#can you imagine your members voting against our human rights might also have offended some people CAN YOU IMAGINE H BHBHRH

[prehistoric-rat]

in finland our biggest pride event canceled their partnership with our biggest political party because the party hadn't voted in agreement about our new trans law (to allow self-ID and remove requirement of being sterile (yeah really)) (the party had ruled it a “matter of conscience” and abt 1/3 voted against), and now our news are full of the members of that party being pissed abt it and our likely next prime minister commenting how this is “sad and offends many people”, and ppl are flocking to lament and mock how pride is so intolerable and how u have to have 100% correct opinions in order to participate and i'm

[sofard]

"I’m not a racist, but...”

A friend of mine once used a fake name on a job application. He had the kind of pedigree that would have all but guaranteed him at least an interview were it his name was of the fairer skinned variety but as it were, he was deep in a several-months-long streak of rejected applications and the skin suit he was blessed with at birth was of the Indian persuasion.

Evidently what inspired his decision to lie about his name was a study published around that time that showed that people with traditionally “black” names were a third less likely to be called back for an interview than those with “white” names and he figured what might be true of the Daquans and Tyrones of the world might be true of the Daneshes and Tanvirs. 

In what proved to be a fortuitous state of affairs for him and a sad state of affairs for humanity, he was right. He landed the interview (and the job) and apparently explaining to your would-be boss that your name is actually Navin Modi and not Nathan Madison is indeed as awkward as one would expect. Upon receiving word of Navin's deceit, his boss was predictably upset but also afraid of the HR nightmare that might ensue should he raise an uproar, and Navin, for his part, was left with the kind of morose self righteousness one feels when our worst suspicions are vindicated. 

This story is worth sharing because it bears on the pernicious subtlety of contemporary racism. Racism with a capital R still exists, but we have mostly silenced it. The tragedy of today is that even in the upper echelons of progressive, liberal, socially-conscious society, there remains the kind of racial biases we assume we have shed. And because calling someone a racist has become more taboo than actually being racist, accusations of “race based decision making,” to put it kindly, are welcomed with a kind of awkward denial the likes of which you might expect if you publicly point out someone’s hair plugs. 

I think the shaming of racism speaks to why there is so much silent disagreement over its prevelance. Political correctness has done too great of a job of shutting out explicit bigotry in the public sphere, and so pointing out its more complicated or subdued manifestations can make you sound like a conspiracy theorist at times. 

We are wired to notice change and ignore the consistent. It is why we miss partners most when they are gone. And because lynchings and residential schools are a thing of the past, we are left bickering over things like whether or not police brutality is indeed discriminatory, each side cherrypicking favourable details from academic papers and criticizing study flaws to make their point.  

There is a scene in Django Unchained where Leonardo Dicaprio’s character, Candie Calvin, owner of Candie-land, a prosperous plantation, threatens to murder his slave (the protagonist’s love interest), Broomhilda, by bludgeoning her with a hammer, unless his unwelcome guests pay him twelve thousand dollars. Regardless of your opinion of the civil war or race politics today, I imagine any viewer, save perhaps psychopaths, was reeling in empathy watching that scene. Even the most bigoted amongst us will find it easy to condemn the racial-slurs-screaming antagonists portrayed in films; those characters who are portrayed with an ugliness on the outside to suit the ugliness inside. 

Candie Calvin threatening to murder his property, Broomhilda.

These kind of extremes, in film or history books, serve as a sort of healing stone, placating our conscience and forgiving us of the kind of daily prejudices that go unnoticed. This is why it is possible for some to simultaneously hate german nazis from World War II and sympathize with modern white nationals who extol similar rhetoric under the guise of preserving history or cultural identity. 

In this way, art and media pacify our conscience. I am not yelling chink at every Chinese person I see crossing the street and so I am better than the worst portrayed in film, I am conditioned to believe. This is what our understanding of racism today looks like, if you can call it that. The very word evokes such a garish or violent extreme of bigotry that we become blinded to its more detrimental and subtle varieties the way staring into headlights blinds you to the muted glow of the stars. 

People like resolutions. The tearing down of the Berlin wall was a great symbolic end to the cold war. The images of young men and women, sledge hammers in hand, swinging at the graffitied wall bear some kind of cathartic victory over a darker past. There is no physical wall separating races, no monument celebrating racism (though if there were I would be the first person to volunteer its design) we can tear down and so instead we erect one-dimensional symbols of intolerance and make peace with our history by defeating them. 

I once had a conversation about race with a white friend of mine who said sincerely “I wish I took advantage of white privilege” as though it is government-issued token you can cash in opportunistically. “Sorry, I am seeing someone” — “Wait, I have 3 white privilege vouchers” — “Why didn’t you say so? Where should we fuck?" 

There are endless statistics to measure at least the empirical manifestations of racism. White people are less likely to be arrested for the same crime as minorities, more favoured romantically than any other race on dating sites, more likely to be hired with the same resume, more likely to be cast in film roles, more likely to be acquitted for a crime, more likely to be given a loan — the list goes on and on. 

We call this kind of stuff systemic racism. I believe we do so in part because it helps absolve any particular individual from prejudice. It’s more comforting to know that institutions and socioeconomic classes are responsible for prejudice than we are as complicit, voting, individuals. Racism, and other isms, in this way, have evolved from a choice of an individual to a phenomenon as natural as hurricane winds; something to be studied and measured and explained through psychological and socioeconomic theory. 

How privileged a race is on the spectrum of societal tolerance can be measured by the extent to which their improprieties are afforded context. A white woman who murders her cheating husband is understood to be blinded by temporary insanity or moment of passion. We might punish her out of civil duty, but deep down we extend some empathy to the heart stricken widow. Films will be made and books written attempting to explain what compelled an otherwise lovely woman to commit a crime of passion. Psychologists will be interviewed to assess how, perhaps, her father’s frequent trips overseas and the condom she once found in his travel bag plagued her with a mistrust of men throughout adulthood and how that combined with an abusive boyfriend in her past all but guaranteed destiny would bring her to this horrible act. 

Stereotypes are a burden carried by minorities and individuality a luxury afforded to the light skinned. When I go to a restaurant, I make sure to give a nice tip even if the service is terrible. I feel that in social settings I am an ambassador for Middle Eastern people the world over, like I am carrying a lanyard with the words “Iranian Male Corp. Name: Saeid Fard. Ask me about how non threatening I am.” One act of rudeness or impropriety might be generalized to my entire community, I fear, and conversely all the stereotypes of middle eastern men, the chauvinism, homophobia, or proclivity to douse ourselves in a shroud of cologne, are assumptions I have to actively invalidate. 

I recall one corporate training session years ago when conversation of diversity in the workplace came up and the lead administrator, the kind of person who gets off on being offended, asked the group to raise their hands if they have a gay friend. One of my closest friends at the time was gay (which I hate to bring up because invoking friendship with a minority is the go to defence of any bigot), but I declined to raise my hand on grounds of how ugly I found the question to be. I wondered if he would feel as comfortable asking the group if they have a black friend. Did not raising one’s hand imply that one is necessarily homophobic? Needless to say, I was the only one with my hand down. I was hoping this would spark some kind of dialog where I could make the point of how I found his very question insulting and unproductive. Instead he made eye contact with me, lectured us briefly with platitudes about the importance of diverse perspectives, and moved on. That was it. It was a homophobes-anonymous roll call and apparently I was the only member. Perhaps it was my own insecurity, but I imagined him looking up my name on a clipboard later with the words “hates gay people” next to it and a box labeled “verified” which he gleefully checked.

I have spoken to many members of visible minority groups who feel the same way — feel that they must proactively fight against the assumptions made of them. Even “positive” stereotypes are destructive in that they strip us of complexity. Blacks as athletic or asians good at math, are the kinds of expectations that strip  people of the freedom to self actualize. Slavoj Zizek touches on this point in his talk of political correctness and racial cliches. In one binary cultural narrative of the west, natives are cast as stewards of nature living in harmony with the environment, while the white colonialists on the other hand conquered their environment and are now dealing with a rapprochement of sorts. The truth is, of course, more complex. Natives, for instance, employed what would be considered today barbaric hunting practices that brought the buffalo population of North America to near extinction. Giving people the benefit of being fully human requires giving them the dignity to be horrible. 

Modern day racism is the stripping of individuality and complexity. We spend more effort trying to understand why people of European descent do things and yet generalize the behaviours of coloured people to inherent flaws (or virtues) of their race. A white serial killer is a case study in human psychopathy. A brown one is a terrorist. A white drug user is self medicating, or exploring their identity or navigating societal norms. A black drug user is a thug. It’s worth noting now that there is also an undeniable element of social and economic class at play but describing our penchant to strip minorities of individuality cannot only be deconstructed by race. 

When I was in seventh grade I had the misfortune of being granted the nickname Saudi Arabia from my class of mostly east Asian and White children. Kids will be kids and most of them will tease and be teased, but it’s not if but how you are teased during your formative years that defines what talismanic insecurities you will exercise into adulthood. Already different from every student, I became acutely aware of how physically different I was from my peers at the time. Darker, hairier, wide-nosed, the list goes on. Insults and defamations aside, words have a way of mirroring your identity, a literary conduit into the perceptions of others. I was brown (or olive or whatever) and that brownness or oliveness or whatever really seemed to mean something to people. 

Two paths emerge when people are persistently reminded of their differentness from such a young age, they either let that differentness empower them or swallow them whole. We carry our adolescent identities and insecurities to our grave. And it is through those formative experiences and labels that we develop the racial pride and resentments that bias the decision making of even the best of us. 

Our present inability to rid ourselves of this whole messy racism thing is in part due to the fact that we have been trained to care about race in the first place. The moment you devise an arbitrary way to separate people, whether it be race, national boundaries, or gender, the pernicious “ism” won’t be too far behind. Make too much of a fuss about the sexes (as we have for centuries) and sexism will brew and, like a parasite, snake its way into the most fundamental assumptions we make about each other. We have collectively decided that talking of the “positive” elements of our race is permissable but talking of the “negative” is not. The problem is they are two sides of the same coin. The instant you allow a place for value judgments, there will be both good and bad judgments. 

I don’t believe we can ever truly rid the world of racism, but we can make progress to reduce it. And that starts with the inconvenient step of thinking twice when we celebrate our particular race or culture. That is hard, and perhaps controversial, because many would argue that celebrating our race, particularly as minorities, is a step towards empowerment. And that’s true, but empowerment perpetuates the very acknowledgement of race that can stifle progress. 

Our tendency is to cling to identity myths to help give our lives meaning. Race serves as a kind of semi-exclusive club we are born into. Some clubs have better member benefits than others, but better to be a part of a club than a pariah. 

We are tribal, after all. Study after study has shown that when you give groups of children or adults an arbitrary identity, like making some of them team blue and others team red, they will eventually begin to drape themselves in that identity and build real favouritism for their own and resentment for others. We are literally hard wired for it. 

I dream of a day where we have successfully interbred to the point where the human genetic soup becomes some kind of mono race. Then, we can hate each other for entirely novel reasons.

[polishgene]

Left, right & center

Whatever you believe in, you will eventually be challenged by someone “smarter” than you.

Smart, meaning that they know how to use the right words and arguments to perhaps make you doubt what you strongly believe in. Smart, meaning that they might have a less emotional, less intuitive approach to an idea. Instead, they use data or experimentation to find logical, rational arguments that are often harder to stand up against in a conversation.

Deep down, you may still believe that you are right, but because you approach things more intuitively, on the surface your beliefs will seem weaker and less valid than those of someone with hard arguments. You are forced to face your worst fear: the necessity to rethink your values, to challenge the fundamental truths on which your world is built. This can be much more challenging than we think and most of us will never even entertain the possibility.

Take any political belief that you are absolutely adamant about and then imagine what it would take for you to doubt it. If you can’t imagine it, it means you haven’t met your match yet.

For every hardline right-winger we need a sharp and tough enough far leftist. 

For every unbending socioliberal, we need a soft spoken conservative.

Believing that the world is as flat as seen from where you’re sitting is just as dangerous a concept as thinking that it’s the only correct way to think about the world. But taking a trip away from your values is no walk in the park and you will find yourself looking into some very dark corners of your own soul.

If you strongly believe yourself to be tolerant and open-minded, when faced with a smart, yet evidently racist counterpart, you may find yourself considering under what circumstances you might actually become racist.

It’s not fun, realising we’re only human and mostly determined by our environments and not necessarily by our own free will. But isn’t that the only way to stop hating the people we don’t understand? And how else can we survive in an increasingly polarised world, where we not only read about extremism in history books but we actually come across it in our streets, schools, workplaces or even homes?

And does it mean that you are moving more towards the right or left if you’re changing your mind - even if it’s just for a moment? Is the center some idyllic place bang in the middle of extreme left and extreme right? Or perhaps it is an imperfect place occupied by so many of us, lost and desperately looking for a box to fit into?

If I want you to change your mind, it’s not necessarily for my own benefit. Perhaps I think it would give you some kind of relief to realize that you may actually connect with the people you so desperately want to despise. 

Or, perhaps I have an itch to plant a tiny seed of an insanely uncomfortable thought in your head. A thought that perhaps - God forbid - you might actually have something in common with those terrible people.

But, hey, you already do! You share with them your motherland and in it its daily bastions of democracy: supermarkets, public transport, universities, hospitals, public libraries, museums, etc.

Perhaps there’s that one aspect of understanding who they are and where they came from that will indeed be helpful in understanding a little bit more about yourself. And if you still see them only as inexplicable monsters, then at least you’ve given them enough chances as a fellow human and citizen to change your mind about them.

And perhaps that makes you less of an inexplicable monster to them. And if you don’t care about that, then you don’t care about democracy either.

Take the 1989 Polish Round Table negotiations between members of the communist government and democratic opposition. According to psychologist Janusz Reykowski, who participated in the talks, what made success possible were certain conditions that had been described by German philosopher Jurgen Habermas. 

His theory of effective communication states that there are five conditions necessary to achieve compromise:

Equality - the assumption that all sides involved are seen as equals

Mutual respect - the rule that no words spoken should offend or demean

Ability to see the source of conflict from the other side’s perspective

Rational evaluation of differences - acknowledging that we differ in opinion

Readiness to explore a just solution - one that doesn’t harm either of the sides

The Round Table Agreement resulted in the first semi-democratic elections and eventually ended the rule of a communist regime under which Polish people had lived for fifty years. Would they have achieved this by pointing out each other’s obvious weaknesses?

No matter how hard, it’s always better and more effective to connect rather than disconnect ourselves from each other. It’s also better to be prepared for a political truth that may indeed be your worst nightmare.

There’s nothing heroic about disagreeing with someone if that disagreement isn’t going to change anything. There’s something transforming - however - in seeing the other side as they are and not judging them at face value. 

Seeing those other people march and respectfully walking against the current?  

You get my vote.

[viralhottopics]

Dear White, Christian Trump Supporters: We Need To Talk

Plenty of pundits keep telling us progressives that we didnt listen to them in the heartland to you of the white working class, to you of conservative Christianity.

Actually, I grew up as one of you. Ive listened to you my whole life, but I dont think I know how to understand you at all.

I suppose now youd consider me part of the so-called liberal elite. Im a west coast university professor with a Ph.D. and almost 30 years of teaching experience. But Im the daughter of a Southern Baptist, working-class pipe fitter at a paper mill in a small, conservative town in northwest Georgia.

My parents did not go to college (my father finally earned a degree after hed retired from the paper mill). Only one of my four grandparents finished high school. I studied hard, got a scholarship, kept studying, kept working, and I moved into the white collar middle class.

My white conservative Christian upbringing had told me that was the American Dream to work hard and succeed. I did, and I feel youre holding it against me now that I no longer share your views. I think you must imagine the liberal elite as East Coast, Ivy League-educated, trust fund babies completely out of touch with how most people live.

Sure, some faculty members grew up with money. Some went to Ivy League schools. But a lot of us professors were you working class kids who did whatever it took to get a college education. Along the way, a lot of us developed progressive ideas, not out of our privilege, but out of our own experiences of discrimination, struggle, and oppression.

We read and argued and wrote and rewrote. We got peer-reviewed, over and over and over. Our ideas are held to incredibly high, rigorous standards, and so, when we speak we do so carefully, thoughtfully, with nuance, and with openness because sometimes we are also wrong. But because weve studied hard and held ourselves up to professional standards, we really do know a lot about what were talking about, and we have something to offer in a real conversation across our differences (including the East Coast Ivy Leaguers who arent as out of touch as you may think). But I dont think you want to hear us or me.

You tell me I need to get over Trumps election and stop being a sore loser. But politics is not a sport. We dont choose teams and simply cheer ours on to victory. My beloved Atlanta Falcons lost the Super Bowl, and, painful though that was, I will get over it. It hurts, but I wont protest, march, write letters, or otherwise resist the outcome, even if we discover New Englands balls were deflated. Its a game, but its not life or death.

This election, however, is exactly that. Perhaps you can tell me to get over it because you do not have to worry that Trump will appoint a Supreme Court justice that could play a role in invalidating your marriage. If Congress passes and Trump signs the First Amendment Defense Act, you probably wont have to worry that a bakery, restaurant, or hotel might legally deny you service. You dont have to worry about being stranded at an airport and refused admission to the U.S. because of the country youre from or the religion you practice. You dont have to worry about having your family divided across the world with a simple signature on an executive order.

You say you are aggrieved because you have not achieved what you think you deserve or you think some less deserving other has taken it. Despite having moved into the middle class, I have spent my career teaching about and advocating for labor unions, a living wage, affordable childcare, social security, affordable healthcare, accessible higher education. Progressives are actually the ones who support the economic programs and policies that could make a difference for the working class.

You have a right to be aggrieved, but I fear you are targeting the wrong people. Low paying jobs, job insecurity, companies moving work overseas, low benefits, little vacation these are the results of decades of policies that benefit the truly wealthy those whose wealth depends not on the labor of their hands but on their ability to exploit the production of poorly paid laborers. The problem is not that immigrants have taken your jobs or drained money from the safety net. The problem is that the system of wealth sets workers against one another so they do not target the real economic power that limits their work and financial security.

You say you want progressives to listen to you. Then prioritize truth. This election was filled with fake news, shared widely on Facebook, and this administration already has begun to create a language of alternative facts to misinform and mislead. If you want to talk, offer evidence, real evidence based on verifiable data and reliable sources, not wishful imaginings or fabricated Breitbart stories. An internet meme is not an informed and legitimate point of argument that facilitates dialogue. Weve reached a point where youd rather believe an overt lie if it supports a belief you already hold than pursue the truth if it might challenge your currently held belief.

The Bible tells us God is a God of truth and the truth will set us free. Yet you chose someone who lies with impunity. I want to understand how you choose to ignore the evidence that is right in front of your eyes photos of the crowds at two different inaugurations, for example. How do you accept what is proven to be a lie? How do you support someone who, rather than correct the record, doubles down on his lies?

Especially, how do you do this in the name of the God of truth? Before the election I saw one of you whod written as an evangelical Christian in support of Trump that God can use anyone. So help me understand why you thought God could use a man whod said hed never asked God for forgiveness, who serially committed adultery, who said he could grab women by the genitals, who cheated contractors and workers, but you didnt think God could use a woman who is a Christian, a lifelong Methodist and who, from the heart, quotes the Bible and John Wesley (when Trump didnt even know how to say Second Corinthians, which he called Two Corinthians, and when asked for his favorite Bible verse struggled to name one until he landed on an eye for an eye. And you know what Jesus said about that one).

I know youve been offended that progressives have called you racist for voting for Trump. I understand that. You dont see yourself as racist. But you did knowingly vote for someone who insulted Latinos, Blacks, Muslims, and Jews. And women. And LGBTQ people. And people with disabilities. Help me understand how that squares with the notion of Gods love for all people.

Can you really imagine Jesus using the words Trump did about these groups of people? How would you characterize voting for someone who is overtly racist? Help me understand how you align your Christian perspective with his racism, misogyny, homophobia, Islamophobia, and antisemitism.

Im afraid that what you want is a nation that conforms to your interpretation of the Bible. Thats where we really run into trouble because that would require you to force your particular conservative Christian beliefs on everyone else. I dont understand how people who want to claim religious liberty for themselves are so unwilling to give it to everyone, which is actually the premise of true religious liberty.

You say you want a Christian nation, but our founders were clear that was never their goal. In fact, the Constitution goes to great lengths to protect the government from religion and religion from government. I also get the sense that you think people are not Christians if they arent Christian in the same way as you. But cant we find some common ground? Cant we agree that all people should be free to practice their religion or practice no religion and should be safe from coercion based on religion? Cant we agree that we share values of love, kindness, respect, and community and then try to live those with each other? Do you really think a Christian, especially a biblical literalist, can want a wall built?

The Bible is clear about how we are to treat foreigners among us no matter how they got here. What if the Egyptians had built a wall before Mary and Joseph fled from King Herod? Our Christian story starts with a refugee family. Can we not practice our shared Christian values with immigrants and refugees coming to our country?

Cant we find common ground on issues like, say, abortion? I think we could have a common goal of lowering abortion rates. After all, you will never end abortions. Maybe you can end the safe, legal ones, but, one way or another, women will still have abortions. They will just be more likely to die from them.

And heres where I think dealing with facts is crucial to find common ground. We know that abortion rates are lower worldwide when there is no global gag order. We also know that what is most successful in lowering abortion rates is access to contraception, accurate sex education, and personal and economic empowerment for women.

To cling to overturning Roe v. Wade as the only way to end abortions is a fantasy based on ideology rather than medical science and social science, and it flies in the face of the evidence for what is successful. So the real question is are you more interested in actual effectiveness in lowering abortion rates or ideological purity? We can lower abortion rates together but not by denying women choices over their own bodies. We can be effective together by listening to the data and working together to ensure all women have access to contraception, education, and social and economic resources. Are you willing to have that conversation?

Ive heard some of you say that well just have to agree to disagree, but thats a problem. You see, were not talking about ideas here. Were talking about actual human lives. If we were talking about predestination or modes of baptism or premillennialism, Id say, sure, lets agree to disagree. The stakes are pretty low. But if were talking about the rights of people to access housing, clean water and air, and healthy food or the possibility of a nuclear arms race or discrimination written into law or women losing basic life-saving health screenings, or young black men being incarcerated disproportionately, or Native peoples having their sacred sites desecrated and their water poisoned, or Muslim people being targeted for their faith, then the stakes are much higher, and I cannot simply agree to disagree.

Thats why Im writing you now. We need to talk, and I dont know how to talk to you anymore. I need to know, is it more important to you to win than to do good? Or can we build coalitions? Listen to science? Rely on real evidence? Be effective? Put the needs and rights of all others above ideologies? Can we live the love of God we claim? You want me to hear and understand you. I get that. I also want you to hear and understand the rest of the world that is not you or your kind. Because they too are Gods people and therefore are in the circle of those whom we must love. You taught me that when I was a child. If we can agree on that now, we have a place to start.

.

Read more: http://huff.to/2lF3xqK

from Dear White, Christian Trump Supporters: We Need To Talk

[nofomoartworld]

Obfuscates your feelings on Facebook and defeat its algorithms in the process

Ben Grosser, Go Rando, 2017

At a time when truth is treated as a polymorph and malleable commodity, when half of your country seems to live in another dimension, when polls are repeatedly proved wrong, when we feel more betrayed and crushed than ever by the result of a referendum or a political election, it is easy to feel disoriented and suspicious about what people around us are really thinking.

Blinding Pleasures, a group show curated by Filippo Lorenzin at arebyte Gallery in London invites us to ponder on our cognitive bias and on the mechanisms behind the False Consensus effect and the so-called Filter Bubble. The artworks in the exhibition explore how we can subvert, comprehend and become more mindful about the many biases, subtle manipulations and functioning of the mechanisms that govern the way we relate to news and ultimately to our fellow human beings.

Ben Grosser, Go Rando (Demonstration video), 2017

One of the pieces premiering at arebyte is Go Rando, a brand new browser extension by Ben Grosser that allows you to muddle your feelings every time you “like” a photo, link or status on Facebook. Go Rando will randomly pick up one of the six Facebook “reactions”, leaving thus your feelings and the way you are perceived by your contacts at the mercy of a seemingly absurd plug-in.

The impetus behind the work is far more astute and pertinent than it might seem though. Every “like”, every sad or laughing icon is seen by your friends but also processed by algorithms used for surveillance, government profiling, targeted advertising and content suggestion. By obfuscating the limited number of emotions offered to you by Facebook, the plug-in allows you to fool the platform algorithms, perturb its data collection practices and appear as someone whose feelings are emotionally “balanced”.

If you want to have a go, installing Go Rando on your browser is a fairly straightforward task. And don’t worry, the extension also allows you choose a specific reaction if you want to.

Grosser has been critically exploring, dissecting and perverting facebook mechanisms for a number of years now. His witty artworks become strangely more relevant with each passing year, as facebook gains even more popularity, both in number and influence.

I caught up with Ben right after the opening of the Blinding Pleasures show:

Hi Ben! Your latest work, Go Rando, randomly assigns Facebook users an ‘emotion’ when you click “Like”. I hate to admit it but I’m not brave enough to use Go Rando. I’d feel too vulnerable and at the mercy of an algorithm. Also, I’d be too worried about the way my contacts would judge the assigned reactions. “Would I offend or shock anyone?” Are you expecting that many people will be as coward as I am? And more generally, what are you expecting people to discover or reflect upon with this work?

As users of Facebook I’d say we are always—as you put it—“at the mercy of an algorithm.” With Go Rando I aim to give users some agency over which algorithm they’re at the mercy of. Are they fully subject to the designs Facebook made available, or are they free to deviate from such a prescribed path? Because Go Rando’s purpose is to obfuscate one’s feelings on Facebook by randomly choosing “reactions” for them, I do expect some (many?) will share your concerns about using it.

However, whether one uses Go Rando or not, my intention for this work is to provoke individual consideration of the methods and effects of emotional surveillance. How is our Facebook activity being “read,” not only by our friends, but also by systems? Where does this data go? Whom does it benefit? Who is made most vulnerable?

With this work and others, I’m focused on the cultural, social, and political effects of software. In the case of Facebook, how are its designs changing what we say, how we say it, and to whom we speak? With “reactions” in particular, I hope Go Rando gets people thinking about how the way they feel is being used to alter their view of the world. It changes what they see on the News Feed. Their “reactions” enable more targeted advertising and emotional manipulation. And, as we’ve seen with recent events in Britain and America, our social media data can be used to further the agendas of corporate political machines intent on steering public opinion to their own ends.

Go Rando also gives users the possibility to select a specific reaction when they want to. That’s quite magnanimous. Why not be more radical and prevent users from intervening on the choice of emotion/reaction?

I would argue that allowing the user occasional choice is the more radical path. A Go Rando with no flexibility would be more pure, but would have fewer users. And an intervention with fewer users would be less effective, especially given the scale of Facebook’s 1.7 billion member user base. Instead, I aim for the sweet spot that is still disruptive yet broadly used, thus creating the strongest overall effect. This means I need to keep in mind a user like you, someone who is afraid to offend or shock in a tricky situation. The fact is that there are going to be moments when going rando just isn’t appropriate (e.g. when Go Rando blindly selects “Haha” for a sad announcement). But as long as the user makes specific choices irregularly, then those “real” reactions will get lost in the rando noise. And once a user adopts Go Rando, one of its benefits is that they can safely get into a flow of going rando first and asking questions later. They can let the system make “reaction” decisions for them, only self-correcting when necessary. This encourages mindfulness of their own feelings on/about/within Facebook while simultaneously reminding them of the emotional surveillance going on behind the scenes.

Opening of Blinding Pleasures. Photo: arebyte gallery

Opening of Blinding Pleasures. Photo: arebyte gallery

Go Rando is part of arebyte Gallery’s new show Blinding Pleasures. Could you tell us your own view on the theme of the exhibition, the False Consensus effect? How does Go Rando engage in it?

With the recent Brexit vote and the US Presidential election, I think we’ve just seen the most consequential impacts one could imagine of the false consensus effect. And even though I’m someone who was fully aware of the role of algorithms in social media feeds, I (and nearly everyone else I know) was still stunned this past November. In other words, we thought we knew what the country was thinking. We presumed that what we saw on our feeds was an accurate enough reflection of the world that our traditional modes of prediction would continue to hold.

We were wrong. So why? In hindsight, some of it was undoubtedly wishful thinking, hoping that my fellow citizens wouldn’t elect a racist, sexist, reality television star as President. But some of it was also the result of trusting the mechanisms of democracy (e.g. information access and visibility) to algorithms designed primarily to keep us engaged rather than informed. Facebook’s motivation is profit, not democracy.

It’s easy to think that what we see on Facebook is an accurate reflection of the world, but it’s really just an accurate reflection of what the News Feed algorithm thinks we want the world to look like. If I “Love” anti-Trump articles and “Angry” pro-Trump articles, then Facebook gleans that I want a world without Trump and gives me the appearance of a world where that sentiment is the dominant feeling.

Go Rando is focused on these feelings. By producing (often) inaccurate emotional reactions, Go Rando changes what the user sees on their feed and thus disrupts some of the filter bubble effects produced by Facebook. The work also resists other corporate attempts to analyze our “needs and fears,” like those practiced by the Trump campaign. They used such analyses to divide citizens into 32 personality types and then crafted custom messages for each one. Go Rando could help thwart this kind of manipulation in the future.

The idea of a False Consensus effect is overwhelming and it makes me feel a bit powerless. Are there ways that artists and citizens could acknowledge and address the impact it has on politics and society?

It is not unreasonable to feel powerless given the situation. So much infrastructure has been built to give us what (they think) we want, that it’s hard to push back against. Some advocate complete disengagement from social media and other technological systems. For most that’s not an option, even if it was desirable. Others develop non-corporate distributed alternatives such as Diaspora or Ello. This is important work, but it’s unlikely to replace global behemoths like Facebook anytime soon.

So, given the importance of imagining alternative social media designs, what might we do? I’ve come to refer to my process for this as “software recomposition,” treating sites like Facebook, Google, and others not as fixed spaces of consumption and interaction but as fluid spaces of manipulation and experimentation. In doing so I’m drawing on a lineage of net artists and hacktivists who use existing systems as their primary material. In my case, such recomposition manifests as functional code-based artworks that allow people to see and use their digital tools in new ways. But anyone—artist or citizen—can engage in this critical practice. All it takes is some imagination, a white board, and perhaps some writing to develop ideas about how the sites we use every day are working now, and how small or big changes might alter the balance of power between system and user in the future.

Ben Grosser, Go Rando, 2017

Ben Grosser, Go Rando, 2017

I befriended you on Facebook today not just because you look like a friendly guy but also because I was curious to see how someone whose work engages so critically and so often with Facebook was using the platform. You seem to be rather quiet on fb. Very much unlike some of my other contacts who carry their professional and private business very openly on their page. Can you tell us about your own relationship to Facebook? How do you use it? How does it feed your artistic practice? And vice-versa, how maybe some projects you developed have had an impact on the way you use Fb and other social platforms?

When it comes to Facebook I’d say I’m about half Facebook user and half artist using Facebook.

I start with the user part, as many of my ideas come from this role. I use Facebook to keep up with friends, meet new people, follow issues—pretty normal stuff. But I also try to stay hyper-aware of how I’m affected by the site when using it. Why do I care how many “likes” I got? What causes some people to respond but others to (seemingly) ignore my latest post?

When these roles intersect, Facebook becomes a site of experimentation for me. I’m constantly watching for changes in the interface, and when I find them I try to imagine how they came to be. What is the “problem” someone thought this change is solving? I also often post about these changes, and/or craft tests to see how others might be perceiving them.

A favorite example of mine is a post I made last year:

“Please help me make this status a future Facebook memory.”

Nothing else beyond that, no explanation, no instruction. What followed was an onslaught of comments that included quotes such as: “I knew you could do it!!” or “great news!” or “Awesome! Congrats!” or “You will always remember where you were when this happened.” In other words, without discussion, people had an instinct about what kinds of content might trigger Facebook in the future to recall this post from this past. These kinds of experiments not only help me think about what those signals might be, but also illustrate how many of us are (unconsciously) building internal models about how Facebook works at the algorithmic level. Because of this, much of my work has a collaborative nature to it, even if those collaborations aren’t formal ones.

Ben Grosser, Facebook Demetricator (demonstration video), 2012-present

Do you know if some people have started using or at least perceiving Facebook and social media practices in general differently after having encountered one of your works?

Yes, definitely. Because some of my works—like Facebook Demetricator, which removes all quantifications from the Facebook interface—have been in use for years by thousands of people, I regularly get direct feedback from them. They tell me stories about what they’ve learned of their own interactions with Facebook as a result, and, in many cases, how my works have changed their relationship with the site.

Some of the common themes with Demetricator are that its removal of the numbers on Facebook blunts feelings of competition (e.g. between themselves and their friends), or removes compulsive behaviors (e.g. stops them from constantly checking to see how many new notifications they’ve received). But perhaps most interestingly, Demetricator has also helped users to realize that they craft rules for themselves about how to act (and not act) within Facebook based on what the numbers say.

For example, multiple people have shared with me that it turns out they have a rule for themselves about not liking a post if it has too many likes already (say, 25 or 50). But they weren’t aware of this rule until Demetricator removed the like counts. All of the sudden, they felt frozen, unable to react to a post without toggling Demetricator off to check! If your readers are interested in more stories like this, I have detailed many of them in a paper about Demetricator and Facebook metrics called “What Do Metrics Want: How Quantification Prescribes Social Interaction on Facebook,” published in the journal Computational Culture.

Ben Grosser, Facebook Demetricator, 2012-present

Ok, sorry but I have another question regarding Facebook. I actually dislike that platform and tend to avoid thinking about it. But since you’re someone who’s been exploring it for years, it would be foolish of me to dismiss your wise opinion! A work like Facebook Demetricator was launched in 2012. 5 years is a long time on the internet. How do you feel about the way this project has aged? Do you think that the way Facebook uses data and the way users experience data has evolved over time?

I have mixed feelings about spending much of my last five years with Demetricator. I’m certainly fortunate to have a work that continues to attract attention the way this one does. But there have been times—usually when Facebook makes some major code change—when I’ve wished I could put it away for good! Because Facebook is constantly changing, I have to regularly revise Demetricator in response or it will stop functioning. In this way, I’ve come to think of Demetricator as a long-term coding performance project.

Perhaps the best indicator of how well Demetricator has aged is that it keeps resurfacing for new audiences. Someone who had never heard about it before will find the work and write about its relationship to current events, and this will create a surge of new users and attention. The latest example is Demetricator getting discussed as a way of dealing with post-election social media anxiety in the age of Trump.

In terms of Facebook’s uses of and user experiences with data over time, there’s no question this has evolved. People have a lot more awareness about the implications of big data and overall surveillance post-Snowden. The recent Brexit and US election results have helped expand popular understandings of concepts like the filter bubble. And I would say that, while perhaps not that many people are aware of it, many more now understand that what we see on Facebook is the result of an algorithm making content decisions for us. At the same time, Facebook continues to roll out new methods of quantifying its users (e.g. “reactions”), and these are not always discussed critically on arrival, so there’s plenty of room for growth.

I find the way you explore and engage with algorithms and data infrastructures fascinating, smart but also easy to approach for anyone who might not be very familiar with issues related to algorithm, data gathering, surveillance, etc. There always seem to be several layers to your works. One that is easy to understand with a couple of sentences and one that goes deeper and really questions our relationship to technology. How do you ensure that people will see past the amusing side of your work and immerse themselves into the more critical aspect of each new project (if that’s something that concerns you)?

It’s important to me that my work has these different layers of accessibility. My intention is to entice people to dig deeper into the questions I’m thinking about. But as long as some people go deep, I’m not worried when others don’t.

In fact, one of the reasons I often use humor as a strategic starting point is to encourage different types of uses for each work I make. This is because I not only enjoy the varied lives my projects live but also learn something new from each of them. As you might expect, sometimes it’s a user’s in-depth consideration that reveals new insights. But other times it’s the casual interaction that helps me better understand what I’ve made and how people think about my topic of interest.

Ultimately, in a world where so many of us engage with software all day long, I want us to think critically about what software is. How is it made? What does it do? Who does it serve? In other words, what are software’s cultural, social, and political effects? Because software is a layer of the world that is hard to see, I hope my work brings a bit more of it into focus for us all.

Ben Grosser, Music Obfuscator

Ben Grosser, Tracing You (screenshot), 2015

Any upcoming work, field of research or events coming up after the exhibition at arebyte Gallery?

I have several works and papers in various stages of research or completion. I’ll mention three. Music Obfuscator is a web service that manipulates the signal of uploaded music tracks so that they can evade content identification algorithms on sites like YouTube and Vimeo. With this piece, I’m interested in the mechanisms and limits of computational listening. I have a lot done on this (I showed a preview at Piksel in Norway), but hope to finally release it to the public this spring or summer at the latest. I’m in the middle of research for a new robotics project called Autonomous Video Artist. This will be a self-propelled video capture robot that that seeks out, records, edits, and uploads its own video art to the web as a way of understanding how our own ways of seeing are culturally-developed. Finally, I have an article soon to be published in the journal Big Data & Society that will discuss reactions to my computational surveillance work Tracing You, illustrating how transparent surveillance reveals a desire for increased visibility online.

Thanks Ben!

Image by Filippo Lorenzin

Go Rando is part of Blinding Pleasures, a group show that explores the dangers and potentials of a conscious use of the mechanisms behind the False Consensus effect and its marketing-driven son, the so-called “Filter Bubble”. The show was curated by Filippo Lorenzin and is at arebyte Gallery in London until 18th March 2017.

from We Make Money Not Art http://ift.tt/2l0gk3N via IFTTT