#Social commerce examples

[wizzy-ai-powered-site-search]

B2B vs. B2C vs. D2C - Discover the Key Differences in Modern Commerce - Wizzy.ai

Differences between B2B, B2C, D2C, C2C, and social commerce! Explore how each model transforms buying experiences, drives business growth, and shapes consumer behavior. How Wizzy's AI-powered search transforms your e-commerce platform. Request a free demo now.

[mangled-by-disuse]

not everything bad is white supremacy

not everything bad is capitalism

not everything bad is conservatism

not everything good is leftist for that matter

maybe this is a hot take but posts that blame, idk, the urge to punish on white supremacy, or power imbalance as a whole on capitalism, or personal greed on conservatism, are just a really great way to not be taken seriously. and shouldn't be taken seriously, because they strongly suggest that you put no thought into the cause of social ills beyond your own context.

[kota07]

How Content Marketing Works?

Introduction:

Content creation & marketing has been a core part of Marketing for a long time. But what many people get wrong when creating a content marketing strategy is Storytelling!

Storytelling can be the difference between marketing that is impactful and something which is just another Ad on social media.

Needless to say, storytelling is not the only thing that is important for content marketing, there are many things that one has to determine when creating their content marketing strategy. Target audience, brand voice, consistency, quality, brand colours, type of content etc. In this article we’ll look at the needs & ways to create a content marketing strategy that works best for your brand & business.

Why do you need Content Marketing?

Content Marketing is the process of creating & distributing various types of content like videos, articles, social media posts, blogs etc. to attract the attention of your target audience, spread awareness about your brand & convert the same audience into loyal customers. 

Content marketing has been around since old times. From the town crier selling newspapers in the city square to the pop-up ads that you see after visiting a website. The most visible difference is the priority given to the way we market our content today.

Research shows that businesses with blogs get 67% more leads & 67% marketers claim to have seen an increase in leads due to B2B content marketing.

With the current algorithms of social media platforms which pushes short video content, Instagram reels & Youtube shorts have shown to be nearly 88% more effective when included in content marketing plans. 

Benefits of Content Marketing: 

Online Visibility

Better Lead Generation

Customer Loyalty 

Creating a Content Strategy from Scratch

To be able to take full advantage of content marketing one needs to prepare a well researched strategy. A usual content marketing strategy consists of the following: 

Goals & KPIs 

Determining Target Audience

Content Research & Type

Distribution Channels 

Re-evaluation & Optimizations

SEO’s role in Content Marketing

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is the king of marketing your content organically to your target audience. Thus, it is imperative to optimise your content as per the latest SEO standards set by search engines like google chrome, firefox etc. 

It is also important to make sure that you:

Avoid keyword stuffing

Use relevant & specific keywords

Optimise meta-tags &  description properly

Content Marketing using A.I

Content Marketing is no exception to this, with A.I you can boost your work efficiency  in many stages of your plan, such as:

Automated Creation 

Personalisation 

Predictive Analysis

Evaluation & Measuring your Success

Understand that marketing is a never-ending process. This is because the factors that drive the market & the customers are always changing. Thus, making it detrimental to your content marketing efforts.

Measure your content’s marketing effectiveness by:

Tracking Engagement Metrics 

Monitoring Website Traffic 

Lead Generation 

Social Shares 

SEO Performance

[technicalfika]

Event-Driven Design Demystified: Concepts and Examples

🚀 Discover how this cutting-edge architecture transforms software systems with real-world examples. From e-commerce efficiency to smart home automation, learn how to create responsive and scalable applications #EventDrivenDesign #SoftwareArchitecture

In the world of software architecture, event-driven design has emerged as a powerful paradigm that allows systems to react and respond to events in a flexible and efficient manner. Whether you’re building applications, microservices, or even IoT devices, understanding event-driven design can lead to more scalable, responsive, and adaptable systems. In this article, we’ll delve into the core…

[no-passaran]

Spain lied about not selling weapons to Israel.

Even after October 7th, Spain has sold more than 1 million € of weapons to Israel. Norway and Finland make it possible.

In January, Spain made headlines word-wide when the government's Minister of Exteriors, José Manuel Albares (PSOE), claimed in Congress and later again in a radio interview that Spain had stopped selling weapons to Israel ever since October 7th. Israel's intensification of violence in Gaza following October 7th meant that, on top of decades of apartheid and ethnic cleansing, between October 7th and January 23rd Israel had already killed 28,000 people and forced 2 million out of their home. In this context, many people were demanding their governments stop arming and funding the genocide of the Palestinian people, and here on Tumblr and other social media sites like Twitter I think we all saw the many posts praising the Spanish government for this.

Well, it turns out it was a lie.

According to Albares, "Since October 7th there are no more weapons exportations [from Spain] to Israel". But in November alone, Spain exported weapons to Israel for 987,000€, as was published on the Spanish Government's official website dedicated to exterior commerce (Comex). A researcher from Centre Delàs (an independent centre for peace studies) found it and published it, and it has also been verified by newspapers such as elDiario.es.

This 987,000€ worth of weapons in November was not the only ammunition that Spain has sent to Israel in 2023. In 2023, Spain exported a total of 1.48 million € in war material to Israel.

All of the weapons sent in November come from the factory of Nammo Palencia (Castilla y León), a corporation that is 50% property of the Government of Norway and 50% owned by a public Finnish business. However, even if the owners are foreigners, the ammunition was sent from Spain and thus it had to be authorized by the an organism of the Spanish Government named Junta Interministerial de Defensa y Doble Uso, whose deliberations on whether a weapons exportation is accepted or denied are kept secret. The only cases where they have denied exporting weapons to Israel have been when they thought that Israel would re-sell these weapons to the Philippines.

Spain has had a close relation with Israel for years. As published by the Spanish Government, Spain has sold 20 million € of weapons to Israel between 2012 and 2022. Spain also buys weapons and military software from Israel (for example, the Spanish Intelligence Service has been using the Israeli software Pegasus to illegally spy on Catalan activists, journalists, politicians and civil society members and their relatives to attack the Catalan independence movement), and Spain has continued buying from Israel and allocating defense contracts to Israel even after the October 7th attacks. It is very difficult to track the concessions of public contracts such as buying weapons, but some contracts have been known. For example, on November 24th 2023, Spain bought 287.5 million € of missiles from Israel. This is not unusual: between 2011 and 2021, it is publicly known that Spain bought war material from Israel for at least 268 million €, but experts say that the real number could be two or three times as much.

Spain has also continued allocating concessions to Israel. For example, on December 15th 2023 Spain allocated a contract worth over 576 million € to Israel for a rocket launcher programme. On November 22nd, Spain allocated another another Israeli company to provide missiles for 237 million € at the same time as the Spanish army bought Israeli inhibitors for 1.4 million €. The very next day, November 23rd, Spain signed another military allocation to Israel for 82,600€. The following week, Spain signed yet another allocation with a different Israeli military corporation for 3.7 million €.

Spain also allows Israeli weapon manufacturing companies to produce weapons through their branches located in Spain. This way, Israeli weapons make their way to markets with which Israel doesn't have diplomatic ties but Spain does, like Saudi Arabia. And since Spain is a member of NATO, Israeli weapons produced in Spain are approved according to NATO standards and access it easily. In the same way, these Israeli weapons manufacturers also access European Union defense funds through their branches in Spain. (source).

As I said, I saw a lot of positive posts around when Albares said Spain was going to embargo, but I haven't seen any post about how they didn't do it. I also (personally) haven't seen anything on international media, and barely anything on Spanish media, which is already busy with the PSOE covid material corruption scandal. So I share this in the hope of helping put pressure on Spain to cut all ties with Israel immediately.

SHAME ON EVERYONE WHO GIVES ISRAEL THE MATERIAL AND MONEY THAT WILL BE USED TO MASSACRE THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE. SHAME ON SPAIN, NORWAY, AND FINLAND.

[sexymemecoin]

The Metaverse: A New Frontier in Digital Interaction

The concept of the metaverse has captivated the imagination of technologists, futurists, and businesses alike. Envisioned as a collective virtual shared space, the metaverse merges physical and digital realities, offering immersive experiences and unprecedented opportunities for interaction, commerce, and creativity. This article delves into the metaverse, its potential impact on various sectors, the technologies driving its development, and notable projects shaping this emerging landscape.

What is the Metaverse?

The metaverse is a digital universe that encompasses virtual and augmented reality, providing a persistent, shared, and interactive online environment. In the metaverse, users can create avatars, interact with others, attend virtual events, own virtual property, and engage in economic activities. Unlike traditional online experiences, the metaverse aims to replicate and enhance the real world, offering seamless integration of the physical and digital realms.

Key Components of the Metaverse

Virtual Worlds: Virtual worlds are digital environments where users can explore, interact, and create. Platforms like Decentraland, Sandbox, and VRChat offer expansive virtual spaces where users can build, socialize, and participate in various activities.

Augmented Reality (AR): AR overlays digital information onto the real world, enhancing user experiences through devices like smartphones and AR glasses. Examples include Pokémon GO and AR navigation apps that blend digital content with physical surroundings.

Virtual Reality (VR): VR provides immersive experiences through headsets that transport users to fully digital environments. Companies like Oculus, HTC Vive, and Sony PlayStation VR are leading the way in developing advanced VR hardware and software.

Blockchain Technology: Blockchain plays a crucial role in the metaverse by enabling decentralized ownership, digital scarcity, and secure transactions. NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) and cryptocurrencies are integral to the metaverse economy, allowing users to buy, sell, and trade virtual assets.

Digital Economy: The metaverse features a robust digital economy where users can earn, spend, and invest in virtual goods and services. Virtual real estate, digital art, and in-game items are examples of assets that hold real-world value within the metaverse.

Potential Impact of the Metaverse

Social Interaction: The metaverse offers new ways for people to connect and interact, transcending geographical boundaries. Virtual events, social spaces, and collaborative environments provide opportunities for meaningful engagement and community building.

Entertainment and Gaming: The entertainment and gaming industries are poised to benefit significantly from the metaverse. Immersive games, virtual concerts, and interactive storytelling experiences offer new dimensions of engagement and creativity.

Education and Training: The metaverse has the potential to revolutionize education and training by providing immersive, interactive learning environments. Virtual classrooms, simulations, and collaborative projects can enhance educational outcomes and accessibility.

Commerce and Retail: Virtual shopping experiences and digital marketplaces enable businesses to reach global audiences in innovative ways. Brands can create virtual storefronts, offer unique digital products, and engage customers through immersive experiences.

Work and Collaboration: The metaverse can transform the future of work by providing virtual offices, meeting spaces, and collaborative tools. Remote work and global collaboration become more seamless and engaging in a fully digital environment.

Technologies Driving the Metaverse

5G Connectivity: High-speed, low-latency 5G networks are essential for delivering seamless and responsive metaverse experiences. Enhanced connectivity enables real-time interactions and high-quality streaming of immersive content.

Advanced Graphics and Computing: Powerful graphics processing units (GPUs) and cloud computing resources are crucial for rendering detailed virtual environments and supporting large-scale metaverse platforms.

Artificial Intelligence (AI): AI enhances the metaverse by enabling realistic avatars, intelligent virtual assistants, and dynamic content generation. AI-driven algorithms can personalize experiences and optimize virtual interactions.

Wearable Technology: Wearable devices, such as VR headsets, AR glasses, and haptic feedback suits, provide users with immersive and interactive experiences. Advancements in wearable technology are critical for enhancing the metaverse experience.

Notable Metaverse Projects

Decentraland: Decentraland is a decentralized virtual world where users can buy, sell, and develop virtual real estate as NFTs. The platform offers a wide range of experiences, from gaming and socializing to virtual commerce and education.

Sandbox: Sandbox is a virtual world that allows users to create, own, and monetize their gaming experiences using blockchain technology. The platform's user-generated content and virtual real estate model have attracted a vibrant community of creators and players.

Facebook's Meta: Facebook's rebranding to Meta underscores its commitment to building the metaverse. Meta aims to create interconnected virtual spaces for social interaction, work, and entertainment, leveraging its existing social media infrastructure.

Roblox: Roblox is an online platform that enables users to create and play games developed by other users. With its extensive user-generated content and virtual economy, Roblox exemplifies the potential of the metaverse in gaming and social interaction.

Sexy Meme Coin (SEXXXY): Sexy Meme Coin integrates metaverse elements by offering a decentralized marketplace for buying, selling, and trading memes as NFTs. This unique approach combines humor, creativity, and digital ownership, adding a distinct flavor to the metaverse landscape. Learn more about Sexy Meme Coin at Sexy Meme Coin.

The Future of the Metaverse

The metaverse is still in its early stages, but its potential to reshape digital interaction is immense. As technology advances and more industries explore its possibilities, the metaverse is likely to become an integral part of our daily lives. Collaboration between technology providers, content creators, and businesses will drive the development of the metaverse, creating new opportunities for innovation and growth.

Conclusion

The metaverse represents a new frontier in digital interaction, offering immersive and interconnected experiences that bridge the physical and digital worlds. With its potential to transform social interaction, entertainment, education, commerce, and work, the metaverse is poised to revolutionize various aspects of our lives. Notable projects like Decentraland, Sandbox, Meta, Roblox, and Sexy Meme Coin are at the forefront of this transformation, showcasing the diverse possibilities within this emerging digital universe.

For those interested in the playful and innovative side of the metaverse, Sexy Meme Coin offers a unique and entertaining platform. Visit Sexy Meme Coin to explore this exciting project and join the community.

[plumpybread]

i've been wondering, what are the culturally defined goals of the various nations (or tribes) in this AU? in real life societies, there tends to be a few goals that are "given" to us in society (for example, gaining financial success or getting good degrees in Western societies). these likely have to change if, for example, Fontainians tend to become too obese to work before long, right? so what do you think? perhaps they're more socially related, or something like that.

also, completely different but similarly related to society at large, do you think someone as obese as Aether saving the various regions is changing their perception of fat as a whole? I'd love to hear what you think! keep up the good work!

Great questions!

Fortunately, the answer is pretty simple, as the nations in Teyvat all have very clear ideals we learn about in the game.

Mondstadt: Freedom

The ideal of freedom lives through and through in the nation of wind. Venti, their archon, believes that people should be free to make their own choices and live their lives without heavy-handed governance, a belief that shapes their culture, where the people enjoy a relatively lax and democratic system. They enjoy festivals, and I found it to be one of the easiest nations to make one of the heaviest because of all this

Liyue: Contracts

As the richest nation, they value wealth and stability most, steming from the belief that contracts are the foundation of society. Trade, commerce and responsibility are all shaped around the ideal of contracts.

Inazuma: Eternity

In Raiden Shogun's quest to preserve Inazuma in an unchanging, everlasting state, strict laws are enforced to prevent any disruption of the societal order, which is why I wrote them to be the most distant from the very obese nations as they remain the most unaffected by the threat of obesity.

Sumeru: Wisdom

Knowledge is almost a currency in Sumeru, and the pursuit of it is central to their culture. The best scholars are either from Sumeru itself or foreigners who went to study at their Akademiya. They know better than to give in to gluttony, which is why they're the second thinnest nation.

Fontaine: Justice

Popularly known for their juridical system and the way trials are treated as theatrical spectacles, justice is the prevalent ideal imposed by Fontaine's Hydro archon. Laws and rules need to be modified periodically as the weights of Fontainians continuously rises every decade, and in this version of Fontaine, I'd imagine justice manifests in the need for fair access to resources and food to maintain their massive sizes or support the thousands who grow beyond hope. Thanks to their domination of the food industry in Teyvat thanks to their rich soils and way too skilled chefs, immobility retirement doesn't have too much of an impact in their economy, especially since each man retiring for immobility creates several job opportunities for others to work as their personal caretakers.

Natlan: War, but specifics depend on the tribe

Natlan is a nation constantly in a war against the Abyss, and yearly pilgrimages are held to find warriors from different tribes to take part in the Night Wars to fend off the Abyssal army. But outside of this, each tribe lives by very different ideals. This wasn't ever really digged deep into in the game itself, but if I had to think of something;

Nanatzcayan: Mining

Sounds a bit random, but most people in Nanatzcayan are fine miners, jewelers, forgers, and general appraisers of gems as they live inside mountains. Physical strength and harmony is needed for them to fulfill their jobs.

Huitztlan: Agility

Living high up suspended over a mountain cliff, they love extreme sports like bungee jumping or mountain climbing, and agility is the most valued skill to have to live the true Scions of Canopy life, which is why wide love handles are seen as favorable as their bodies hug the harnesses they wear while doing their activities much better that way.

Meztli: Leisure

The most sedentary and relaxed nation of Natlan, gaining huge amounts of weight due to poor diets and lack of exercise has become such a norm that it's the encouraged standard. Most people just spend their days taking baths in the hot springs, fishing near the shores, or dancing in the plaza, all if they're not already sharing decadent meals at restaurants and growing fatter week after week.

As for your second, Aether-related question, there could be some potential for that, maybe!

He starts getting chubby in Mondstadt, and becomes pretty hefty after Liyue. I don't think there's much impact for this, he's not alarmingly big or anything and there's people much larger than him everywhere.

It's probably in Inazuma where his size is first a shock to people as Aether is starting to get visibly obese. I can imagine some civilians being curious about him. From that one huge Aether journey loredrop post: "They never said anything to him about it, but some Inazumans envied Aether's carelessness for his body and how he was eating so freely he didn't even realize he had grown obese."

During Sumeru he passes the 600 pound milestone, and his weight starts to become the main talking point when referring to Aether and his achievements. I can imagine a small sentiment growing in some guys seeing someone as heavy as him be able to fulfill his job as a hero despite his clear morbid obesity. Maybe some men who were dealing with their own obesity are inspired by him and learn to be more forgiving about their situation, some maybe even going ahead and stopping to feel guilty about gaining too much weight.

As for Fontaine, I can't really imagine it changing much more than Fontaine itself irreversibly changing Aether. No size is too big over there, but people surely love Aether for giving in so hard into the gluttony and getting so massive so quickly.

His impact would likely be more pronounced during Natlan after Aether has become a walking pile of lard. I can imagine his status as a hero despite his absurd size to have some ripple effects, mostly in Meztli, where I can see the ideal weight for men suddenly spike up thanks to Aether's influence, and seeing his previous visit was Fontaine, open up the doors to import more food from that nation.

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

Do we know the favorite books that the French revolution figures liked to read? (It could be anyone, Robespierre or Saint just or Louis xvi it doesn't matter).

Much like this old ask about revolutionaries’ favorite dishes, I can’t say I know of any instance of someone exclaiming: ”this is 100% my favorite book,” but at tops people mentioning books that they thought were good or bad:

In his memoirs, Brissot writes he’s picking up Rousseau’s Confessions for the sixth time, so I guess that could qualify as a favorite book? send help

We have this list of books seized at Robespierre’s place after his death.

According to the memoirs of Élisabeth Duplay, Robespierre would read ”the works of Corneille, Voltaire and Rousseau” for her family in the evenings.

In a short biography over Desmoulins written in 1834, Marcellin Matton claims his favorite book was René Aubert de Vertot’s Histoire des révolutions arrivées dans le gouvernement de la République romaine (1719), of which he always carried a copy. Matton is an infamous romanticizer it’s from him we have the stupid leaf myth for example, but I’m willing to give him some leeway here since he could have obtained the information from Camille’s mother-in-law and sister-in-law, who were his friends:

In one of his first classes, he received Vertot's Révolutions romaines as a prize. Reading this work transported him with admiration; in the future, he always had a volume in his pocket. It was for him an indispensable companion, it was his vade mecum. He used or lost at least twenty volumes. It is perhaps to this excellent work and to the particular work that he did on the discourses of Cicero and especially on his Philippics, that we owe the lively and sharp style which distinguishes all the writings coming from the pen of Camille .

Desmoulins was however less fond of Rousseau’s Confessions, in number 55 (December 1790) of Révolutions de France et de Brabant he admits that he abandoned the book after getting infuriated by it:

Not that I idolize J.J. as I did in the past, since I saw in his Confessions that he had become an aristocrat in his old age. How far he was from looking at an Alexander with the pride of this Cynic, to whom he is compared, and how painfully I saw that he united the opposite faults of Diogenes and Arisippus! It is a pleasant thing to hear the author of the Social Contract protest in his Confessions about the simplicity of the commerce of such great lords (M. and Madame de Luxembourg) he cries with joy, he wants to kiss the feet of this good marshal, because he wanted to accompany one of his friends, an office clerk, for a walk. Is there anything smaller, more ridiculous? I received, he says elsewhere, the greatest honor that a man can receive, the visit of the Prince de Conti, (an honor that Rousseau shared with all the girls of the Palais-Royal.) At this point I tossed away the book out of spite, and I admit, that I had to reread the speech on equality of conditions, and Julie's novel, in order to not hate the philosopher of Geneva, like Durosoy and Mallet du Pan; for the same principles, in the mouth of such a great man, are more condemnable and worthy of aversion than in the mouths of our two gazetteers, whom God created poor in spirit, and predestined as such to the kingdom of heaven.

In a diary kept over the summer of 1788, Lucile Desmoulins mentions reading L’Âge d’Or (1782) by Sylvain Maréchal (of which she also copied two verses, Le Tr��sor and Le contrat de mariage devant la nature, in a notebook the year earlier), Les Idylles et poèmes champêtres (1762) by Salomon Gessner, L’Hymne au soleil, suivi de plusieurs morceaux du même genre qui n’ont point encore paru (1782) by Abbé de Reyrac (where she wrote down the verse La Gelée d’avril), Nouvelles lettres anglaises, ou Histoire du Chevalier Grandisson (1754) by Samuel Richardson and  Les Noces patriarchales, poëme en prose en cinq chants (1777) by Robert Martin Lesuire.

In his memoirs, Buzot mentions enjoying the works of Rousseau and Plutarch:

With what charms I still remember this happy period of my life which can no longer return, when, during the day, I silently roamed the mountains and woods of the city where I was born, reading with delight some works of Plutarch or of Rousseau, or recalling to my memory the most precious features of their morality and their philosophy. Sometimes, sitting on the flowering grass, in the shade of some thick trees, I indulged, in a sweet melancholy, in the memories of the sorrows and the pleasures which had in turn agitated the first days of my life. Often the cherished works of these two good men had occupied or maintained my vigils with a friend of my age whom death took from me at thirty, and whose memory, always dear and respected, has preserved from many errors!

Wow any chance you can sound even more like an 18th century man stereotype, Buzot?

…and that’s basically all I can come up with for the moment. But add on if you know anything more! @louis-antoine-leon-saint-just @lazarecarnot maybe you would like to share your favorite books with us if you have any?

[drdemonprince]

Any recommended reading for a newbie to anarchism?

David Graeber truly is the best entry point into the pipeline i feel. Reading his work doesn't feel like "reading theory", it feels like learning more about a specific aspect of the world from an engaging, open-minded author who makes history and anthropology accessible, and then simply realizing somewhere along the line that you've become a lot more radical than you realized you'd always been.

Bullshit Jobs is his easiest and most approachable read -- start with this if you're not a big reader of dense books, or if my book Laziness Does Not Exist particularly spoke to you. It's about how the majority of reasonably well-paying jobs today are completely meaningless, and why important, fulfilling jobs that are actually necessary to run society are so often thankless and poorly paid.

If you have student loan or credit card debt out the ass or you grew up hearing the myth that the earliest human societies relied on trading and bartering, pick up Debt: The First 5000 Years. This one is a bit of a tougher read than Bullshit Jobs, but still approachable, talking about the history of human commerce, debt forgiveness, enslavement, and where that history has left us today. You'll learn a lot about history but Graeber will also always lead you back to the present.

If you were a follower of the Occupy Wallstreet movement and wonder why it failed (or whether it failed), pick up The Democracy Project. This is a slimmer, faster read! And it focuses a lot more on the practical tactics and bylaws of Occupy organizing. In it, Graeber illustrates how human groups can be run without hierarchy and just how well that can work! It's perhaps the most explicitly anarchist book of his in that sense at least, yet it's also very conversational and easy to follow, with lots of lessons learned and specific examples from real-life organizing meetings.

If you hate rules and bureaucracy, pick up Utopia of Rules. What Debt is for bursting basic, widespread myths about economics, Utopia of Rules is for challenging mainstream knowledge about the role of the state. This one is actually an essay collection, and that makes it a quicker, easier read than many of the others -- in each chapter, Graeber tackles one specific aspect of irritating modern-day bureaucracy, and its full of relatable gripes about going to the DMV or applying for unemployment, but then it zooms out to make a larger point about how societies now function (and fail to function).

If you're interested in Indigenous cultures and how various human societies have approached governance, start with Dawn of Everything, which he co-wrote with David Wengrow. Now this is a MUCH denser book that I recommend taking chapter by chapter, pausing to savor all the new information and paradigm-busting that they've just showered you with. A chapter before bed each night and then some time laying down and simply reflecting about the diversity of human social potential is a great way to slowly work your way through it.

If you read any of these, you'll be left with a lot of ideas as to where to look next -- Graeber was widely read in a great many fields himself, so he'll leave you a trail of breadcrumbs to follow.

The Anarchist Library online is also a great place to find shorter, more explicitly anarchist theory work, once you're ready to delve in. The r/debateanarchism subreddit is also something you should subscribe to and thumb through every once in a while!

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

Four new Warzone Distro zines.

1. The Anarcho-Primitivist case for Straight Edge: Against His-Story, Against Alcoholocaust!

“The foundations of colonial genocide bear the stench of a long and protracted alcohol induced nightmare — nearly every indigenous culture the Europeans encountered was destroyed by European alcohol and disease. The spreading of firewater among indigenous populations of North America went hand-in-hand with the distribution of lethal smallpox-infested blankets. Many of these cultures, without the experience of thousands of years of civilized alcoholism to draw upon, were even more subject than the Europeans to the ravages of “the civilized brew.” Between alcohol, disease, commerce, and guns, most of them were quickly and utterly destroyed. This process was not unique to North America — it was repeated throughout the world in every European colonial endeavor. While the drug of choice varied (sometimes it was opium, for example, as in the “Opium Wars” Great Britain waged to control China), alcohol was judged in many countries to be the most socially-acceptable tool of pacification.”

2. More Than Just a Diet: A Conversation Between Warzone Distro & the Susaron 4

“…precisely what strongly motivated our actions as a group, was the dissemination of that message, somewhat diluted by time: The war against existence from an anarcho-nihilist perspective, fervently anti-speciesist and straight edge. Which to our taste fulfilled its purpose, since these discussions happened again as a result of the action and our subsequent arrest. And consequently; constant elaboration of propaganda material referring to our ideological thinking. Which gives us the desire to refloat within future generations these incendiary ideas, which have no intention of making peace or negotiation with the enemy. Be it the animal exploitation industry or any other authority that may seek to impose itself on us…

…Regarding the straight edge concept; we have always seen as essential the care of our body as a temple and as a channel of direct confrontation. And likewise refusing the brutal control exercised by the state and its tentacles through drugs. Ruining entire generations of rebels because of it. And it does not fit in our concept of opposition to all exploitation and apparatus of domination, that by our own complacency and mental weakness we are subjugated through substances made to appease the discontent and collapse. And as anarchic-nihilists we understand our body and mind as the only thing we own and our main weapon.

…many generations of young insurrectionists have been lost in the mental and physical deterioration generated by the web of drugs and their slow and camouflaged intrusion into the lives of those who begin to consume them, especially individuals prone to depression. This dramatically undermines the power of resistance movements that require people committed and prepared for the challenges involved in fighting such a giant and finely tuned machine as the reigning structure of domination.”

3. Burn Down The Animal Pharm By Lint Lobotomy

Various writings by Lint Lobotomy covering a wide range of topics from veganism, straight edge and anti-civilization!

4. Hygiene: Washing and Brainwashing

This zine critically examines the origins of being “clean”

All zine pdfs are free to print.

[kiraleighart]

me explaining how online works so y'all can be gay do crimes fuck corporate:

Business wants to flatten human-online engagement for business aims. This is the algorithm's prime function—not delivering you the content you want, when you want it.

So, the solution is to up the ante. Send backwash chaotic metrics. Do big loud gay throttle. You can literally choose to go against the online grain anytime you want.

Example: You love tea. OK. Identify indie tea brand that's super ethics. Put them on blast as hard possible online and in search. Get 5 friends (who get 5 friends) to do this. This helps them.

But also, bidnid ppl do competitive analysis. big shitty tea brand says "huh, why is trending?" big tea brand go "how can i do that. wait."

and if you picked the right indie tea brand, only logical answer for bigboi is "consumer like ethical tea. i...oops." and when big brand tries to only LOOK like tiny tea brand, you call bullshit no buy

you do not give social media signals to big bad mean tea brand. you screencap if you gotta and use asterisk or whatever. all the while, applying pressure to uplift cool indie tea brand and cool little guys like them.

this is legit how online commerce and digital analytics works.

1 person uplifting cool indie ethical brand becomes 2. then 10. then 100. then 1000. then 100,000 until big bidnid fucks have to go "and i oop." if they want market share, they will have to evolve or you will ignore them like an annoying bug.

pls prove to me that normies are able to grasp what im saying: you have all the power. you're just not using it.

[rayspookyhistory]

✧༺┆✦The Matriarchal Societies✦┆༻✩

Matriarchal societies, where women occupy primary power roles in political, social, and economic realms, have existed across various cultures and historical periods. Distinguished by matrilineal descent, communal decision-making, and significant female authority, these societies present alternative models of social organization.

Characteristics of Matriarchal Societies

Matrilineal Descent

A hallmark of matriarchal societies is matrilineal descent. Family lineage, property, and titles are inherited through the mother’s line, ensuring continuity and stability as women control familial and economic resources. Matriarchs play central roles in family organization, often making key decisions about marriage, property distribution, and household management.

Political Authority

Women in matriarchal societies frequently hold significant political positions such as chiefs, queen mothers, or council leaders. Their leadership is active and involves governance and decision-making. Community councils, typically composed of elder women, guide community policies and resolve disputes, ensuring that women's perspectives are central to governance.

Economic Control

Women typically control property and land, managing and passing them down to their daughters. This economic power underpins their social authority and community status. They oversee the allocation of resources within the community, ensuring equitable distribution and the well-being of all members.

Cultural and Spiritual Roles

Women often serve as spiritual leaders, shamans, or priestesses, conducting important rituals and ceremonies. As custodians of spiritual knowledge and cultural traditions, women preserve and transmit cultural heritage through storytelling, education, and ritual practices, maintaining the community's identity and values.

Historical and Contemporary Examples

The Hopi (Native Americans)

The Hopi people, residing in north-eastern Arizona, follow a matrilineal system where clan membership and inheritance pass through the female line. Women own the land and homes, and they play significant roles in agricultural activities. Female elders influence decision-making processes, particularly regarding community welfare and cultural traditions.

The Ashanti (West Africa)

The Ashanti people of Ghana practice a matrilineal system in which lineage and inheritance pass through the mother's line. The Queen Mother holds significant political influence, including the authority to select the Asantehene (king). Women are key figures in trade and local markets, controlling the distribution of goods and resources.

The Baganda (Uganda)

In Buganda, a kingdom within Uganda, women hold crucial roles in the matrilineal descent system. The Namasole (queen mother) has substantial political influence and advises the Kabaka (king). Women manage household economies, control land inheritance, and are active in agricultural production, ensuring the community's sustenance.

The Mosuo (China)

Located near Lugu Lake in the Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, the Mosuo people practice a unique form of matrilineal descent. Extended families live in large households managed by the matriarch. The Mosuo have "walking marriages," where men visit their partners at night and return to their maternal homes in the morning. Children remain with their mothers, and maternal uncles play significant roles in their upbringing. Women control the household economy, manage agricultural activities, and are involved in local trade and tourism.

The Khasi (India)

The Khasi people of Meghalaya in north-eastern India follow a matrilineal system where property and family names are inherited through the female line. The youngest daughter, known as the "Ka Khadduh," inherits the ancestral property and is responsible for taking care of the elderly parents. Khasi women play central roles in household management, local commerce, and cultural rituals.

The Igbo (Nigeria)

Among the Igbo people of Nigeria, certain communities practice matrilineal descent, particularly in the inheritance of property and titles. Women are influential in trade and local markets, actively participating in community decision-making processes. Female-led organizations and associations play crucial roles in maintaining social order and cultural traditions.

The Minangkabau (Indonesia)

The Minangkabau, located in West Sumatra, are the world's largest matrilineal society. Property and family names are inherited through women. Women manage the household and family inheritance, while men handle external political relations. The role of "Bundo Kanduang" (the revered mother) symbolizes female authority and wisdom. Women play central roles in cultural ceremonies, such as weddings and funerals, reinforcing their social status and authority.

The Tuareg (Sahara Desert)

The Tuareg people, living in the Sahara Desert across Mali, Niger, Algeria, and Libya, practice matrilineal descent. Property and family tents are inherited through the female line. Women have significant autonomy and can initiate divorce. They control family wealth and manage household affairs. Women are custodians of the family's history and traditions, passing down cultural knowledge through oral traditions and music.

The Trobriand Islanders (Papua New Guinea)

The Trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea follow a matrilineal system where lineage and inheritance are passed through the mother’s line. Women control the distribution of yam, a staple crop that signifies wealth and social status. Female leaders, known as "dauk," play essential roles in community decision-making and cultural rituals.

The Iroquois Confederacy (North America)

The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) society, located in the north-eastern United States, is matrilineal, with clans led by elder women known as Clan Mothers. Clan Mothers have the authority to nominate and depose male leaders (sachems). They play a vital role in maintaining the Great Law of Peace, which governs the confederacy. Women are central to agricultural practices, growing the "Three Sisters" crops (corn, beans, and squash), which are crucial to the community's sustenance.

Modern Implications and Interpretations

Matriarchal societies offer models of gender equality and demonstrate that societies can thrive with women in central roles. These societies challenge the notion that patriarchal structures are necessary for social stability. The emphasis on matrilineal descent and female authority helps preserve cultural traditions, ensuring the continuity of community identity. Women's control over resources often leads to more sustainable and equitable economic practices, benefiting the community as a whole.

Challenges and Misconceptions

Common misconceptions suggest that matriarchal societies simply reverse the power dynamics of patriarchy, with women dominating men. However, these societies often emphasize balance, cooperation, and mutual respect between genders. Patriarchal societies may resist the idea of matriarchy, viewing it as a threat to established power structures, leading to the marginalization and misrepresentation of matriarchal communities.

Matriarchal societies provide valuable insights into alternative social structures where women hold central roles in political, social, and economic spheres. These societies demonstrate the viability of matrilineal and matriarchal systems, offering models for more balanced and equitable gender dynamics. Understanding these societies broadens perspectives on power distribution, gender roles, and cultural practices, challenging the dominance of patriarchal paradigms in historical and contemporary contexts. They highlight the potential for diverse forms of social organization that prioritize cooperation, sustainability, and equality.

[r--c]

Onel de Guzman

Onel de Guzman, a then-24-year-old computer science student at AMA Computer College and resident of Manila, Philippines, created the malware. - At the time of its creation, de Guzman was poor and struggling to pay for the country's dial-up internet access. De Guzman believed that internet access was a human right, and submitted an undergraduate thesis to the college which proposed the development of a trojan to steal internet login details He claimed that this would allow users to be able to afford an internet connection, arguing that those affected by it would experience no loss. The proposal was rejected by the college, which remarked that his proposal was "illegal" and that "they did not produce burglars". This led de Guzman to claim that his professors were closed-minded, and he ultimately dropped out of the college and began development of the worm. - Because there were no laws in the Philippines against making malware at the time of its creation, the Philippine Congress enacted Republic Act No. 8792, otherwise known as the E-Commerce Law, in July 2000 to discourage future iterations of such activity. However, the Constitution of the Philippinesprohibits ex post facto laws, and as such de Guzman could not be prosecuted.

ILOVEYOU

ILOVEYOU, sometimes referred to as the Love Bug or Loveletter, was a computer worm that infected over ten million Windows personal computers on and after 5 May 2000. It started spreading as an email message with the subject line "ILOVEYOU" and the attachment "LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs".  - At the time, Windows computers often hid the latter file extension ("VBS", a type of interpreted file) by default because it is an extension for a file type that Windows knows, leading unwitting users to think it was a normal text file. - Opening the attachment activates the Visual Basic script. First, the worm inflicts damage on the local machine, overwriting random files (including Office files and image files; however, it hides MP3 files instead of deleting them), then, it copies itself to all addresses in the Windows Address Book used by Microsoft Outlook, allowing it to spread much faster than any other previous email worm. - The email format is considered to be one of the first examples of malware using social engineering, by encouraging victims to open the attached file under the pretext they had a lover who was attempting to contact them. This was exacerbated by the fact that emails appeared to come from close contacts as a result of the worm's use of its previous victim's contact lists.

De Guzman wrote ILOVEYOU in VBScript, and the Windows Script Host is utilized to run the code. ILOVEYOU was distributed through malicious email attachments. The worm was found in emails with the subject "ILOVEYOU" and a message of "Kindly check the attached love letter from me!" The attachment LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs contained the worm.

Upon opening the file, the worm copies itself into relevant directories so it will be run upon reboot of the computer. Two of the three copies masquerade as legitimate Microsoft Windows library files, named MSKernel32.vbs and Win32DLL.vbs. The other copy retains the original LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs name.

The worm attempts to download a trojan horse named WIN-BUGSFIX.exe. To achieve this, the victim's Internet Explorer homepage is set to a URL that downloads the trojan upon opening the browser. If the download is successful, the trojan is set to run upon reboot and the Internet Explorer homepage is set to a blank page. The trojan fulfils Guzman's primary aim by stealing passwords.

The worm sends its trademark email to all contacts in the victim's address book. To prevent multiple emails being sent to one person from each successive run of the worm, a registry key is generated for each address book entry once an email has been sent. The worm will only send an email if the registry key is not present. This also allows for emails to be sent to new contacts placed in the address book. ILOVEYOU also has the capability to spread via Internet Relay Chat channels.

The worm searches connected drives for files to modify. All VBScript files it finds (.vbs, .vbe) are overwritten with the worm's code. Files with extensions .jpg, .jpeg, .js, .jse, .css, .wsh, .sct, .doc and .hta are replaced with copies of the worm that have the same base file name but appended with the .vbs extension. Copies for .mp2 and .mp3 files are similarly produced, but the original files are hidden instead of removed.

The outbreak was estimated to have caused US$5.5–8.7 billion in damages worldwide, and estimated to cost US$10–15 billion to remove the worm. Within ten days, over fifty million infections had been reported, and it is estimated that 10% of Internet-connected computers in the world had been affected. Damage cited was mostly the time and effort spent getting rid of the infection and recovering files from backups. At the time, it was one of the world's most destructive computer related disasters ever.

[mariacallous]

TikTok went all out to defend itself in a court hearing last Monday, to block a law that could force TikTok to be sold or banned in the United States. That included using one surprising strategy: to bring other Chinese apps down with it.

Earlier this year, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACA), which aims to prevent national security threats from apps like TikTok, took less than two months to pass both the House and the Senate, before it was swiftly signed by President Joe Biden in April. It caught almost everyone by surprise, including TikTok. The law requires TikTok to find a US buyer to take over its operation soon, or face being banned in the US. TikTok promptly sued the government over it.

At the Court of Appeals in Washington, DC, on September 16, Andrew Pincus, a partner at law firm Mayer Brown acting for TikTok, argued that the law unfairly targets the social media app for the speech on the platform and that it violates the First Amendment. Specifically, Pincus said the law exempts other Chinese apps that could have been doing worse on the concern of data security protection.

“There are very significant ecommerce sites based in China and other places that collect much more data than TikTok does. Very sensitive data,” Pincus said. At another point in the hearing, he narrowed down the targets to “two Chinese, two e-commerce sites that would certainly meet all of the other criteria in the law.”

Pincus did not name-drop the two sites in his statements, but a TikTok court filing from August 15 cited the privacy policies of Shein and Temu—two ecommerce companies linked to China—to make the same argument Pincus made. The filing also cited research from April 2023 on the data risks of these two companies, collated by the US–China Economic and Security Review Commission.

Shein and Temu came from China’s fiercely competitive ecommerce industry and were able to take over the world by storm by shipping low-cost apparels and goods globally. Each boasts tens of millions of customers around the world, and they are often compared to TikTok as the rare examples of Chinese tech companies that have truly succeeded in the US.

TikTok, however, claims there’s an exemption clause in the PAFACA Act that essentially protects Chinese companies like Shein and Temu but not TikTok. When defining what companies are covered, the Act has only one exclusion: companies and products “whose primary purpose is to allow users to post product reviews, business reviews, or travel information and reviews.”

To be fair, the clause that TikTok highlighted was a bewildering inclusion from the beginning. Even some lawmakers claimed they weren’t sure why it was necessary to put in place such an exception.

But TikTok is seizing this opportunity to argue that, because the clause would likely protect Shein, Temu, and similar ecommerce sites that also have significant presence in the US and collect a wealth of privacy data, the Act is narrowly tailored to punish TikTok. It went as far as to claim that the clause shows Congress favors topics like products, business, and travel instead of politics, religion, and entertainment, making it a First Amendment infringement. The DOJ has denied this characterization in written court briefs.

It is a valid legal strategy, Alan Rozenshtein, an associate professor of law at the University of Minnesota Law School, explains to WIRED, as the First Amendment can consider a law unconstitutional “if the law hinges on solving a particular problem, does so in an extremely limited way, and leaves the law unsolved.”

But the judge didn’t seem to buy the argument. “It’s a rather blinkered view that the statute just singles out one company,” said Judge Douglas Ginsburg during the hearing. “It describes a category of companies, all of which are owned by or controlled by adversary powers, and subjects one company to an immediate necessity because it’s engaged in two years of negotiation with that company, held innumerable hearings, meeting after meeting after meeting, [and] an attempt to reach an agreement on a national security arrangement which failed.”

The DOJ also replied to TikTok’s problem with the exclusion clause, saying in a court brief that if the clause were to be found problematic, the right solution would be to simply take out that clause about excluding businesses, instead of invalidating the whole law.

In recent years, data security concerns have become one of the main friction points in tech policies in the US and China. While the Chinese government passed a law that regulates cross-border data transfers, the US government has taken a more piecemeal approach, investigating risks posed by products like TikTok and Chinese-made smart cars.

Some experts and lawmakers advocate for a more comprehensive legal framework to solve this issue. “This bill not only fails to solve the problem, but also jeopardizes the free speech and livelihoods of 170 million Americans who use the app. Instead, Congress should pass a bill to prevent apps, whether it's TikTok or any other social media platform, from collecting or transferring data and make foreign interference in social media algorithms illegal,” said Representative Ro Khanna in an emailed statement. Khanna voted no on the PAFACA bill.

For now, Chinese ecommerce sites like Shein and Temu have faced much less scrutiny around data security than TikTok. But TikTok’s legal strategy of highlighting the alleged data security risks of other Chinese companies will no doubt put more pressure on them. If TikTok fails its legal challenge and is banned from operating in the US unless it is sold, it’s not hard to imagine that lawmakers might turn their attention to other prominent Chinese tech companies.

“There might be some kind of legal strategy behind this, but in terms of how the public will now perceive TikTok, it has voluntarily opted to be associated with Temu and Shein and has undone a lot of the narrative work it has been trying to do,” says Ivy Yang, the founder of Wavelet Strategy, a strategic PR consultancy who has worked in Alibaba’s PR department.

By comparing TikTok’s data security concerns to Shein’s and Temu’s, the company essentially has labeled itself among a number of Chinese companies considered security risks.

So far, Shein and Temu have not made any statement about the PAFACA bill and its potential implications on their businesses. A Shein spokesperson responded in an emailed statement: “SHEIN has robust data security policies and practices in line with industry standards, and we are committed to only collecting and using the minimum amount of data needed to fulfill orders. SHEIN stores US customer data within Microsoft’s US-based Azure cloud-based solution and within AWS’s US-based cloud-based solution.” Temu and TikTok did not reply to requests for comment.

These ecommerce companies have plenty of problems to deal with at the moment too. A September White House decision to scrap a tariff exemption policy could significantly increase shipping costs for them and harm their profitability. Meanwhile, the two ecommerce companies have been embroiled in a tit-for-tat legal battle in the US since July 2023, accusing each other of monopolistic practices and deceptive marketing.

“What they are doing is basically airing all the dirty laundry,” Yang says about the Shein–Temu court fights. “It’s very much, ‘We are competitors and we have to beat the other party no matter how far we go, even though as a whole it’s a terrible look on Chinese companies.’” The same problem is playing out as TikTok seemingly decided to take down its fellow Chinese companies to save itself in the court.

But TikTok’s gambit may not pay off in the end. Even if it successfully argues that the Congress shouldn’t just target one app for its data security risks, it still needs to refute the government’s other justification for the law—that TikTok could be subject to content and algorithm manipulation by the Chinese government in the future. “The law has used two justifications. [If] one is invalid and the other is valid, the law is still valid,” says Rozenshtein.

There has been no proof—at least not in the nonredacted materials—that the Chinese government is currently interfering with TikTok’s content in the US. But during last week’s hearing, none of the judges seemed interested in discussing this point with TikTok or the government.

“[TikTok] made the best argument they could. Just the argument went very poorly for them,” Rozenshtein says. “I don’t think it’s conceivable that TikTok will win, at least on this level.”

[fatehbaz]

It's a big mess of hubris; the manipulative use of scientific language to legitimate/validate the status quo; Victorian/Gilded Age notions of resource extraction; the "rightness" of "land improvement"; and the inevitability of empire.

This was published in the United States one year before the massacre at Wounded Knee.

This was the final year-ish of the so-called "Indian Wars" when the US was "completing" its colonization of western North America; at the beginning of the Gilded Age and the zenith of power for industrial/corporate monopolies; when Britain, France, and the US were pursuing ambitious mega-projects across the planet like giant canals and dams; just as the US was about to begin its imperial occupations in Central America and Pacific islands; during the height of the "Scramble for Africa" when European powers were carving up that continent; with the British Empire at the ultimate peak of its power, after the Crown had taken direct control of India; in the years leading up to mass labor organizing and the industrialization of war precipitating the mass death of the two world wars.

This was also the time when new academic disciplines were formally professionalized (geology; anthropology; archaeology; ecology).

Classic example of Victorian-era (and emerging modernist and twentieth-century) imperial hubris which implies justification for its social hierarchies built on resource extraction and dispossession by invoking both emerging technical engineering prowess (trains, telegraphs, electricity) and the in-vogue scientific theories widely popularized at the time (Lyell's work, dinosaurs, and the geology discipline granting new understanding of the grand scale of deep time; Darwin's work and ideas of biological evolution; birth of anthropology as an academic discipline promoting the idea of "natural" linear progression from "savagery" to imperial civilization; the technical "efficiency" of monoculture/plantations; emerging systems ecology and new ideas of biogeographical regions).

While also simultaneously doing the work to, by implication, absolve them of ethical complicity/responsibility for the cruelty of their institutions by naturalizing those institutions (excusing the violence of wealth disparities, poverty, crowded factory laboring conditions, mass imprisonment, copper mines, South Asian famine, the industrialization of war eventually manifesting in the Great War, etc.) by claiming that "commerce is a science"; "pursuit of profit is Natural"; "empire is inevitable".

This tendency to invoke science as justification for imperial hegemony, whether in Britain in the 1880s or the United States in the 1920s and such, might be a continuation of earlier European ventures from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries which included the use of cartography, surveying/geography, Linnaean taxonomy, botany, and natural history to map colonies/botanical resources and build/justify plantations and commercial empires in the Portuguese slave ports, Dutch East Indies, or the Spanish Americas.

Some of the issues at play:

-- Commerce is "A Science". Commerce is shown to be both an ecological system (by illustrating it as if it were a landscape, which is kinda technically true) and a physiological system (by equating infrastructure/extraction networks with veins) suggesting wealth accumulation is Natural.

-- If commerce/capitalism are Natural, then evolutionary theory and linear histories suggest it is also Inevitable (it was not mass violence of a privileged few humans who spent centuries beating the Earth into submission to impose the Victorian/Gilded Age state of things, it was in fact simply a natural evolutionary progression). And if wealth accumulation is Natural, then it is only Right to pursue "land improvement".

-- US/European hubris. They can claim to perceive the planet in its apparent totality (as a globe, within the bounds of extraterrestrial space as if it were a laboratory or plantation). The planet and all its lifeforms are an extension of their body, implying a justified dominion.

-- However, their anxiety and suspicions about the stability of empire are belied by their fear of collapse and the simultaneous US/European obsession at the time with ancient civilizations, the "fall of Rome", classical ruins, etc. At this time, the professionalization of the field of archaeology had helped popularize images and stories of Sumer, Egypt, the Bronze Age, the Aegean, Rome, etc. And there was what Ann Stoler has called an "imperialist nostalgia" and a fascination with ancient ruins, as if Britain/US were heirs to the legacy of Athens and Rome. You can see elements of this in the turn of the century popularity of Theosophy/spiritualism, or the 1920s revival of "classical" fashions. This historicism also popularized a sort of "linear narrative" of history/empires, reinforced by simultaneous professionalization of anthropology, which insinuated that humans advance from a "primitive" state towards modernity's empires.

-- Meanwhile, from the first decades of the nineteenth century when Megalosaurus and Iguanodon helped to popularize fascination with dinosaurs, Georgian and later Victorian Britain became familiar with deep time and extinction, which probably contributed to British anxiety about extinction, imperial collapse, lastness, and death.

-- Simultaneously, the massive expansion of printed periodicals allowed for sensationalist narrativizing of science.

-- The masking of the cruelty in a euphemism like "land improvement". Like sentencing someone to a de facto slow death and deprivation in a prison but calling it a "sanatorium" or "reformatory". Or calling the mass amounts of poor, disabled, women, etc. underclasses of London "unfortunates". Whether it's Victorian Britain or early twentieth century United States: "Our empire is doing this for the betterment and advancement of all mankind."

-- If an ecosystem is conceived as a machine, "land improvement" actually means monoculture, high-density production, resource extraction, concentration.

-- The image depicts the body is itself is also a mere machine (dehumanization, etc.). And if human bodies are shown to be also systems, networks, machines like an ecosystem, then human bodies can also be concentrated for efficiency and productivity (literal concentration camps, prisons, factories, company towns, slums, dosshouses, etc.). This is the thinking that reduces humans and other creatures to objects, resources, to be concentrated and converted into wealth.

And so after the rise of railroads and coal-power and industrial factories in the earlier nineteenth century, the fin de siecle and Edwardian era then saw the expansion of domestic electricity, easier photography, telephones, radio, and automobiles. But you also witness the spread of mass imprisonment, warplanes, and machine guns, etc. And in the midst of this, the Victorian/Gilded Age also saw the rise of magazines, newspapers, mass media, pop-sci stuff, etc. So this wider array of published material, including visual stuff like maps and infographics could "win over" popular perception. This is nearly a century after the Haitian Revolution, so more and more people would have been able to witness and call out the contradictions and hypocrisies of these "civilized" nations, so scientific validation was important to empire's public image. (Think: 100 years prior, everyone witnessed widespread revolutions and slave rebellions, but now the European empires are still using indentured labor, expanding prisons, and growing even more powerful in Africa, etc. An outrage.)

Illustrations like this ...

It's people with power (or people with a vested interest in these institutions, people who aspire to climbing the social ladder, people who defend the status quo) looking around at the general state of things, observing all of the cruelty and precarity, and then using scientific discourses to concede and say "this was inevitable, this was natural" and not only that, but also "and this is good".

Related reading:

Peoples on Parade: Exhibitions, Empire, and Anthropology in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Sadiah Qureshi, 2011); The Earth on Show: Fossils and the Poetics of Popular Science, 1802-1856 (Ralph O’Connor); "Science in the Nursery: the popularisation of science in Britain and France, 1761-1901" (Laurence Talairach-Vielmas, 2011); Citizens and Rulers of the World: The American Child and the Cartographic Pedagogies of Empire (Mashid Mayar); "Viewing Plantations at the Intersection of Political Ecologies and Multiple Space-Times" (Irene Peano, Marta Macedo, and Collette Le Petitcrops); “Paradise Discourse, Imperialism, and Globalization: Exploiting Eden" (Sharae Deckard); "Forgotten Paths of Empire: Ecology, Disease, and Commerce in the Making of Liberia's Plantation Economy" (Gregg Mitman, 2017); Imperial Debris: On Ruins and Ruination (Ann Laura Stoler, 2013)

Fairy Tales, Natural History and Victorian Culture (Laurence Talairach-Vielmas, 2014); Mining the Borderlands: Industry, Capital, and the Emergence of Engineers in the Southwest Territories, 1855-1910 (Sarah E.M. Grossman, 2018); Pasteur’s Empire: Bacteriology and Politics in France, Its Colonies, and the World (Aro Velmet, 2022); "Shaping the beast: the nineteenth-century poetics of palaeontology" (Talairach-Vielmas, 2013); In the Museum of Man: Race, Anthropology, and Empire in France, 1850-1960 (Alice Conklin, 2013); Inscriptions of Nature: Geology and the Naturalization of Antiquity (Pratik Chakrabarti, 2020)

[yourreddancer]

Heather Cox Richardson 11.18.24

On Friday, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo locked in a $6.6 billion deal with the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company for it to invest $65 billion in three state-of-the-art fabrication plants in Arizona. This will bring thousands of jobs to the state. The money comes from the CHIPS and Science Act, about which Trump told podcaster Joe Rogan on October 25: “That CHIPS deal is so bad.” House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said he would work to repeal the law, although he backed off that statement when Republicans noted the jobs the law has brought to their states. 

Also on Friday, a Trump-appointed federal judge struck down a Biden administration rule that would have made 4 million workers eligible for overtime pay. The rule raised the salary level below which an employer has to pay overtime from $35,568 to $43,888 this year and up to $58,656 in 2025. The decision by Texas judge Sean D. Jordan kills the measure nationally.

On Sunday, speaking from the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, President Joe Biden said that it would not be possible to reverse America’s “clean energy revolution,” which has now provided jobs across the country, primarily in Republican-dominated states. Biden noted that the U.S. would spend $11 billion on financing international responses to climate change in 2024, an increase of six times from when he began his term. 

But President-elect Trump has called climate change a hoax and has vowed to claw back money from the Inflation Reduction Act appropriated to mitigate it, and to turn the U.S. back to fossil fuels. What Trump will have a harder time disrupting, according to Nicolás Rivero of the Washington Post, is the new efficiency standards the Biden administration put in place for appliances. He can, though, refuse to advance those standards.

Meanwhile Trump and his team are announcing a complete reworking of the American government. They claim a mandate, although as final vote tallies are coming in, it turns out that Trump did not win 50% of the vote, and CNN statistician Harry Enten notes that his margin comes in at 44th out of the 51 elections that have been held since 1824. He also had very short coattails—four Democrats won in states Trump carried—and the Republicans have the smallest House majority since there have been 50 states, despite the help their numbers have had from the extreme gerrymandering in states like North Carolina. 

More Americans voted for someone other than Trump than voted for him.

Although Trump ran on lowering the cost of consumer goods, Trump and his sidekick Elon Musk, along with pharmaceutical entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, have vowed to slash the U.S. government, apparently taking their cue from Argentina’s self-described anarcho-capitalist president Javier Milei, who was the first foreign leader to visit Trump after the election. Milei’s “shock therapy” to his country threw the nation into a deep recession, just as Musk says his plans will create “hardship” for Americans before enabling the country to rebuild with security. 

Ramaswamy today posted on social media, “A reasonable formula to fix the U.S. government: Milei-style cuts, on steroids.” He has suggested that cuts are easier than people think. The Washington Post’s Philip Bump noted that on a podcast in September, Ramaswamy said as an example: “If your Social Security number ends in an odd number, you’re out. If it ends in an even number, you’re in. There’s a 50 percent cut right there. Of those who remain, if your Social Security number starts in an even number, you’re in, and if it starts with an odd number, you’re out. Boom. That’s a 75 percent reduction done.”

But, as Bump notes, this reveals Ramaswamy’s lack of understanding of how the government actually works. Social Security numbers aren’t random; the first digit refers to where the number was obtained. So this seemingly random system would target certain areas of the country. 

Today, both Jacob Bogage, Jeff Stein, and Dan Diamond of the Washington Post and Robert Tait of The Guardian reported that Trump’s economic advisors are talking with Republicans in Congress about cuts to Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) formerly known as food stamps, and other welfare programs, in order to cover the enormous costs of extending tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. Medicaid is the nation’s health insurance for low-income Americans and long-term care. It covers more than 90 million Americans, one in five of us. Rural populations, which tend to vote Republican, use supplemental nutrition programs more than urban dwellers do. 

The Washington Post reporters note that Republicans deny that they are trying to reduce benefits for the poor. They are, they say, trying to reduce wasteful and unnecessary spending. “We know there’s tremendous waste,” said House Budget Committee chairman Jodey Arrington (R-TX). “What we don’t seem to have in the hour of action, like when we have the trifecta and unified Republican leadership, is the political courage to do it for the love of country. [Trump] does.”

Those cuts will likely not sit well with the Republicans whose constituents think Trump promised there would be no cuts to the programs on which they depend.

Trump’s planned nominations of unqualified extremists have also run into trouble. Senate Republicans are so far refusing to abandon their constitutional powers in order to act as a rubber stamp to enable Trump’s worst instincts. Former representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a Trump bomb thrower, was unqualified to be the nation's attorney general in any case, but as more information comes out about his alleged participation in drug fueled orgies, including the news that a woman allegedly told the House Ethics Committee that she saw him engage in sex with a minor, those problems have gotten worse. 

Legal analyst Marcy Wheeler notes that the lawyers representing the witnesses for the committee are pushing for the release of the ethics committee’s report at least in part out of concern that if he becomes attorney general, Gaetz will retaliate against them. 

According to Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman, fear of the MAGA Republican colleagues who are already trying to bully them into becoming Trump loyalists is infecting congress members, too. When asked if Gaetz was qualified for the attorney general post, Representative Mike Simpson (R-ID) answered: “Are you sh*tting me, that you just asked that question? No. But hell, you’ll print that and now I’m going to be investigated.”

The many fringe medical ideas of Trump’s pick for secretary of health and human services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., earned him the right-wing New York Post editorial board’s denigration as “nuts on a lot of fronts.” The board called his views “a head-scratching spaghetti of what we can only call warped conspiracy theories, and not just on vaccines.” Kennedy is a well-known opponent of vaccines—he called Covid-19 vaccines a “crime against humanity”—and has called for the National Institutes of Health to “take a break” of about eight years from studying infectious diseases, insisting that they should focus on chronic diseases instead.

Writing in the New York Times yesterday, Peter Baker noted that Trump “has rolled a giant grenade into the middle of the nation’s capital and watched with mischievous glee to see who runs away and who throws themselves on it.” Mischievous glee is one way to put it; another is that he is trying to destroy the foundations of the American government.

Baker notes that none of Trump’s selections would have been anything but laughable in the pre-Trump era when, for example, Democratic cabinet nominations were sunk for a failure to pay employment taxes for a nanny, or for a donor-provided car. Nor would a president-elect in the past have presumed to tap three of his own defense lawyers for top positions in the Department of Justice, effectively guaranteeing that he will be protected from scrutiny. 

A former deputy White House press secretary during Trump’s first term, Sarah Matthews, said Trump is “drunk on power right now because he feels like he was given a mandate by winning the popular vote.”

Today Trump confirmed that he intends to bypass normal legal constraints on his actions by declaring a national emergency on his first day in office in order to launch his mass deportation of undocumented migrants. While the Congressional Budget Office estimates this mass deportation will cost at least $88 billion a year, another cost that is rarely mentioned is that according to Bloomberg, undocumented immigrants currently pay about $100 billion a year in taxes. Losing that income, too, will likely have to be made up with cuts from elsewhere. 

Finally, today, CNBC’s economic analyst Carl Quintanilla noted today that average gasoline prices are expected to fall below $3.00 a gallon before the Thanksgiving holiday. 

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