#frontier economics

[determinate-negation]

“Prior to October 7th, between 170-200,000 Palestinians worked in Israel (roughly 75% with work permits—with around 90% of these permits going to Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank). After October 7th, nearly all Palestinian workers were fired, their work permits revoked, and their range of movement, already limited, restricted even further. The economic damage has been immense particularly in construction and agriculture, where the majority of Palestinians had been employed (it is an aspect of Zionist cruelty that Palestinians—a highly educated people—should be confined to low-wage manual labor employment in two of the primary economic sectors which have been used to advance their dispossession). To provide the starkest example: the construction industry, which accounts for 6-7% of Israeli GDP was, as of December 2023, operating at only 30% of its pre-October capacity, and fully half of all building projects were on hold.

Although business interests were able to pressure the government to allow a paltry 8–10,000 Palestinians back to work in December, the short- and long-term solutions to the problem of Israeli dependence on Palestinian labor (and, indeed, for the Zionist it has always been a problem) appears to be the increasing importation of foreign workers from Asia and Eastern Europe, particularly Thailand and India. It should be noted that Israel has used debt—the result of exorbitant “placement fees” charged by recruiters in workers’ home countries—to trap many foreign workers in hyper-exploitative working conditions enforced by geographic isolation. This is the paradigmatic form of modern slavery. Even if cheap imported labor were to get the construction industry back on track, the war has also resulted in the downgrading of Israel’s credit rating, a sharp decline in imports and exports, the almost complete pause of its tourism industry, a snowballing cancelation of arms deals the world over and, in the case of Turkey, trade relations as well, yielding an almost 20% contraction of its annualized GDP.

With these numbers, it could be said that Israel’s present genocide against the Palestinians harms both its short-term and long-term economic interests, sacrificed for the drive to extermination. But the enforced economic obsolescence of the Palestinians must be understood as integral to the drive for their extermination. Employing the brute force of siege, Israel has succeeded in cutting many Palestinians off from much of the global economy—now, entirely in the case of Gaza, and increasingly so in the case of the West Bank. Even those who are able to run businesses with international clientele face delays or de facto bans from cash-transfer sites like PayPal, and imports, exports, and access to certain goods are all controlled and restricted by Israel. These restrictions limit access to raw materials, affecting the types of industry Palestine is capable of sustaining, and limiting prospects for economic development.

Palestinians' limited access to the global economy in turn nurtures a dependency on Israeli goods and employment. But this dependency cuts both ways—Israel has grown dependent on Palestinian labor, which renders Palestinians necessary to the functioning of the Israeli economy and also creates barriers against their total social exclusion (not only in the sense that this labor requires social interaction with the Israeli populace). As Bataille writes in The Psychological Structure of Fascism, “money serves to measure all work and makes man a function of measurable products. According to the judgment of homogenous society, each man is worth what he produces.” In capitalist society, productivity becomes the prerequisite to admittance to social life. To totalize race-based social exclusion, then, the target population must be rendered economically obsolete. “As early as 1895,” Fayez Sayegh notes, “Herzl was busy devising a plan to ‘spirit the penniless population across the frontier by denying it employment.’”

Nazi Germany understood this as well: the 1938 “Regulation for the Elimination of the Jews from the Economic Life of Germany” completed the work begun three years prior by the Nuremberg Laws, which stripped Jews and other groups of their citizenship and enshrined racial classification and separation into law. “The Jewish middleman,” Adorno and Horkheimer write, “fully becomes the image of the devil only when economically he has ceased to exist.” In apartheid society, in which the target population is seen as subhuman, or at least undeserving of rights or consideration, the wage remains one of the last means of verifying their humanity: beasts may be productive, but they do not earn a wage. The attempted elimination of Palestinian labor from the Israeli economy marks one of the final steps on the way to their full dehumanization in the Zionists’ eyes, one that prepared the way for the present mass extermination.

Zionism is not, then, a race-based system of economic exploitation at its core, though it does benefit from such exploitation: it is, first and foremost, a program of land acquisition. We can see the dual attack on Palestinian economic self-determination and land ownership in Israel’s routine destruction of Palestinian olive groves. Settlers, often armed or otherwise protected by armed agents of the state, uproot, burn, or cut down olive trees, with increasing frequency since 2019. The aim is to drive Palestinians from their land by destroying the subsistence produced by the land itself and nurtured over centuries by Palestinian farmers, in an effort to “Judaize” the area. As Palestinians flee from unchecked violence, forced from their land at the barrel of a gun, Jewish settlements appear in their wake, strictly illegal but in practice facilitated by the state until they are eventually recognized and assimilated into the legally regulated regime of property. (The whole cycle of legalizing illegal settlements, in any event, is something of a formality as their existence and proliferation is the entire raison d’être of the Zionist project.) When Palestinians refuse to leave and cannot be forced, they are murdered.”

Jake Romm, Elements of Anti-Semitism: The Limits of Zionism in Parapraxis Mag

[reasonsforhope]

"In drought-stricken areas, communities facing water shortages, or even in residential and commercial buildings eager to improve their environmental footprints, atmospheric water generators represent a new frontier in water production.

While it might sound like a tidbit from a science fiction movie, even the driest places on earth have moisture in the air that can be extracted and used for everyday necessities like plumbing and drinking. 

Unlike traditional dehumidifiers, which also pull moisture from the air, AWGs utilize filtration and sterilization technology to make water safe to drink. 

And while there are plenty of AWG companies out there — and the science itself isn’t novel — AWGs are becoming more efficient, affordable, and revolutionary in combating water scarcity in a myriad of communities.

Aquaria Technologies, a San Francisco-based AWG startup, was founded in 2022 to help provide affordable and clean drinking water in areas most affected by climate change. 

Using heat exchange and condensation, Aquaria’s generators draw air into their systems, cool that air below its dew point, and as it condenses, capture that water and filter it for consumption. 

As the cycle continues, the generator’s refrigerant vaporizes and goes through a process that cools it back into a liquid, meaning the heat transfer cycle repeats continuously in an energy-efficient and self-sustaining system.

“I’m sure you’ve had the experience in the summer, you take a glass of a cold drink out of the fridge and then water droplets form on the side of the bottle,” Aquaria’s co-founder and CEO Brian Sheng, said in a podcast episode. “That’s actually condensation.”

Sheng continued: “The question is, how do we create condensation? How do we extract water out of the air in large volume and using little energy? That’s what our technology does. We have created both active and passive cooling methods where we use special materials, and we’ve created heat exchange and recovery systems and airflow design, such that we’re maximizing heat exchange, and then we’re able to extract large volumes of water.”

Aquaria has created a number of generators, but its stand-alone model — the Hydropack X — can replace an entire home’s dependence on municipal water, producing as much as 264 gallons of potable water per day. 

Other models, like the Hydrostation, can provide water for up to 1,500 people at parks, construction sites, or other outdoor public areas. The Hydropixel can make 24 gallons of water per day for a seamless at-home application, requiring a simple outlet for power. 

“Atmospheric water generators present a groundbreaking solution to the global challenge of clean water scarcity, leveraging the humidity present in the air to produce potable water,” the company’s website explains.

“This technology is versatile, functioning efficiently across diverse climates — from arid regions to tropical settings. From rural communities in developing countries to advanced cities facing unexpected droughts, atmospheric water generators have a wide range of applications… transforming lives and providing secure, clean water sources.”

Considering an estimated 2.2 billion people lack access to clean water globally — including in American cities like Flint, Michigan, or Modesto, California — innovative solutions like AWGs are vital to maintaining the basic human right to clean water. 

The World Economic Forum has begun to dip its toes into this technology as well, implementing public and private partnerships to introduce AWG units in Arizona’s Navajo Nation, where the machines produce about 200 gallons of clean water per day.

“When combined with an appropriate level of community engagement and triple-bottom-line business (people, planet, profit),” a blog post for WE Forum said, “this model can be a powerful stopgap solution where few exist today.”

Similarly, according to New Atlas, Aquaria has a partnership with developers to supply its technology to a 1,000-home community in Hawaii later this year, relying entirely on atmospherically generated water.

The company also has a “Frontier Access Program,” which partners with water-related NGOs, community project developers, and sustainable development groups to deploy this technology in areas most in need.

Regardless of their use cases — in homes, in communities facing water shortages, or at aid sites navigating natural disasters — AWGs have a minimal environmental impact. Sourcing water “from thin air,” requires no plastic bottles, no large-scale plants using up loads of energy, and no byproducts that can harm the environment."

-via GoodGoodGood, August 27, 2024

[papasmoke]

If you’re asking for the dissolution of the USA, how do you plan on keeping yourself and others safe in that situation? There’s little to no working-class solidarity in the US, and people are liable to start shooting once the lights go out. Not to mention things like medicine, clean water, etc for the most vulnerable among us when the infrastructure shuts down.

Every deprivation that you imagine the US collapsing would usher in is already baked into its continued existence and made invisible by its mundanity. The most vulnerable among us are already abandoned by the state, hyperexploited by employers and landlords, marginalized by a farcical political system, deported due to blind or malicious bigotry and misplaced economic anxiety, imprisoned pretrial without bail money, lynched with legal impunity, left to languish in sickness and starvation, to fight over scraps. Medicine, food, shelter, and clean water are increasingly out of reach luxuries as these basic human needs are turned into speculative privatized markets. This will only worsen as American capital's ability to maintain its exploitation abroad diminishes alongside America's imperial decline. Capitalism needs to grow to survive, it has to find new markets. If America continues on as it does now it will have me, you, and everyone we know hollowed out completely and discarded just to maintain profits for one more financial quarter because the frontier is coming home. Resistance to this process will be met with radical widespread right wing violence. It is in this context that we say the overthrow of the US as a capitalist, settler, imperialist institution is essential. Any movement powerful enough to dissolve the United States is one powerful enough to replace it with something better.

[captainofthetidesbreath]

what is Midst about?

Oh, this is a QUESTION.

Midst is space fantasy New Weird about three people whose lives are disrupted when The Trust, a society based around quantifying the value of good and bad deeds, takes interest in the planet-like islet of Midst.

Midst is about how the moon will explode and the government will spend more time talking about how bad this is for the economy than organizing disaster relief.

Midst is about what happens if The Good Place point system was an economic policy.

Midst is about a cult expanding its sphere of influence and its attempts to maintain hold on a cast of new converts, increasingly disillusioned devotees, and escaped apostates.

Midst is about the mechanics of blame, guilt, fault, accountability, and culpability and how emphasizing sole individual responsibility (for good and bad) deflects from the role of institutions, structures, environments, cycles, and ideologies in perpetuating harm.

Midst is about trying to balance the metaphorical books by making them very much not-metaphorical and how understanding that you can never (figuratively) zero out in reality shapes the way different people face or run from what they've done, hope for redemption and absolution (or not), and relate to themselves and others.

Midst is about taking the phrase capitalism as religion literally.

Midst is about a murder case in a frontier town that swiftly escalates into a major public scandal that reaches into the highest ranks of the federal capital and threatens to destabilize its most prominent institutions.

I promise none of these are exaggerations in the slightest.

[transmutationisms]

the idea that 'science' is an unmitigated and inherent social good---a politically neutral and universally beneficial process of accumulating knowledge---is wildly ahistorical and dangerously, wilfully ignorant of the role that science and its purveyors / practitioners have played in imperial and colonial expansion. warwick anderson went so far as to say that colonial medicine was better understood as a discourse of settlement than one of health promotion, & we can see this quite easily in, for example, french doctors' use of the nostalgia diagnosis to guide colonial policy in algeria in the 1830s, attempting to securely settle a french population there; or in the development of a science of 'water cures', spa treatments considered to mitigate the insalubrious effects of foreign (particularly tropical) environments, for which the french army by the 1890s granted routine medical leave because the 'health' of its soldiers was not a matter of individual interest but a state resource.

but medicine is in many ways an easy case when it comes to the relationship between science and the state; all too often we still seem reluctant to acknowledge, for example, the pursuit of economic botany and animal / plant breeding in the early modern period as contributors to discourses of acclimatisation and proto-eugenics, sciences that were given state financial support on these utilitarian grounds & not for any high-minded general pursuit of 'knowledge'; or the development of navigational instruments and knowledge from the 14th century or so onward as a project explicitly funded and intended to permit faster, cheaper, more reliable colonial exploration and travel; or the sheer amount of research in physics and chemistry that has been and is devoted to weapons development or natural resource extraction; or the promise of space travel as a further possibility for obtaining raw materials as well as for settlement---often marketed in terms and visual rhetoric explicitly comparing the 'space colony' to its terrestrial precursor: 'the final frontier', depicted as both lush tropical paradise & as rugged american west, waiting to be conquered & brought to heel.

i am of course not hostile to 'science' in any totalising way; this would be as indefensible a position as the automatic 'defence' of all such practices; they're not monolithic or intrinsically doomed to serve state interests. but it is simply irresponsible to pretend that the scientific inquiry into something---describing it, measuring it, taxonomising it---is inherently a social good, or that the pursuit of 'knowledge' is ever an apolitical endeavour. knowing, seeing, & measuring the world grant immense power; states and empires know this. scientific inquiry is not tangentially related to imperial and colonial expansion; often it is a critical piece of the machinery by which these processes occur. wilful ignorance of this fact in favour of an optimistic conception of science as a universal social good is not just inaccurate but propagandistic & an advancement of state & imperial interests.

[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.

[gothhabiba]

[The Israeli burning of olive-tree groves] is familiar to thousands of Palestinian families. In the name of security, Israel systematically removes them from the land and erases their historic rootedness to this geographic place. For Palestinians, food and agriculture are not merely a pastime; they are a way of life. Without it, they’re rendered powerless economically, voiceless politically and devoid of their own cultural legacy. Yet that’s exactly why a sovereign and self-supporting food system is an early target of the Israel.

The Israeli occupation has transformed the Palestinian food system, converting it from a producer society to a consumer society, according to multiple West Bank residents. A tangled web of laws makes it difficult to sell crops or products like tahini for prices high enough to function as a sustainable income, and settlements continue to encroach upon Palestinian villages, seizing arable land and restricting access to crucial natural resources like water. Food is the first frontier of this conflict, and the Palestinian right to produce, sell and eat local food is a barometer for the future viability of the resistance movement.

[...] [In 1994, Israel and Palestine] signed the Paris Protocol to regulate economic interaction. The agreement hamstrung any hopes at Palestinian economic development, all but guaranteeing it would become dependent on Israel. It gave Israel full control of borders and put the sole customs clearinghouse under its jurisdiction. Goods entering and exiting Palestine remain subjected to Israeli taxes. Palestinian exports are heavily taxed while Israeli goods enter Palestine freely. Israeli goods, especially produce and food-related products like tahini and olive oil, flood the market with alternatives cheaper than local options.

What’s transpired as a result is the dramatic transformation of Palestine, says Raya Ziada, who founded an acroecology nonprofit based in Ramallah. “We depend on other people, whether that’s Israel or international aid, and we have to follow other people’s direction on producing food.”

Raya and others argue this is a deliberate act by the Israelis to handicap opposition to the occupation.

—Carly Graf, "Food Is the First Frontier of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict," 2019.

[mapsontheweb]

Russian propaganda map on the future of Ukraine

Published by Dmitry Medvedev (deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia) on March 4, 2024.

by hunmapper

Medvedev defined all territories on the left bank of the Dnipro River, and many on the right bank, as supposedly "integral" to Russia and within its "strategic historical borders." Russian forces currently occupy only a part of the eastern (left) bank of Ukraine but do not occupy any territory on the right bank of Ukraine. He presented his lecture against the backdrop of a self-created fantasy map of eastern Europe, depicting parts of western Ukraine under Hungarian, Polish, and Romanian control. The map shows Ukraine existing as a rump state only within the borders of Kyiv Oblast and the rest of modern-day Ukraine as part of Russia — well beyond the areas that Russian forces currently occupy, encompassing Crimea and the four partially occupied oblasts Medvedev claimed that the influence of sovereign great powers, like Russia, extends beyond their geographic borders, reiterating an earlier statement by the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin that "Russia's borders do not end anywhere" Additionally, he alleged that a state's "strategic borders," distinct from its geographical borders, depend on “how strong and sovereign” the state and its authorities are. The more "powerful" a state is, the “further its strategic frontiers extend beyond its state borders” and the larger the state’s sphere of “economic, political, and socio-cultural influence”

[thefugitivesaint]

''The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power'' by Shoshana Zuboff, 2018 "I define surveillance capitalism as the unilateral claiming of private human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioral data. These data are then computed and packaged as prediction products and sold into behavioral futures markets — business customers with a commercial interest in knowing what we will do now, soon, and later. It was Google that first learned how to capture surplus behavioral data, more than what they needed for services, and used it to compute prediction products that they could sell to their business customers, in this case advertisers. But I argue that surveillance capitalism is no more restricted to that initial context than, for example, mass production was restricted to the fabrication of Model T’s. Right from the start at Google it was understood that users were unlikely to agree to this unilateral claiming of their experience and its translation into behavioral data. It was understood that these methods had to be undetectable. So from the start the logic reflected the social relations of the one-way mirror. They were able to see and to take — and to do this in a way that we could not contest because we had no way to know what was happening. We rushed to the internet expecting empowerment, the democratization of knowledge, and help with real problems, but surveillance capitalism really was just too lucrative to resist. This economic logic has now spread beyond the tech companies to new surveillance–based ecosystems in virtually every economic sector, from insurance to automobiles to health, education, finance, to every product described as “smart” and every service described as “personalized.” By now it’s very difficult to participate effectively in society without interfacing with these same channels that are supply chains for surveillance capitalism’s data flows." from an interview with Shoshana Zuboff in the Harvard Gazette in March of 2019. It's an interesting interview that I suggest you peruse.

[nostalgebraist]

Steve DeCanio, an ex-Berkeley activist now doing graduate work at M.I.T., is a good example of a legion of young radicals who know they have lost their influence but have no clear idea how to get it back again. “The alliance between hippies and political radicals is bound to break up,” he said in a recent letter. “There’s just too big a jump from the slogan of ‘Flower Power’ to the deadly realm of politics. Something has to give, and drugs are too ready-made as opiates of the people for the bastards (the police) to fail to take advantage of it.” Decanio spent three months in various Bay Area jails as a result of his civil rights activities and now he is lying low for a while, waiting for an opening. “I’m spending an amazing amount of time studying,” he wrote. “It’s mainly because I’m scared; three months on the bottom of humanity’s trash heap got to me worse than it’s healthy to admit. The country is going to hell, the left is going to pot, but not me. I still want to figure out a way to win.”

Re-reading Hunter S. Thompson's 1967 article about Haight-Ashbury, I thought: "huh, this guy sounds like he's going places. I wonder whether he ever did 'figure out a way to win'?"

So I web searched his name, and ... huh!

My current research interests include Artificial Intelligence, philosophy of the social sciences, and the economics of climate change. Several years ago I examined the consequences of computational limits for economics and social theory in Limits of Economic and Social Knowledge (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).  Over the course of my academic career I have worked in the fields of global environmental protection, the theory of the firm, and economic history.  I have written about both the contributions and misuse of economics for long-run policy issues such as climate change and stratospheric ozone layer protection.  An earlier book, Economic Models of Climate Change: A Critique (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), discussed the problems with conventional general equilibrium models applied to climate policy. From 1986 to 1987 I served as Senior Staff Economist at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. I have been a member of the United Nations Environment Programme’s Economic Options Panel, which reviewed the economic aspects of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, and I served as Co-Chair of the Montreal Protocol’s Agricultural Economics Task Force of the Technical and Economics Assessment Panel. I participated in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, and was a recipient of the Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought in 2007. In 1996 I was honored with a Stratospheric Ozone Protection Award, and in 2007 a “Best of the Best” Stratospheric Ozone Protection Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. I served as Director of the UCSB Washington Program from 2004 to 2009.

I don't know whether this successful academic career would count as "winning" by his own 1967 standards. But it was a pleasant surprise to find anything noteworthy about the guy at all, given that he was quoted as a non-public figure in a >50-year-old article.

[yannaryartside]

THE BEAR CHARACTER ARCHETYPES

So, this particular wheel of archetypes was invented for conceptualizing brands, but many writers use it as the base for creating characters. Here is the key to understanding it:

The character belongs to the element of their personality that responds to the deepest desire of their souls, but because of it, it is also what they can provide for others. A "creator" does it because it heals them, but they also "create" for others. Your identity is your purpose. The first weel is their name, the second is their objective, and the third weel is their purpose in the plot.

Carmen/Hero-wants Mastery: wants to achieve mastery to prove he is worthy (of love) but also is a kind teacher and mentor (when he is not being abused precisely for feeling not good enough). He wants (deep down) to collaborate and inspire others because mastery changed him, and he believes in the beauty and legacy of this craft.

Nat/ Lover-wants Intimacy. She wants a life full of love because she felt she had to sacrifice herself to deserve it (earning the love Donna didn't give her). Because of this, she is in a maternal role to everyone; she provides love, comfort, guidance, and compassion.

Fak/ Jester-wants enjoyment. idk shit about their past, but he seems to care about the "vibes" and wants to provide good vibes to the clients.

Richie/ Everyman-wants belonging. he didn't feel valued in his family and was desperate to belong to the Berzattos; now he wants to help the people around him to integrate into the family and business (the pep talks he gives to Syd, Carmy, Fak, Nat)

Syd: Creator-wants Innovation. We still don't know why she is this way or what wound haunts her. Still, since S1, she has said she wants to "make a difference" and innovate in the bear's defective system (Carmy's recklessness, the environment's toxicity, lack of purpose). She has made a difference in each of these areas.

Gif de livelovecaliforniadreams

Marcus/Explorer-wants freedom. He has made decisions out of responsibility and has not felt like he has had a dream for a long time; now, pastry has provided a place where the sky is the limit, and he wants to push his previous frontiers. He keeps supporting others in enjoying their crafts and has faith in them.

gif by @ladespeinada

Tina/Outlaw-wants liberation. She didn't feel like she had true potential but wanted to be free of the anguish of economic difficulties/uncertainty. She had a rebellious and prideful attitude, and now she talked about any challenge with the strut of an outlaw because she is a wild card in this industry.

gifs by @goodsirs

[left-reminders]

(Below are broad vibes for each of the numbers. They are not meant to represent every opinion one could have within those parameters. Some aspects of the description may apply to you while others won't. If you picked a number with a description that doesn't match your perspective, let us know what your actual perspective is in a reblog comment! Comments in general are nice too, of course 👍)

(You also might notice a bias in favor of 5; or at least a far deeper description of what it would entail when compared against the other four. This is partly just because I wanted to soapbox, but I hope it doesn't detract. I genuinely want to hear the perspectives of the 1s, 2s, and 3s, if you're out there and don't appreciate my potential oversimplification!)

1 — It does not factor in at all. Much of the discourse around green politics is a liberal distraction and/or a roadblock holding us back from organizing for socialism. Economic development and human concerns will always matter more. Capitalism was a necessary/justifiable component in the march of history towards socialism, even if it did have certain negative impacts on the environment. The ideal society looks like Star Trek or fully-automated luxury communism (FALC) — one where we overcome "the state of nature" and become masters of our own fate.

2 — It doesn't factor in much, even if I may recognize the reality of climate change and/or the need for environmental protections. We can solve the biggest climate problems with advancements in green technology or perhaps expanding resource frontiers into outer space. In general, other social issues take priority when building socialism.

3 — I care about combating climate change and solving ecological problems, but I find other issues to be more important in my life and I will leave most discussion of it to people more knowledgeable on the subject. The world could be doing far better on these issues and changes are needed, but most of the modern civilizational infrastructure should remain unchanged (albeit organized under a socialist mode of production).

4 — It is very important to my politics. We can balance socialistic technological development with the dire needs of a planet in crisis. Certain human activities and production methods will have to be curbed or eliminated entirely if we are to find this balance (fossil fuels, widget production, private jets, etc), while others will have to be uplifted (renewable energy, public transportation, shared living, etc). Modern civilization is ultimately redeemable, but it needs to undergo a radical transformation.

5 — It is among the most important factors in my politics. I take influence from eco-socialism, social ecology, degrowth, post-civ, anti-civ, deep ecology, or any number of other political perspectives which are ecologically-focused. Locally-organized economies; drastic reductions in working hours and energy throughput; rewilding of the land; emphasis on non-consumptive forms of leisure; an end to consumerism, growth-based economic metrics, and imperial conceptions of "development"; agroecology and polyculture as core methods for obtaining food; and a vast deconstruction of much of the civilizational edifice are all pieces to this puzzle and are required if we are going to have a habitable planet for the generations to come. The ideal society looks like a Miyazaki film, that yogurt commercial, or lightly-automated comfortable ecological socialism (LACES) — one where we "don't seek to become larger within socialism, but rather more realized" (Joel Kovel).

[communistkenobi]

Star Wars is explicitly in the process of becoming a new MCU, but because this process encourages the audience to treat all SW properties as incomplete components of an entire fabric of canon, where each show or movie must be read in relation to all others and cannot fully stand on its own, I feel like the weird colonial frontier vibes of Chapter 17 of The Mandalorian become that much worse because of the existence of Andor. Like Andor is not perfect by any means, especially its depiction of colonial extraction and indigenous dispossession, but it invokes those historical forces MULTIPLE TIMES (first with Cassian, then with the people on Aldhani) in order to build the case that the Empire is a fascist and imperial (duh) power, and this is what that kind of power does to people and the places they inhabit - destruction of life, destruction of culture, destruction of history. Andor is drawing an extremely basic and obvious parallel between colonialism and fascism, making the argument that these processes are one and the same.

And now in The Mandalorian, you have Greef Karga, High Magistrate of Nevarro, the Gem of the Outer Rim. Nevarro has been rid of all its “scum and villainy” (a phrase directly lifted from the OT), and since that purge of undesirables it’s become a verdant and economically vibrant place. Now of course, part of the class of undesirables was the Imperial remnant, so part of Nevarro’s problem was the fact that it was being ruled by an Imperial officer. However, Chapter 17 goes to great lengths to stress that the ruler of Nevarro also hates pirates and other “low” forms of wealth accumulation, opting instead to be an independent trading planet that is explicitly against New Republic rule (i.e., the government that overthrew the Empire). It has become respectable now, and that respectability is presented to the audience in the form of an organised private economy that has begun to engage in mining. Greef Karga offers Din a parcel of land on Nevarro, literally calling him “landed gentry” on the planet were Din to take up his offer. And this is framed as an improvement - a place devoid of crime, devoid of government rule, now flowering with vegetation that is almost certainly not part of Nevarro’s natural biosphere. The Mandalorian is now adopting, almost certainly unintentionally, the same aesthetic and processes of colonial rule that Andor has labelled as unambiguously fascist. Which is hilarious lol

[mostlysignssomeportents]

1,000,000 stranded Southwest passengers deserved better from Pete Buttigieg

The catastrophic failure of Southwest Air over Christmas 2022 was the worst single-airline aviation failure in American history, stranding over 1,000,000 passengers. But while it was exceptional, it was also foreseeable: 2022 saw Southwest and the other carriers rack up record numbers of cancellations, leaving crews and fliers stranded.

It’s not like the carriers can’t afford to improve things. After pulling in $54 billion in covid relief, the airlines are swimming in cash, showering executives with record bonuses and paying titanic dividends to shareholders. Southwest has announced a $428m dividend.

This isn’t a new problem. Trump’s Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao was a paragon of inaction and neglect, refusing even to meet with consumer advocacy groups. This is bad, because under US law, state attorneys general are not allowed to punish misbehaving airlines — that power vests solely and entirely with the Secretary of Transport.

It’s been two years since Biden appointed Pete Buttigieg to be the human race’s most powerful aviation regulator. Buttigieg started his tenure on a promising note, meeting with the same consumer groups that Chao had snubbed, but after that hopeful beginning, things ground to a halt.

As Corporate Crime Reporter details, William McGee of the American Economic Liberties Project was impressed by the Secretary: “He was intelligent, articulate, he had good questions for us, he was taking notes, he seemed concerned.” But 18 months later, McGee describes Buttigieg’s leadership as “lax.”

https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/pete-buttigieg-and-the-southwest-airlines-meltdown/

Buttigieg likes to tout a single enforcement action as his signature achievement: fining six airlines and ordering them to issue refunds to US passengers. But only one of those airlines was a US carrier: Frontier, which only accounts for 2% of all US flights. The US monopoly carriers have gone unscathed.

The US carriers are in sore need of regulatory discipline. In 2020 alone, United racked up 10,000 consumer complaints, twice as many as any other carrier. Under Buttigieg, the DOT investigated these airlines and closed every one of these complaints without taking any against them.

This is part of a wider pattern. In Buttigieg’s 18 month tenure, not a single airline has been ordered to pay any fines as a result of cancellations. In the absence of oversight and accountability, the airlines have made a habit out of scheduling flights they know they don’t have the crew to fly (they used public covid funds to buy out senior crew contracts, retiring much of their workforce).

This gives the airlines the flexibility to offer many flights they know they can’t service, and to allocate crew to whichever runs will generate the most profit, stranding US passengers and holding onto their money for months or years before paying refunds — if they ever do.

Consumer groups weren’t alone in sounding the alarm over the deteriorating conditions in the airline sector. In 2022, dozens of state attorneys general — Democrats and Republicans — sent open letters to Buttigieg begging him to use his broad powers as Secretary of Transport to hold the airlines accountable.

What are those powers? Well, the big one is USC40 Section 41712(a), the “unfair and deceptive” authority modeled on Section 5 of the FTC Act. This authority allows the Secretary to act without further Congressional action, to order airlines to end practices that are “unfair and deceptive,” and to extract massive fines from companies that don’t comply.

As McGee told CCR, “the scheduling and canceling of flights is both unfair and deceptive.” In order to force the airlines to end this practice, Buttigieg would have to initiate an investigation into the practice. The American Economic Liberties Project called on Buttigieg to open an investigation months ago. There has not been such an investigation.

Even on refunds, Buttigieg’s much-touted signature achievement, the Secretary has left Americans in the cold. US law requires airlines to give cash refunds to passengers on cancelled flights. But to this day, passengers are sent unfair and deceptive messages by airlines offering them credit for cancellations, and fliers must fight their way through a bureaucratic quagmire to get cash refunds.

McGee and other advocates met with Buttigieg twelve times sking him to address this. When he finally took action, he ignored the domestic airlines — which racked up 5,700% more complaints in his first year on the job than in the previous year — except for tiny, largely irrelevant Frontier. If you are an American whose journey on an American airline was cancelled, there’s a 98% chance that Buttigieg let them off without a single dollar in fines.

McGee isn’t an armchair quarterback. He is an industry veteran, an FAA-licensed aircraft dispatcher: “I canceled flights. I rescheduled flights. I diverted flights. I delayed flights. I did that every day.”

Apologists for Buttigieg claim that he’s doing all he can: “Pete isn’t in charge of airline IT!” But while USC 40 doesn’t mention computer systems or staffing levels directly, it doesn’t have to: the “unfair and deceptive” standard is deliberately broad, to give regulators the powers they need to protect the American people.

In understanding whether the million fliers that Southwest stranded on the way to their Christmas vacations could have expected more from their DOT, it’s worth looking at how other regulators have used similar authority to protect the American people.

Exhibit A here has to be FTC Chair Lina Khan, whose powers under FTCA5 are nearly identical to Buttigieg’s power under 41712(a) (the DOT language was copied nearly verbatim from the FTCA). Two years ago, Khan began an in-depth investigation into the use of nonompete agreements in the US labor market.

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/events/2020/01/non-competes-workplace-examining-antitrust-consumer-protection-issues

This investigation created an extensive evidentiary record on the ways that workers are harmed by these agreements, and collected empirical observations about whether industries really needed noncompetes to thrive (for example, noncompetes are banned in California, home to the most profitable, most knowledge-intensive businesses in the world, undermining claims that these businesses need noncompetes to survive).

Then, right as Southwest was stranding a million Americans, Khan unveiled a rulemaking to ban noncompetes for every American worker, using her Section 5 powers. Khan’s rule is retroactive, undoing every existing noncompete as well as banning them into the future.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

This is what a fully operational battle-station looks like! Khan and Buttigieg are among the most powerful people who have ever lived, with more and farther-reaching regulatory authority, more power to alter the lives of millions of people, than almost anyone who every drew breath.

And yet, when Secretary Buttigieg jawbones about the airlines, it’s all pleading, not threats. As McGee says, “If you have a Secretary of Transportation who does not punish the airlines when they act terribly, then we should not be surprised when they continue to behave terribly.”

State AGs from both parties are desperate for Buttigieg to back legislation that would return their right to punish airlines. So far, he has not voiced his support for this regulation. When the Secretary of Transport won’t act, and when he won’t support the right of other officials to act, the American traveler is truly stranded.

Image: Tomás Del Coro (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/tomasdelcoro/24575277589

Japanexperterna.se (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/japanexperterna/15251188384/

CC BY-SA 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

 — 

Tarcil (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:La_Brea_Tar_Pits_Elephant_Statues_1990_right.jpg

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

[Image ID: The La Brea tar-pits. A Southwest jet is nose-down in the tar, next to a stranded mastodon. In the foreground are the three wise monkeys, their faces replaced with that of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.]

[probablyasocialecologist]

Internet politics have been shaped by a cyberlibertarian framing best exemplified by the writings of Electronic Frontier Foundation cofounder John Perry Barlow, whose Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace became a key statement of principles for digital activists. His manifesto targeted its ire at governments, telling them, “You have no sovereignty where we gather.” He made no mention of the harmful influence corporations could have on online spaces, which was a reflection of Barlow’s personal politics. He was not only a speechwriter for Dick Cheney in the 1970s, but the Declaration itself was published at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in 1996. This cyberlibertarian framing of digital politics and its focus on speech over political economy has proved beneficial for tech companies for many years. As US tech firms went global, digital activists frequently opposed government efforts to regulate or restrict tech platforms as threats to their citizens’ digital rights and freedom of expression, largely ignoring the economic impacts of US economic imperialism in those countries. In the process, US companies were able to dominate international markets and few countries were able to establish the necessary economic protections to develop serious competitors to the American giants. In countries like China, where protections were effectively implemented, digital and human rights groups rarely paid any mind to the economic component of those policies; they were narrowly positioned as censorship measures. The Great Firewall is used to restrict what Chinese internet users can access and post online, but it is also an economic measure. China protected its tech sector in a similar way that Japan and South Korea protected their automotive and electronics industries in decades past, spawning globally competitive, export-oriented companies like Toyota and Samsung. China’s Great Firewall allowed it to do the same, creating serious competition for Silicon Valley that would have never happened without economic protectionism. Digital rights activism served the global ambitions of the tech monopolies forming in Silicon Valley and Greater Seattle by positioning attempts at restricting platforms and making companies abide by local rules and norms appear as overbearing government intrusions on people’s rights. In the cyberlibertarian framing, government — not corporations — are the enemy, and that was reflected in the way many activists long approached tech policy. It certainly doesn’t seem like a coincidence that it also served US commercial and geopolitical ambitions. Where countries previously placed ownership restrictions on its media and telecommunications sectors and invested in public broadcasters, that was all out the window with the internet. Foreign governments were expected to accept the dominance of US firms, or else be accused of breaching their citizens’ rights.

6 September 2024