#Just sitting in the doctors office pretending I don’t see the advertisements for a billion weight loss and plastic surgery program

[herbofgraceandpeace]

🙃

[radthursdays]

#RadThursdays Roundup 11/02/2017

Surreal, amorphous blobs of many textures and colors. Some look like human eyes and fingers, some look almost like cats. “Man sits on a bed with a dog” From Zero Likes.

Ignoring the Dystopia

When Men Fear Women: “But with the Weinstein fallout, and the List, we saw men actually becoming afraid of what they did or did not do (and honestly, if they didn’t feel any fear, they were deluded). If there’s one thing to learn from the endless morass of emotions that has been the past few weeks it’s that it’s good to make men feel fear, and this is something women absolutely have the power to do, even if it has to come anonymously, and in aggregate. Many men wonder what to do with their entitled mouths and brains at moments like this and the answer is: shut up and go away. Fear, not common sense or respect, is the only thing that seems to drive some of them to silence. However fleeting this change may be, it is a distinct role reversal and, I hope, it is progress.”

Capitalism with a Fluffy Face: “The latest way tech companies have promoted their questionable self-image as the antithesis of old, evil corporations has been to open their offices not to unions, but to dogs”.

Ignoring the dystopia: “Probably the worst part of the book is that the main reason the woman changes her mind is in response to the man’s display of financial generosity.  He’s so wealthy, and sometimes he sometimes assists other wealthy people who are on the verge of losing their wealthy status!  The main problem with this part is that it reminds us, the readers, of the dystopia which we were so carefully pretending to ignore.”

A smiling child appears to be melting into a spiral of landscapes. “Man in a suit tie holding a baby” From Zero Likes.

Drugs

The Fragility of Legislation: Who's Cashing In On Marijuana?: "We as a society can’t continue to discuss legalization in a positive light—especially on a national, mainstream level—without directly linking back to the history of white supremacy that accompanies our relationship to marijuana today. Neither the government nor these rich, white men can be trusted to reform the industry, so it is up to us to prevent them from dictating the laws so that they can profit from criminalizing our brothers and sisters. Until police and politicians stop targeting people of color in and outside of legalized and decriminalized states and every person serving time in prison for nonviolent marijuana-related offenses is released and allowed the opportunity to work within the industry, there is no world in which legalization is anything other than simply another bastion of white supremacy—and in which we are anything other than complicit."

The Family That Built an Empire of Pain: The Sackler dynasty’s ruthless marketing of painkillers has generated billions of dollars—and millions of addicts. "Many addicts, finding prescription painkillers too expensive or too difficult to obtain, have turned to heroin. According to the American Society of Addiction Medicine, four out of five people who try heroin today started with prescription painkillers. The most recent figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest that a hundred and forty-five Americans now die every day from opioid overdoses. […] 'If you look at the prescribing trends for all the different opioids, it’s in 1996 that prescribing really takes off,' Kolodny said. 'It’s not a coincidence. That was the year Purdue launched a multifaceted campaign that misinformed the medical community about the risks.' When I asked Kolodny how much of the blame Purdue bears for the current public-health crisis, he responded, 'The lion’s share.'"

Vague blue blobs coalesce into a something that almost looks like a person wearing sunglasses. “A statue of an elephant” From Zero Likes.

Technology and the Abyss

Zero Likes: “This project is a meditation on the aesthetics of nothingness. I trained an AI to create images in response to over 100,000 Instagram posts that received zero likes. This is the first part of an on-going series investigating the potential for machines to respond to abstract, human questions.”

Weird Facebook is monetizing: “The rise of those types of posts give the sense that Weird Facebook has entered a liminal period, as some of its highest-profile figures are now trying to cash in on a scene that was in recent memory still little-known and subversive. Mysterious pages that used to provide the dankest memes available now direct visitors to exit through the gift shop — and fans aren’t always pleased.”

Coders of the world, unite: can Silicon Valley workers curb the power of Big Tech?: For decades, tech companies promised to make the world better. As that dream falls apart, disillusioned insiders are trying to take back control. "Martin Manning, a former Silicon Valley labour organiser who served as assistant secretary of labour for Bill Clinton, believes unionising engineers is impossible. 'It isn’t to say a group of engineers with concerns about privacy, AI, anything, shouldn’t be getting together and sharing those concerns,' he told me. 'But they should think about a professional organisation.' Manning believes that engineers should establish codes of conduct, like doctors or librarians. (There was one such organisation in the 1980s, called Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility.)"

An explosion of colors and textures is melting all over itself. Somehow the textures evoke knurled roots, cucumbers, seaside vistas, maybe a coral reef... “Flowers that are in a vase” From Zero Likes.

Activism

Don’t Troll, Organize: “'You can influence the latest thing he says on Twitter' is a far cry from 'We shall overcome,' or 'Workers of the world, unite!'”

Belonging is a superpower – Patterns for decentralised organising: Summary of a talk, “8 Patterns for Decentralized Organizing”.

How to Be a Good Friend to a Sexual Assault Survivor: "As my healing process continues, my needs have changed. It has been so helpful when people in my life have asked me, 'Is it helpful when I offer this kind of support?' It can be hard to have these conversations, but that you and I have gotten really good at it! I also try be upfront with you about what I need. I may even text you and say, “I need you to tell me that I’m not alone”, and you will do just that."

Direct Action Item

Collectively, we generate more and more online data every day because we think it will make us feel happy or connected (or just because it’s an addiction). For the most part, this online activity just vanishes into the machinic abyss of the modern web, heeded by advertising algorithms and little else. This week, take time for something that might not get any “likes” but will make you happy – meet with a friend IRL (sans smartphone?!), call a family member you haven’t talked to recently, find a new group to do activism with.

If there’s something you’d like to see in next week’s #RT, please send us a message.

In solidarity!

What is direct action? Direct action means doing things yourself instead of petitioning authorities or relying on external institutions. It means taking matters into your own hands and not waiting to be empowered, because you are already powerful. A “direct action item” is a way to put your beliefs into practice every week.