and the media that they consume is being drawn more and more to these Indie Games, especially the ones that proudly display well-honed values of gaming’s version of Postmodernism. That is to say, the rise of a counter-culture, born as the medium’s reaction against modernism, a response to, rejection of, and commentary on itself. Games like Doki Doki Literature Club!, a spin on the classic Japanese dating sim genre, turned on its head into a terrifying psychological horror game. Or the birth of sub-genres in the Indie world, like rage games, games specifically designed to be difficult not in an effort to produce a challenge, but to incite the opposite of the satisfaction in surmounting it. As well as the fact that the abstraction in these games are becoming so much that they begin to stretch what it takes for a game to be considered a game, much like Postmodern art. Meta, I know.

Just like postmodernism in art, this new wave of Indie games rising in popularity is due to the growing staleness of the modernist form. The disillusionment brought on by frustrating monetization techniques within triple-A games. The diminishing return of photo-realistic graphics, when most modern games, despite the platform they are played on, are arguably already so good looking that the differences are negligible, leading to the feeling that it is no longer as revolutionary as it once was. Add to these reasons the fact that an Indie Game isn’t usually tied down by corporate restraints. No sense of feeling like a cash-grab, no microtransactions to plague it. A simple and pure expression of the creator(s) visions. It’s not a wonder that indie games, and games that take into account these purer, postmodernist values shine brighter more often in today’s public eye.

Heads in the clouds

MatPat’s video continues after Postmodernism to postulate the future of video games, the Post-postmodernism stage. Where gamers will eventually get tired of the meta-commentary, where tear-downs of the artform become the new norm, and therefore the users begin to wish to return to what came before. However, to avoid simply paraphrasing the entire video and restating facts and opinions I’ve already said several times in the same post, we ask the question: Where does all this theorizing lead for myself and my team?

To consider games as an art form is to also say that they hold an influence over culture, in the way it affects or reflects on society, politics, economics. In order to return to the ground after floating about, we need to turn our attention away from the higher theory. Stop looking up at the future and its potential for a moment, and look around at the now in order to find our teams place in the landscape of our chosen genre. See my next post for more.

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxzKZdTxNp8

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indie_game

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/m/modernism

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/p/postmodernism

#ctec607 #HistoryOfVideoGames #VideoGamesAsAnArtform #MetaDiscussion

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garp19-charlottewalker-blog · 5 years

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IDEATION

I’m particularly interest in how digital marketing techniques are manipulating public perceptions, success

and debacles of electoral campaigns, democracy and the social sphere in the digital age. Evaluating and researching into contemporary methods utilised to gain the mass demographic/umbrella and the evolution

of party formation.

Particular focus:

How are these methods endangering DEMOCRACY by INFLUECNING/HINDERINGthe outcome of elections and gaining interest from the young!

#THERISEOFSOCIALMEDIA

The rise of social media, addressing political issues has changed the way graphic messages, campaigns and propaganda are made and disseminated over the last ten years. Propaganda has long been used as a method for this but with the millennial age so used to consuming, design has had to develop to attract the larger demographic and greater the participatory democracy. Therefore, it has become increasingly important for politicians and world leaders to strategies their marketing plans and reach a broader demographic through online media and platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google for example. Researching within the area of social media and democracy therefore has great significance to others due to the direct affect such political methods are possessing and achieving through utilising ourselves, social spheres, beliefs and values. Manipulating our minds and habits through tactical marketing methods, fake news, social bots, astroturfing and slacktivism for example.

As a subject, utilising Current affaires as a focus yields an abundance of topical material which can be responded to throughout the period of its development and is of interest to the majority of a populace it affects through its inauguration and result on a demographic. Therefore, Current Affaires been a highly influential and predominant area of interest for myself as a Graphic Designer, in particular from the years (2017-present) and those who I venerate within the Design field such as Craig Oldham for example.

RESEARCH & DEVLOPMENT

To understand How the digital age is shifting politics in contemporary society! it is important for me to understandwhat techniques parties use to in term increase their popularity and presence in the mainstream media. Therefore, I firstly researched into the different concepts and methods in which they deploy and further discuss examples of its practice.

OUT WITH THE NEWSPAPERS IN WITH SOCIAL MEDIA.

Newspapers may backlash candidates, but social media could favour! A shift in consumer patterns.

There are a number of digital marketing methods in which social media can manipulate our voting habits, likes and perception through continuous data collection and the monitoring of individual online behavioural patterns. Because of the everyday role that social media plays in users’ lives, these platforms are able to sweep up enormous amounts of information, including not only what users post about themselves, but also what is collected from them throughout their daily activities (Smith, 2014). Predictive analytics has allowed even small campaigns to micro target voters they need. Predicative analytics is a form of advanced analytics for scoring, rating, and categorising individuals, based on an increasingly granular set of behavioural, demographic, and psychographic data, that uses both new and historical data to forecast online and offline activity. (“What is Predictive Intelligence”, 2017). Google, Facebook, and other major players in the digital marketing industry have also developed a global research infrastructure to allow them, more so their major advertising clients, to make continuous improvements in reaching and influencing the public, and to measure with increasing accuracy the success of their efforts (Facebook IQ, n.d.-a). These developments have created what some observers have called the “surveillance economy” (Singer, 2012). Facebook and Google however now play a central role in political operations, offering a full spectrum of commercial digital marketing tools and techniques, along with specialised ad “products” designed for political use (Bond, 2017).

These specialised ad “products” in particular supplied by Facebook, played an important role in the 2016 US election and the success of Donald Trump’s presidential election. With users required to give their real names when they sign up as members, Facebook has created a powerful “identity-based” targeting paradigm. Which allowed former researcher Chris Wylie at Cambridge Analytica (UK political, data analytics, advertising, and consulting firm) to view exposed data from up to 87 million Facebook users. Gaining unprecedented insight into voters’ habits through a Facebook quiz,exposing a loophole in Facebooks API that allowed it to collect data from the Facebook friends of the quiz takers as well.Alongside Cambridge Analytica, Russia perpetuated activitiesby government agencies, state-backed media, and paid internet “Trolls,” as well as covert operations, including illicit cyber activities conducted by intelligence agents to favour Trumps campaign. In particular working together with links to the Internet Research Agency (IRA) and taking its influence on social media platforms such as Facebook. Hiring hundreds of “trolls” to post ‘false news stories’ and socially divisive content “astroturfing” on these and other platforms, with content posted reaching more than 140 million of its users, breaching data.

This approach can be categorised into Astroturfing (cloaked propaganda). Astroturfing is when political, cooperate or other special interests disguise themselves and publish blogs, start Facebook and twitter accounts, publish ads and letters to the editor or simply post comments online to try to fool us into thinking that an independent or grassroots movement is speaking. The whole point of AstroTurf is to try and get the impression there’s wide spread support for or against and agenda when there’s not. Astroturf seeks to manipulate you into changing your opinion, by making you feel as if you’re an ‘outlier’ when you’re not. Lisa-Maria Neudert, a researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute’s computational propaganda project, describes contemporary Astroturfing as “a form of online manipulation campaign that is not automated but is actually using humans to disseminate content and engage in a social media context”.

With researching into AstroTurf there are a number of credible ways in what they disseminatedsuch as:

· Use of inflammatory language e.g., lies, conspiracy,

· Claim to debunk myths that aren’t myths at all

Equally credible, competent, attractive, and interactive as human agent ‘Trolls’ are ‘Social Bots’. ‘Social Bots’ are another way in which political parties are deploying social media into their online advertising. Social bots are computer programs that mimic and potentially manipulate humans and their behaviours in social networks (Ferrara, Varol, Davis, Menczer, & Flammini, 2016; Wagner, Mitter, Körner, & Strohmaier, 2012). They mislead, exploit, and manipulate social media discourse with rumours, spam, malware, misinformation, which could artificially inflate support for a political candidate. Within recent years ‘Social Bots’ have become increasingly sophisticated and the margin between human and robot has become less distinct, searching the web for their own content and media, collecting such material at predetermined times, mimicking human production and consumption, replying to comments. They are no longer a marginal phenomenon on social media platforms, on Twitter, 9% to 15% of users are estimated to be Social Bots (Varol, Ferrara, Davis, Menczer, & Flammini, 2017).The National Bureau of Economic Research working paper for example calculatedsocial bots added 1.76 percentage point to the pro-“leave” vote share as Britain weighed whether to remain in the European Union.

As the growth and increasing superiority of the digital marketplace agemates the capacities of political campaigns to identify, reach, and interact with individual voters. Throughout my research I’ve managed to identify several techniques typical of the new age political marketing system.

Cross Device Targeting, Programmatic Advertising, Lookalike Modelling, Geolocation Targeting, Online Video Advertising, Targeted Tv Advertising, Psychographic, Neuromarketing and Emotion-Based Targeting and Personalisation.

The increasing importance of personalisation has become of great significance in the influence of popularity and political gain. The most common definition of the term personalisation phrases it simply as a dichotomous relationship between the importance placed on the candidate on the one hand and the party on the other (Chan, 2018). Personalisation has anchored itself in contemporary politics and its appeal to media logic means that electoral campaigning and political communication is now structured around telegenic leaders with cultivated public personalities and media images that are designed to convince voters in the mould of consumer branding. With politics becoming increasingly personalised, the focus is shifting from party policies to individual candidates. A good example of personalisation is the labour campaign Momentum. Founded in 2015, Momentum is a ‘grassroots’ movement supportive of Jeremy Corbyn and the labour party which played a key role in regenerating interest in electoral politics among young people through his honest nature and his plan to end tuition fees. Which ultimately resulted in a considerably higher proportion of young people voting during the 2017 General Election than previously and that they voted overwhelmingly for the Labour Party. Labours online youth focus and popularity continued to rise due to the telegenic, casual presence Corbyn was administering in the media, creating his supreme ‘memability’ to spread worldwide online and offline aggrandizing labours influence in democracy. Questioning if satirical entertainment such as memes can influence politics or provide slacktivism.

CRITIQUE & EXPLANATION

There are a number of KEY concepts evident in my research including:

Ø Cynism: An inclination to believe that people are motivated purely by self-interest; scepticism-doubting the truth due to Astroturfing?

Ø Post Truth:Relating to a situation in which people are more likely to accept an argument based on their emotions and beliefs rather than based of facts.

Ø Slacktivism: Refers to political activities that have no impact on real–life political outcomes, but only serve to increase the feel–good factor of the participants (Morozov, 2009

Ø Voter Suppression:Any effort, either legal or illegal, by way of laws, administrative rules, and/or tactics that prevents eligible voters from registering to vote or voting

Micro-Activism, Satire, Activism…..

With researching within such a complex field, it is important for me to understand each concept fully and access its importance and links within methods deployed in contemporary democracy. Through creating numerous questions, I will be able to gain insight and question their influence in democracy and the social sphere.

IS TOP OF MIND AWARENESS THE KEY TO INFLUENCE ‘POWER’ IN POLITICS?

HOW IMPORTANT IS SLACKTIVISM IN TODAYS POLITICS?

CAN FAKE GRASSROOT GROUPS HELP SWING CAMPAIGNS?

IS THE FUTURE OF POLITICS BASED ON ASTROTURF?

ARE MEMES AND HASHTAGS CONSIDERED PROPAGANDA?

IS COMPUTATIONAL PROPAGANDA THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY?

IS THE PERSONALISATION OF PARTIES THE MOST SUCCESFUL APPROACH TO GAINING POLITICAL POWER?

HOW HAS DATA ANALYTICS CHANGED POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS?

IS MICRO-ACTIVISM PROVIDING SOCIAL CHANGE?

IS DEMOCRACY NOW BASED ON POST-TRUTH?

HOW POWERFUL ARE SOCIAL BOTS COMAPRED TO TROLLS?

ACTION PLAN

Within my research I have mainly focused on understanding Key concepts and methods utilised for political campaigns for example, to gain insight into what is currently being utilised in changing the face of Democracy. With researching within these areas, I have found multiple examples of methods and their implications through there deployment into social spheres. However, I need to focus case studies more thoroughly. Therefore, I plan to potentially assess 4 different contemporary political campaigns and examine the methods they utilised to increase their popularity and presence, comparing and contrasting each campaigns successes, implications and debacles. I would particularly liked to research into the 2014 elections in Brazil, as researching into lightly, every national political episode during 2014, caused online political discussion with online memes gaining prominence, marking 2014 as the ‘elections of memes’.

And to further my research into political campaigning/marketing/advertising methods, I also think it is important for me to research into historic campaigns to emphasise and demonstrate the importance that emotion is now playing in contemporary politics in regard to Post-Truth politics and how embryonic subliminal propaganda is manipulating the difference between what’s true and false through such marketing methods.

REFERENCES

Bond, S. (2017, March 14). Google and Facebook build digital ad duopoly. Financial Times. Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/30c81d12-08c8-11e7-97d1-5e720a26771b

Chan, H.Y. (2018) The territoriality of personalization: New avenues for decentralized personalization in multi-level Western Europe. Regional & Federal Studies. (pp. 107-123) Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13597566.2017.1411906?scroll=top&needAccess=true

Facebook IQ. (n.d.-a). Unlock the insights that matter. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/iq

Ferrara, E., Varol, O., Davis, C., Menczer, F., & Flammini, A. (2016). The rise of social bots. Communications of the ACM, 59(7), (pp. 96–104) Available at: https://doi.org/10.1145/2818717

Evgeny Morozov, 2009. “The brave new world of slacktivism,” Foreign Policy (19 May), Available at: http://neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/05/19/the_brave_new_world_of_slacktivism,

Singer, N. (2012, October 13). Do not track? Advertisers say “don’t tread on us.” New York Times.

Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/technology/do-not-track-movement-is-drawing-advertisers-fire.html?_r=0

Smith, C. (2014, March 20). Reinventing social media: Deep learning, predictive marketing, and image recognition will change everything. Business Insider. Available at: http://www.businessinsider.com/social-medias-big-data-future-2014-3

Varol, O., Ferrara, E., Davis, C. A., Menczer, F., & Flammini. (2017). Online Human-Bot Interactions: Detection, Estimation, and Characterization. In Proceedings of the Eleventh International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM 2017)(pp. 280–289). Available at: https://aaai.org/ocs/index.php/ICWSM/ICWSM17/paper/view/15587/14817

Wagner, C., Mitter, S., Körner, C., & Strohmaier, M. (2012). When social bots attack: Modeling susceptibility of users in online social networks. In #MSM2012 Workshop proceedings (pp. 41–48) Available at: http://ceur- ws.org/Vol-838/paper_11.pdf

What is predictive intelligence and how it’s set to change marketing in 2016. (2016, February 11). Smart Insights. Available at: http://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy/predictive-intelligence-set-change-marketing-2016/

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northcountryradical · 7 years

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On Applying Radical Love To The Revolution

“The true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.” - Ernesto “Che” Guevara

Preface

As a Christian leftist, an Anarcho-Communist in particular, most people on both sides of my chosen ideologies will not understand or even agree with my conclusions that follow. However, I feel that I must make known my convictions, if not for the sake of the people who strive for truth and justice, but for the very least, my own sanity and easement of my extreme disappointment at the current state of our world which I so dearly love. This is not meant to be an authority on political or religious orthodoxy, as I, a human am just as fallible in my thinking as anyone else. Rather this is meant to offer a point of discussion, in hopes that honest and meaningful dialogue can inspire change from the collective desire for unity and reconciliation in this broken world. For all who read this, I offer the humblest of thanks, and the greatest desire for peace and joy within your life.

The Beauty of the Resurection

The message of Christ is one of liberation. It is a message of redemption. It is a message of hope for all who suffer under the bondage of oppression and sin. The death and resurrection of Christ put an end to spiritual death, rescuing humanity from all forms of servitude to the forces of evil that held us in darkness. 1 Corinthians 13: 54-57 states, “When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Our hope resides in the sacrifice of Christ and his utter destruction of the bonds that held us in slavery to sin and oppression. Does this signify the end of all earthly hardship? Of course not! As we can all very well observe, corruption and hatred is rampant in our society today, as it has been for thousands of years. We must seek militant struggle to end these crimes, but we must also take heart in the fact that the ultimate victory has been won.

Our Struggle

This struggle against the evil of this world has been one that has raged since the beginning of time. Men and women of all generations have attempted to break the bondage of human suffering through revolutionary acts, often creating temporary pockets of freedom and progress. As history shows, this revolutionary growth, while often very gradual has been the overriding theme of humanity as it has developed. What I seek to show is that biblical hope is not mutually exclusive to militant revolutionary tactics in developing a better world.

A constant notion that is thrown around is that of love. We often hear that “love trumps hate,” yet in a world where violence is the exclusive weapon perpetrated against the people by the state and other reactionary, fascist forces, it is often difficult to accept such a notion that love can defeat the behemoth of the capitalist, imperialist, state apparatus. And while no true revolution can ever succeed through peaceful intentions, as our own American Revolution has taught us (however pitiful its application has been), the necessity for a loving humanity remains immensely crucial for any success to be achieved. Therefore, I would like to posit a revolutionary theory based upon the biblical notion of love.

The following will be based upon 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. This is a passage that is typically reserved for weddings, in showing how one partner should love the other. Yet I find it no less applicable now than it is in the context of marriage.

Love is patient

Many revolutionaries idealistically seek an immediate change in societal thought and action. Both Marxists and Anarchists have fought for an immediate transfer of power, whether under a transitional proletarian state or a direct democracy coinciding with the abolition of the state completely, yet these endeavors have all but failed. Many contextual circumstances have factored into these failures, however I personally believe the overriding sentiment in derailing their success has been the impatience of the people and those revolutionaries who so desperately sought to end injustice and oppression. Love is patient. Revolution takes time and it is our duty as participants to realize that people’s hearts are not going to be changed overnight. Coercion only takes things so far and ultimately results in the kind of oppression we are fighting in the first place.

Love is kind

While it may be easy and many times necessary to fight fire with fire, we must remember as revolutionaries that our duty is to the people. Kindness to those who we may disagree with is essential for our success and survival. This does not mean that we capitulate to opposing, reactionary ideas, rather that we come along side them and bring them toward a better understanding of a grand alternative. Self defense and militancy against our oppressors is a necessity, but for the masses, even those who oppose us, kindness and grace will ultimately bear more fruit than mindless repression. We must remember that the majority of the working class is working to survive and may not have the advantage of understanding the complexities of the political realm. A little grace goes a long way in convincing people of our cause.

It does not envy

For leftists of all ideologies, this should be a no brainer. Envy is one of the main tools of capitalism that divides us as the people. Love seeks to make sure everyone is provided for, no matter their social status, race, gender etc. When we strive to acquire what we cannot or don’t have, we fall into the trap of self serving exploitation, doing whatever is necessary to gain meaningless treasures, whether they be physical goods or accolades from our peers or anything else that seeks to promote ourselves above our fellow man.

It does not boast, it is not proud

While the temptation will always exist to seek affirmation for the success of revolutionary action, we must not let ourselves become so diluted in the thought that we are the sole saviors of the revolution. In the words of Emma Goldman, “Conceit, arrogance, and egotism are the essentials of patriotism…Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot.” We must not fall into the arrogance of our privilege while neglecting the needs of those who struggle for survival every day. We must remember that it is ultimately the masses, the people, who take all the honor of carrying out the revolution.

It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking

This sentiment echoes the above statement in that by seeking reform and justice, we cannot dishonor the efforts and struggles of all people who fight for truth and integrity within the world. While there may be small, petty disagreements between revolutionaries, we are duty bound by love to hold our character intact when interacting with the people and our fellow comrades. Disunity is the knife in the back of any revolution. Self seeking behavior is counter-revolutionary and only leads to disruption and ego. This can be the difference between liberation and oppression in any struggle.

it is not easily angered

While righteous anger directed at injustice is acceptable and ultimately the backbone of any resistance movement, we must be careful to not let emotions get in the way of organized, effective action. Past actions by well intentioned revolutionaries have shown that poor tactics and planning based on emotional reactions have resulted in disastrous atrocities and unnecessary death and destruction. It is our duty to protect not only our own activists but the general population first and foremost. Misguided anger, especially within organized resistance movements can mean the difference between life and death.

it keeps no record of wrongs

This may be the most difficult concept of all to grasp as a revolutionary. As we look around the world, we can very easily see the massive amount of injustice that keeps the people in bondage. We must not ignore this! Our main duty as members of the resistance is to fight against this evil and serve the people as best we can. Yet as the masses turn from subjugation to liberation, we must look past any former indiscretions to build a better, more unified society. There will always be crimes that need to dealt with from the elites, the ruling class and counter-revolutionaries, but we must remember that ignorance is not a crime. Many of the people in this world are simply unaware of the general injustices that are holding them down. They cannot be held accountable for their blindness to the realities around them. It is our duty as revolutionaries to bring to light these crimes and take part in their suffering so that they may understand true freedom.

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth

“To tell the truth is revolutionary.” - Antonio Gramsci. For far too long, our understanding of the world outside the west has been tainted by xenophobic, racist, reactionary rhetoric that much of the general populace has eagerly adopted without so much as a second thought. Truth is a scarce commodity in our age. With the state seemingly extremely content with deceiving the public outright, our objective of justice and revolutionary change is threatened dramatically. We must not let the lies of the ruling class convince us of supporting evil under the guise of patriotism, safety or worse yet, unity. Truth is our most valuable weapon against the fascist goliath that faces us. Your ignorance is their power!

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres

Our main goal as revolutionaries, as members of this resistance is to protect those who are the most marginalized. This includes POC, LGBTQ, immigrants, the poor, refugees and anyone else who is systematically oppressed by capitalism. It is our greatest responsibility! We must always trust their needs and respond to them accordingly. It is out of love that we do this! It is out of a righteous indignation that we fight for what is right! We must stay strong and always hope for a better world. “The hopeless don’t revolt, because revolution is an act of hope.” - Peter Kropotkin. We must always persevere, no matter the cost. Hasta la victoria siempre! Until victory always!

The Victory In Revolutionary Love

“We know that the road to freedom has always been stalked by death.” - Angela Davis. As a Christian, I believe that Christ’s death provided the ultimate sacrifice for liberation. Yet our earthly job is far from finished. As long as revolutionaries and ordinary people seeking justice continue to love, resist and care for one another, I truly believe that another world is possible. Our victory is already here! We only need to reach out and grasp it. The fight goes on!

In Solidarity,

C. Becker

#communism #anarchism #christianity #marxism #revolution #love #jesus #socialism

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whittlebaggett8 · 5 years

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Battling Corruption in Indonesia’s Elections

Whilst the vote was mainly no cost and good, there are problems that Indonesian authorities need to handle ahead of the up coming election.

By Donal Fariz for The Diplomat

May perhaps 15, 2019

On April 17, Indonesia, the world’s 3rd-biggest democracy, held the most significant and most-sophisticated one-working day elections in planet history: 193 million registered voters, 20,500 candidates, and 800,000 polling booths. It was the very first time Indonesia held presidential, legislative, and provincial and local elections at the exact time.

Turnout, particularly amongst millennials, exceeded anticipations, with 80 per cent of qualified voters casting ballots. But an frustrating turnout by itself does not automatically make for a successful, democratic election. Even though the mostly totally free and reasonable vote has been lauded as a logistical accomplishment, there are teetering concerns that Indonesian authorities ought to deal with prior to the next election. In particular, too many Indonesian voters did not have obtain to reputable info about the candidates jogging in legislative races.

Voters had to mark 5 independent ballots: a single for the presidential race, a 2nd and 3rd for Indonesia’s national parliamentary chambers (the DPR and DPD), and a fourth and fifth for provincial and municipal legislative councils. With 19 political parties contesting the elections and squeezing in as numerous as 7 candidates for each race, Indonesian ballots became as cumbersome as aged-time folding street maps. This made two troubles. Accumulating fundamental info about the qualifications and political platforms of shut to 200 candidates for each seat proved a difficult — and time-draining — feat for even the most politically savvy voters. Voters also struggled to figure out how to fold the ballot tightly sufficient to in good shape into the slot of the ballot box.

Making the most of this post? Click in this article to subscribe for entire entry. Just $5 a thirty day period.

The staggeringly extended checklist of candidates voters had been picking amongst hangs outside the house a polling station in North Sumatra. Image from Wikimedia Commons/ Davidelit.

Simultaneous elections had one more troubling facet-outcome. The presidential race among the incumbent Joko Widodo and Prabowo Subianto mainly eclipsed the legislative races. And the legions of candidates managing in legislative races confused endeavours by civil culture businesses to observe the transparency of the elections.

This is problematic, considering that Indonesia ranks a dismal 89th out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s Corruption Notion Index. Months right before the election, in the basement of Bowo Sidik Pangarso, a member of parliament searching for re-election, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) seized six storage bins made up of additional than 400,000 envelopes that contains 20,000 Indonesian rupiahs – suspected bribes for voters. This was no isolated incident, but component of a systemic trouble. Funds handouts of dollars and items are commonplace, and even expected, in legislative races in Indonesia.

Reducing vote-purchasing and candidacy-obtaining in parliamentary races is vital for the sustainability of Indonesian democracy. Civil society corporations should be on the frontlines of the fight towards corruption and oligarchy in Indonesia, and around the globe.

Helping voters access info about the positions and integrity of candidates for parliament is a necessary first action.

To realize this target, Indonesia Corruption View (ICW) designed rekamjejak.internet, the country’s initially extensive databases of parliamentary candidates. In addition to offering fundamental details on candidates, like their believed prosperity and business enterprise back links, rekamjejak.net allows voters study whether or not incumbents have had corruption costs levied in opposition to them during their time in parliament.

These kinds of oversight initiatives are of critical significance to the wellbeing of Indonesia’s democracy. The Indonesian parliament is the next least-reliable general public establishment in Indonesia — and rightly so. Considering the fact that the final elections in 2014, the KPK has introduced corruption fees towards 240 sitting down members of parliament at all ranges.

Because its launch, rekamjejak.net has achieved above 3.4 million voters, supplying them with the information and facts they will need to make an educated choice at the polls. Creative partnerships had been essential to its good results. By functioning with Indonesian general public figures, as very well as the Election Fee and the KPK, rekamjejak.internet was able to harness the likely of know-how to achieve voters through Indonesia – a hard feat in an archipelago nation of 17,000 islands, property to around 300 ethnic groups.

On-line platforms like rekamjejak.web also proved to be a useful way of galvanizing very first-time voters — a group numbering 17 million in this election cycle, pretty much two times the populace of Jakarta. As in numerous other democracies, political apathy is an problem gripping Indonesian millennials. A study released by the IDN Investigation Institute in January 2019 showed that only 23 per cent of young individuals retained up with politics. As the share of millennial voters continues to improve, civil modern society should really embrace the electric power of technology to have interaction youthful generations of voters and help them understand that their vote can make a change.

Indonesian voters ought to have a extra clear and accountable parliament. With the appropriate info, the ability to attain this is in their palms.

Donal Fariz is Head of the Political Corruption Desk at Indonesia Corruption Enjoy.

The post Battling Corruption in Indonesia’s Elections appeared first on Defence Online.

from WordPress https://defenceonline.com/2019/05/15/battling-corruption-in-indonesias-elections/

#Indonesia 2019 elections #Indonesia corruption #Indonesia Corruption Watch #Indonesia democracy #Ind

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theconservativebrief · 6 years

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At two occasionally tense congressional hearings Wednesday, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Congressional Committee for Energy and Commerce grilled Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on a broad range of topics, from concern over the proliferation of bots on Twitter to how the platform deals with hate speech.

But again and again, concerned members of Congress kept returning to one topic: shadow-banning, and the question of whether Twitter is engaging in the practice with regard to conservative voices on the site.

The basic definition of shadow-banning is simple: A member of a given internet community is tacitly blocked or muted to the rest of the community without their knowledge, so that only they can see what they’re posting. Shadow-banning has been around for years — it dates back to early internet forums — but the term has been catapulted into the news this year thanks to a persistent conspiracy theory that Twitter has pointedly and purposefully shadow-banned Republicans who use the site.

The conspiracy theory took root after Twitter made a change to its algorithm that effectively prevented hundreds of thousands of Twitter accounts from being auto-suggested when people used the site’s search function. The change turned out to affect the accounts of many conservative and Republican politicians.

Once this outcome was discovered, in July, Twitter once again changed its algorithm so that the affected accounts displayed normally. But the incident prompted a wave of rumors, right-wing cries about a liberal conspiracy to silence conservatives, and one inflammatory (and false) tweet from President Donald Trump.

And ultimately, outrage over the perceived shadow-banning of conservatives led members of Congress to summon Dorsey to Capitol Hill.

On Wednesday, Republican members of Congress seemed fixated on the idea that Twitter has long displayed unnecessary bias against Republicans through the nebulous practice. During the morning’s Senate hearing, where Dorsey appeared alongside Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, and then again during a four-hour afternoon hearing in the House, they repeatedly interrogated Dorsey about whether Twitter’s algorithms have developed inherent biases against conservative users and conservative content.

In response, Dorsey repeatedly explained that the algorithm had no inherent political bias and was simply sorting Twitter content on the basis of numerous behavior signals from the accounts it was reviewing.

Meanwhile, multiple Democrats on the Energy Committee described the proceedings as a waste of time. After outlining the facts around the alleged shadow-banning incident, Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA) absolved Twitter and Dorsey of any wrongdoing and called the entire exercise of the hearing “a load of crap.” Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ) stated that “this hearing appears to be just one more mechanism to raise money and generate outrage. It appears Republicans are desperately trying to rally their base by fabricating a problem that simply does not exist.”

Rep. Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania just called the whole premise of the Twitter hearing “a load of crap,” and it might be the truest thing said all day. pic.twitter.com/8tjg2vVoJr

— Will Oremus (@WillOremus) September 5, 2018

So how did we get here? Is shadow-banning real and has Twitter actually done it? And how did the belief in shadow-banning spur an all-day congressional firing squad?

Let’s break it down — hopefully with more clarity than anyone managed to do on Capitol Hill.

Shadow-banning is an established internet moderator practice in which a user’s posts are muted or hidden without their knowledge, usually because they’re being disruptive in some way. So they get to “participate,” but other people typically can’t see or interact with their posts. The idea is that by shadow-banning someone who’s causing a problem, you avoid riling the person with overt attempts to discipline or restrict them, while also preventing them from bothering others.

The practice used to be quite common, particularly when the internet was mostly comprised of forums and bulletin boards. The term “shadow ban” was reportedly first coined on the seminal forum SomethingAwful way back in 2001, but even before that, forums and bulletin boards across the web gave moderators the power to flag certain users for heightened moderation, or to put them in time-out if they posted too much, too frequently. On mailing lists, moderators would often quietly ban users after fielding multiple complaints about them, or flag certain individuals so their messages would have to be approved by a moderator before they went out to the general populace.

The current understanding of the concept of shadow-banning has been made widely known through Reddit, where it has long been an acceptable method for minimizing bots, spam, trolls, and unfriendly or disruptive users. The modern-day, Reddit-codified version of shadow-banning is to mute a user to the rest of the community without their knowledge.

In the era of social media, however, the old ways born of localized, interpersonal moderation have not only been lost; they’ve also become largely impossible to replicate or maintain on such a large scale. Twitter’s shadow-banning woes sprang from an attempt by the platform to essentially algorithmically replicate that kind of personal moderated space. And like most attempts to algorithmically curate social media these days, this one was destined to encounter a whole lot of problems.

In mid-May, Twitter rolled out several changes to its platform as part of its ongoing quest to “ban the Nazis” and curb site-wide harassment. These changes were specifically designed to combat “troll-like behavior,” meaning that the intended targets were accounts which engage in harassment and “distort” the overall tenor of conversation across the site. Twitter explained this effort, which it pitched as an important step toward “serving healthy conversation,” as follows:

There are many new signals we’re taking in, most of which are not visible externally. Just a few examples include if an account has not confirmed their email address, if the same person signs up for multiple accounts simultaneously, accounts that repeatedly Tweet and mention accounts that don’t follow them, or behavior that might indicate a coordinated attack. We’re also looking at how accounts are connected to those that violate our rules and how they interact with each other.

After the changes, accounts which were algorithmically determined to be exhibiting these and other traits were still viewable on the site — but to see them, you had to search for them and then specifically choose to see hidden results.

In other words, unlike a traditional shadow ban, where you usually can’t access the shadow-banned user’s content at all, Twitter’s version de-listed some accounts and their content from displaying automatically.

This sounds like a pretty useful tool, in theory. But in practice, when Twitter deployed it, the algorithm filtered many accounts belonging to conservative Twitter users. The overall number of affected accounts, which Dorsey announced during Wednesday’s hearing, totaled around 600,000. What caused many observers to balk was that the proportion of conservative accounts that were affected seemed to be very high, and some of the affected accounts belonged to Republican members of Congress.

Here’s how Dorsey explained the mishap in his remarks to the House, which he also tweeted out:

In the spirit of accountability and transparency: recently we failed our intended impartiality. Our algorithms were unfairly filtering 600,000 accounts, including some members of Congress, from our search auto-complete and latest results. We fixed it. But how did it happen?

— jack (@jack) September 5, 2018

Our technology was using a decision making criteria that considers the behavior of people following these accounts. We decided that wasn’t fair, and corrected. We‘ll always improve our technology and algorithms to drive healthier usage, and measure the impartiality of outcomes.

— jack (@jack) September 5, 2018

Put simply, Twitter, intending to minimize “troll-like behavior,” wound up inadvertently hiding several Republican-affiliated accounts from the auto-suggest feature in its search function. Many people perceived this event as a concerted attempt by Twitter to silence conservative voices and views on the platform, and reacted with outrage.

In Twitter’s attempt to algorithmically “serve healthy conversation,” it aimed to identify accounts that were potentially harassing others by “repeatedly Tweet[ing] and mention[ing] accounts that don’t follow them”; accounts that were one of many created by the same user; accounts that were participating in coordinated attacks on other users; and accounts that were following users who were doing all of those things. In the process, it appears that Twitter’s algorithm unearthed a rather uncomfortable truth about the way Twitter users connect, and the overlap between trolls and non-trolls on social media.

Users who were affected by the new filter were algorithmically identified as exhibiting the “troll” behavior the algorithm was hunting for, or as engaging — via likes, replies, and follows — with accounts that were exhibiting this behavior. As Dorsey explained on Wednesday, the algorithm also looked at whether an account was followed by a high number of accounts that were exhibiting this behavior. That follower gauge is apparently what led to the accounts of Republican members of Congress not being auto-suggested by Twitter’s search function, which subsequently led Twitter to eventually decide it “wasn’t fair.”

The blunt truth is that in 2018, many of the Twitter accounts that follow and interact with conservative politicians and personalities — including none-the-wiser Republican politicians — are also linked to extremist, racist, and/or white nationalist ideology and have a tendency to engage in abusive and “troll-like” behavior. Thus, Twitter’s algorithm, in its hunt for behavioral patterns, wound up filtering a broad range of users, from fringe extremists and trolls to mainstream Republicans.

Twitter ultimately tweaked its algorithm to restore many of the prominent filtered accounts — while its staff reiterated that those accounts had been affected because of their own behaviors and the behavior of their followers, not because of any inherent political bias.

To be clear, our behavioral ranking doesn’t make judgements based on political views or the substance of tweets. We recently publicly testified to Congress on this topic https://t.co/Zk4DL7Q3hq

— Kayvon Beykpour (@kayvz) July 25, 2018

On 2) Some accounts weren’t being auto-suggested even when people were searching for their specific name. Our usage of the behavior signals within search was causing this to happen & making search results seem inaccurate. We’re making a change today that will improve this.

— Kayvon Beykpour (@kayvz) July 25, 2018

Despite the explanations, and despite Twitter dialing back the algorithm, the accusations of liberal bias continued to rage. Dorsey wound up fielding questions about the incident from conservative-leaning media and other outlets, and he became the target of outrage from sources ranging from Fox News to Sean Hannity to the well-known conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Twitter seemed unable to satisfactorily answer congressional concerns, and so Dorsey agreed to meet with the House Energy Committee specifically to address the shadow-ban question and the broader issue of platform bias.

Throughout Wednesday’s hearing, Dorsey referred vaguely to the “behavior signals” that caused the algorithm to affect conservative Twitter. At one point, he described them as “a thousand decision-making criteria that the algorithms use.”

But he didn’t spell out these criteria in terms of the reality that current Republican politics, as embodied by Trump’s own Twitter use, have inevitably become entangled with a lot of horrible, troll-like behavior on social media. (In fact, the hearing itself was attended by a strange coterie of right-wing internet trolls who attempted to troll the session in real life.)

Instead, Dorsey (along with Sandberg during the morning hearing) used a variety of nebulous language throughout the day, which often seemed to frustrate both Republicans and Democrats. Pressed again and again to admit to Twitter showing some type of bias, either systemic or personal, Dorsey consistently demurred. At one point, he sidestepped giving information, when challenged, about whether his own personal political leanings are liberal; at another, he refused to concede that President Trump’s Twitter account might be in violation of Twitter’s general content policies. “We believe strongly in being impartial,” Dorsey said, “and we strive to enforce our rules impartially.”

Members of Congress, in turn, spoke vaguely about instituting government regulations to rein in social media — again, without clarifying what such regulation might look like.

What was made explicitly clear by the end of the very long day was that the entire exercise was something of a wash. Republicans who’d refused to accept Twitter’s initial, consistent explanation of the “shadow ban” appeared no more satisfied at the end of the hearing than they were at the beginning. But Dorsey, the man who has allowed prominent alt-right figures to voice their views on his platform unchecked, was surely not going to stridently defend the downranking of conservative viewpoints, so anyone hoping for that was equally disappointed.

All in all, Dorsey’s day on Capitol Hill offered greater insight into political partisanship than it offered into the inner workings of social media companies. In a cultural moment where the mysterious ways of algorithms are becoming more broadly distrusted by society at large, Twitter’s filtering algorithm seems to have become the latest political football in a game with no winners, and little to show for it other than bruising all around.

Original Source -> How hysteria over Twitter shadow-banning led to a bizarre congressional hearing

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

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