thinkingcraft-dianne

[thinkingcraft-dianne]

Reflection on the Book of Martha

What the text reminded me of was the much written about question on what is freedom. In this case, the text illustrates that we can’t have freedom in this world without people also having the freedom to be ‘mad’ / madness. A novel that the text reminded me of is A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. In this story, the main character Alex undergoes an extreme treatment which cures him of his will to be bad and to commit crimes. The question then arises whether what is worse: to be bad through free will or to be forced to be good. Personally, I think something along the lines of the philosophy of Taoism is the balance that society needs; we need dark in order to perceive good. Moreover, some people’s will to be mad accelerates our invention of ways to be good/to sustain the good. I really liked the following sentence that God mentions: ‘that’s a lovely sensation—anticipating, not knowing.’ It captures that life is about not knowing if everything is inherently (or turns out to be) good, which keeps us on our toes in a good way.

[thinkingcraft-dianne]

On Poor Images & Memes as Digital Craft and Paradigm

I was really intrigued by the text on poor images by Hito Steyerl. Often, poor images subconsciously make me feel like they are less (trust)worthy. Whenever I work on a visual and I really like the point in the process I am in at that moment, I want to share it as fast as possible and make a downgrading screenshot. I liked the metaphor of this situation with our modern way of living; our inability to focus in combination with our craving for intensity and fun. In a contradicting way, it is the reason why we take the time to replicating images by screenshotting them, or saving them quickly in low-res, instead of taking the time to save and share in high resolution. This way of thinking can be seen in many aspects of our high-speed lives; even during a pandemic we try to dabble in as much hobbies as possible but often do not dive deeper into them. For example, I spent days hunting for oil painting supplies, made half a painting, and was too distracted and perfectionistic to actually finish it. Our minds, just like images, travel quickly. As the author states: these images are 'perfectly integrated into an information capitalism thriving on compressed attention spans, on impression rather than immersion, on intensity rather than contemplation, on previews rather than screenings.' The plus side to this is that with our ability to share images as fast as never before, we focus less on its aesthetics, but rather on its concept. With this type of dematerialisation, semiotic production is now in the hands of more and more people and is less reliant on gatekeepers. This is also where the strength of memes lies.

Within the text on memes, the notion that memes share a disposable spirit with crafts resonated with me. I think exactly this characteristic is what makes memes the most accurate artefact of a certain time, one that captures the zeitgeist for future generations to reflect on.It is a language that is now used in a habitual way; a language beyond the normative.I can see the increasing justification of memes within institutions like Erasmus University, that have considered what this means with respect to culture. A friend of mine did her thesis on the historical importance of memes and I am sure there will also be dissertations on memes in the future. It is a justification for something that does not actually need or even ‘want’ it - as underlined by the author: 'memes form part of the fabric of the public sphere in which they are propagated and flow in an anonymous and unstoppable form, so that they constitute a phenomenon of a social nature.' Just like academics is a paradigm, memes are battlefields within another paradigm where debates of profound social and political significance are being held.

[thinkingcraft-dianne]

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Experiment with TouchDesigner, using my phone as a ‘touch’ sensor to influence the speed of the displacement.

[thinkingcraft-dianne]

Reflection Ruha Benjamin ‘Retooling Solidarity, Reimagining Justice’

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Ruha Benjamin set outs to illustrate how technology and AI adopts and therefore upholds the (biased) settings of current society, with racism being a productive factor. In her work, she stresses how racism is not an accident but rather is self-innovative, systemic and diffuse. The only way to change it therefore is to change our narratives. I enjoyed how she mentioned and explained multiple factors that contribute to this; racism is definitely ingrained in our society, down to sectors like healthcare and education. We often talk about techno-dystopia, and this text and talk helped me remember that this implies that we are affected by technology, not that we have power over it; we can shape the material + digital infrastructure around us. It was really powerful to me when she mentioned in her talk how some people are forced to live in someone else's imagination. A select group of people that gained power through our biased societal system are able to create the rules of the game and our (in)tangible surroundings. As Benjamin said and what has never been more relevant; we have to fight people's desire for social domination. Barack Obama's advice for Trump (which he gave in an interview this week) was: '... a president is a public servant. They are temporary occupants of the office, by design. And when your time is up then it is your job to put the country first and think beyond your own ego, and your own interests, and your own disappointments.' Maybe we should also see tech-developers as public servants and treat them like it; with check-ups, input from different perspectives and by keeping them responsible. In order to allow as much narratives into our world and systems (and thereby diminishing bias), we have to let go of our ego. Code-switching should become less needed in all areas of life because of this. 'Whereas it is about fitting in, and “leaning in” to play a game created by others', by letting go of ego we can stretch out the arenas in which we live and work to become more inclusive and just.

What stuck with me was the term 'forms of forgetfulness' that comes along with a digital society. I interpret it as us being accustomed to always having access to infinite amounts of information, thereby relying and trusting in tech. It has become so all-encompassing that we 'forgot' how it works: there is also no collective memory of the technology we use, in contrast with social history that is taught in schools. 'Phones now have more memory than we have social and cultural memories.' We need to become conscious again to give the (tech)world a more human face.

Lastly, the author gave me new insights by highlighting that not all solutions are good ones. In the process of solving bias problems, some technologies fail to see racial differences, while others make certain social groups hyper-visualized and exposed, and therefore vulnerable. She coins the term coded exposure for this phenomenon. As designers, we are often on a mission to tell a story. Benjamin talks about stories as being the first step in the process of how we imagine our reality; they literally make our reality. I think design is more and more focused on challenging and bending narratives. This can already be seen in the fact that we discuss this text in the context of digital craft. It can make us aware of how oppressed social groups do not need “allies,” which is actually a framework that reinforces privilege and power. Instead, we should aim for “co-liberation” as it makes us mutually responsible, thereby linking our fate.We have to be aware of all of these structures, especially  as designers. Everything we do has a lasting impact on the people interacting with our thoughts and products and therefore should be grounded in justice - as Benjamin said: we are pattern-make

[thinkingcraft-dianne]

Solastalgic Botanic Gardens

Solastalgia is a new concept developed to give greater meaning and clarity to environmentally induced distress. As opposed to nostalgia--the melancholia or homesickness experienced by individuals when separated from a loved home -- solastalgia is the distress that is produced by environmental change impacting on people while they are directly connected to their home environment. Botanic gardens are institutions holding documented collections of living plants for the purpose of scientific research, conservation, display and education. In 2018, BGCI updated the criteria that define a botanic garden to have a greater emphasis on conserving rare and threatened plants, compliance with international policies and sustainability and ethical initiatives. Botanic gardens are a means to reconnect with nature. When the human-nature relationship is spontaneous and mutually enriching (symbiotic) we experience a state of ‘eutierria’ which I define as a positive feeling of oneness with the earth/Gaia. In return for preserving rare plants, they give us the feeling of being closer to nature as well as the illusion that we can hold onto our decaying environment.  We are now living within these global transformative times as we face up to the universal loss of ecosystem health in the form of toxic pollution and a warming climate with attendant climate chaos. Our home, the Earth, is now under siege from one species and its power and we are beginning to suffer self-imposed solastalgia.

Plants like the Ee. Woodii are a preserved an synthetic version of what once was a species of trees found in the wild. Botanic gardens can in that sense be seen as enclosed synthetic worlds of physical simulacra / tangible memories. Is it a good thing to desperately hold onto artefacts of nature as it once was, only to be seen in a specific space? Do we decrease or increase this feeling of solastalgia?

[thinkingcraft-dianne]

WMD Reflection

‘Biased narratives embedded in opaque models’

Weapons of mass destruction was thought-provoking as the author dissects problematic models and makes a parallel between these and global financial markets. The metaphor for models with encoded human prejudice as being 'invisible like Gods' resonates with me, as it is a reoccurring notion that was also talked about by Bridle. Systems that are invisible are difficult to understand for society and therefore beyond dispute and appeal. 

The word 'optimizing' felt uncomfortable being used in relation to humans and their capabilities being judged by AI. It flattens individual lives and experiences. There are many variables to people's capabilities and their outcomes, which can even differ from day to day. The author stresses that the few variables encoded in models are not optimal and do not capture human reality. I have always found the structure behind science and academic and our urge to theorize and conceptualize complex human reality into constructs interesting. Methodologies and sampling decisions have a lot of influence on a research outcome and thus how people perceive the world. I think that is also what the author had in mind when describing how large numbers balance out exceptions and anomalies in designing models. 

It was quite shocking to read how many important models with enormous repercussions are that static and are not updated with feedback and feedback errors. WMDs become destructive and self-perpetuating by defining and justifying their own reality. A sentence that captures its consequences really well is 'the privileged are processed more by people, the masses by machines'. I think these asymmetric power relations within different jobs have always been there, but AI will deepen thus even more by attacking and judging the masses. It is weird how we as humans have trust in systems picking out the best teachers while we would not trust it with picking a prime minister or president; in the end, teachers will have a huge impact in the upbringing of future generations. Every job had its own social importance and therefore deserves human insight. As the author states: probability is distilled into a score that can turn someone's life upside down. There is also often no recognition for countervailing evidence. In short, these systems are opaque, unquestionable and uncountable. Its victims are considered collateral damage, which is an interesting term as it is also used in other 'smart' systems like drones.

I think there is the most input for human bias in proxies and that this is where things go wrong. Unknown data is substituted by stand-in data chosen by humans. In this choice there is power. The biggest antidote is visibility and flexibility; conditions change and so must the model and its variables - dynamic models. Interesting how seemingly objective and data-driven blind spot actually reflect the judgment and priorities of each creators. Models are opinions embedded in mathematics. It reminds me of how visualisation can be (and is often) shown in a biased way, a way to support one's one views. Did we eliminate human bias or camouflaged it with technology?

Signature qualities WMD, which contain toxic cycles that helps to sustain what it is made to fight:

is the participant aware of being modeled? what is it used for; is the model opaque? I recognize this in many companies who do not want to give an explanation for collecting data, feeling as if it is their right.

Does the model work against the subject interest, is it unfair?

Can the model grow exponentially? Can it scale? I first thought this was a positive aspect, but I realized it is, in fact, a dangerous one. When malicious models can be applied easily on a greater scale, many people can get affected. It is scary that the authors notes that some models are designed and primed to grow to dangerous scales, and that some can leap from one field to the next.

The second chapter in which the authors makes a comparison between the financial market system and WMDs I found really interesting, s it was from an insiders perspective. Everything I know of the market crash is either from movies like the Big Short or lectures which were quite abstract or factual.  Knowing that something is not right, but doing it because it generates money (which confirms personal value) is a dangerous human trait. The parallels between the two fields are more than apparent, especially with the playing field consisting of abstract numbers and figures, which feel comfortable in their 'metaphysicality'. These are actually people's lives, retirement funds, and mortgages. Losing sight of human touch and trusting more in the ability of 'the system' resembles automation bias that most people have, in which they trust more on insights generated by technological systems than human knowledge. Also, as the author states, is was the financial market's WMD quality that turned these risk models into an enormous force on a global scale. Proving that automation bias is not optimal, when the financial bubble bursted, only people (not algorithms) could go through all bonds and stocks to pick out false promises.I think it is especially minacious that people's feeling of personal worth is more and more performance based. This is especially the case in the pool of talent that finance and big data fish in. It is so ingrained into our society and student's minds, that I was actually surprised reading that getting trained, educated and then working yourself up into these sectors is a combination of a gaming system and luck. (not personal merit like it is often believed). Many people have an advantage in access to certain education and therefore have more luck, sustaining the human bias in technology. We need to find ways to make the Big Data industry healthier, in order to increase inequality and to gain back control over the data economy.

[thinkingcraft-dianne]

Accelerationism also fits with how electronic devices are marketed – the promise that, finally, they will help us leave the material world, all the mess of the physical, far behind.” rather than simply oppose capitalism, the left should acknowledge its ability to liberate as well as oppress people, and should seek to strengthen these anarchic tendencies, “to go still further … in the movement of the market … to ‘accelerate the process’”.  “Accelerationism is a machine for countering pessimism. In considering untapped possibilities, you can feel less gloomy about the present.”  “Accelerationism is a machine for countering pessimism. In considering untapped possibilities, you can feel less gloomy about the present.” Neoreactionaries believe in the replacement of modern nation-states, democracy and government bureaucracies by authoritarian city states, which on neoreaction blogs sound as much like idealised medieval kingdoms as they do modern enclaves such as Singapore.

[thinkingcraft-dianne]

Maar creëren miljardairs als Jeff Bezos en Tesla-oprichter Elon Musk niet grote waarde en noodzakelijke innovatie?

‘Eigenaren van bepaalde middelen behalen extreme winsten, niet door een betekenisvolle bijdrage te leveren, maar simpelweg door eigenaar ervan te zijn. Landeigenaren bijvoorbeeld profiteren van de prijsstijging van ander vastgoed in de omgeving, die vaak het resultaat zijn van investeringen van lokale of nationale overheden, investeringen gedaan met geld van de belastingbetaler, die vervolgens langzaam verdrukt wordt uit het gebied door stijgende huren. Die bezitters behalen winst door te profiteren van investeringen die niks van doen hebben met hun eigen inspanningen.’

‘Bovendien is veel rijkdom en macht van techmiljardairs afkomstig van de bescherming van intellectueel eigendom. En intellectueel eigendom is tegenwoordig in wezen net zoiets als de hoge concentratie van grondbezit en andere bezittingen waar klassieke economen als Adam Smith en anderen zich in de achttiende en negentiende eeuw grote zorgen over maakten.’

‘Als je door octrooien beschermde goederen en diensten bezit, kun je vaak winsten oogsten die ver uitstijgen boven het niveau van jouw persoonlijke bijdrage aan de ontwikkeling van die technologie. Dus of de rijkdom en privileges van Musk of Bezos een eerlijke weerspiegeling zijn van de bijdrage die ze hebben geleverd, is echt discutabel.’

‘Data vormen een goed voorbeeld. Heel veel data, dé brandstof voor techreuzen als Google en Microsoft, zijn collectief geproduceerd door individuen. Maar wij individuen zien niets terug van de waarde van die collectieve interactie met bedrijven. Bedrijven kapitaliseren die data, voornamelijk door de platforms die ze hebben opgericht, en die in de praktijk behoorlijk concurrentieverstorend en monopolistisch zijn geworden.‘

[thinkingcraft-dianne]

Manifestos

Advancing Creativity Theory and Research: A Socio‐cultural Manifesto

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jocb.395?fbclid=IwAR3yPfspWqWihTjNBA_anhqJJcH_NLohMYDm2b7kIXPp5W3rfWHVbRoveVA

Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity - Basarab Nicolescu

https://books.google.nl/books?hl=nl&lr=&id=jxJDlYTlAQ8C&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=manifesto&ots=xY4rC6aj2V&sig=5-lT6Yi-iZT0_bzQOwRRBXnJKrQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=manifesto&f=false

Crip Technoscience Manifesto

https://catalystjournal.org/index.php/catalyst/article/view/29607

The 3D Additivist Manifesto - Morehshin Allahyari & Daniel Rourke

https://cross.virtualprivateserver.space/manifesto/2015_The_3D_Additivist_Manifesto_[EN]

The Call for Feminist Data

https://cross.virtualprivateserver.space/manifesto/2018_The_Call_for_Feminist_Data_[EN]

Cyberwitches manifesto

https://cross.virtualprivateserver.space/manifesto/2019_Cyberwitches_Manifesto_[EN]

The Futurist Manifesto

https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/futurist-manifesto

White manifesto

https://theoria.art-zoo.com/the-white-manifesto-lucio-fontana/

Outside of the Internet there is no Glory

https://www.academia.edu/27877460/Outside_the_internet_there_is_no_glory

NEEN Manifesto

https://www.academia.edu/23111102/NEEN_MANIFESTO_english

[thinkingcraft-dianne]

Literature Reflection (Bridle & AI bias)

I found the podcasts by James Bridle in combination with the literature review on gender, race and power in AI give more in-depth information on topics that I have theoretically (as well as in person) touched the surface on before. Both works illustrate why it is important we mindfully use and design technology.Something that stuck with me is how less visible important institutions have become; my local bank has closed and is now almost fully operating digitally and many municipality cases can I handle online. What does this mean for societies' grip and understanding of them? Visibility and transparency are ground principles for and of our liberal and democratic system, so why not here? Visibility = responsibility: this ranges from the power relations visible in the internet cables that run under the oceans to tech companies making diversity reports publicly available. 

I never realized how John Berger's theories on seeing art can be applied to modern day technology.  Especially the radio analogy I find interesting; the same can be said for social media nowadays, where only a small percentage of its users produces content that is viewed by millions. it is often a one-way conversation which leaves its participants feeling isolated instead of conencted. This has become even more apparent during covid-19, where online friday drinks have not felt the same as in real life. Also, the power of tech companies have increased even more now more and more people are dependent on them. I have a feeling that the increase of living in this digital period will have a huge impact on the mental health of people. On the other hand, the digital realm has democratized information and discussions on this information, as there is a variety of free webinars, festivals and conferences available online, from the comfort of people's homes. This will in the end also democratize new tools and how we perceive the world around us. The way James Bridle described our relation to technology was in line with Donna Haraway's idea about living in the terrestrial. If we would see and care for technology as how we do certain animals, we would be able to re-evaluate what we can get from it. Bridle mentions that artificial intelligence can help us escape the Anthropocene and to reconnect ourselves to nature.  Though he does not mention how. However, I thought of how our living world is progressively supplied with sensors and with the resulting data, and how we can gain insights into the complexity of the interdependencies between living organisms. For instance, sensors and the datafication of forests have laid bare the complex web of communications between trees. When  researching I came across this TED Talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvBlSFVmoaw.

This mention of changing the way we connect to our technologies reminded me of the term automation bias; the urge of humans to favour suggestions from automated systems and to ignore contradictory information made without automation, even if it is correct. Especially in covid times, people have this idea of a 'technofix', which is  based on a combination of trust in technology and limited trust in the ability, and the willingness, of humans to adapt their behaviour. We are looking for the fastest solution which will cause us to make the least amount of sacrifices; technology will fix our problem and we do not have to think about it any longer. A “quick fix” for the corona crisis, in the form of a vaccine, would quickly silence the debate on the structural causes of the pandemic and allow us to revert to our pre-corona practices in a heartbeat. Comparable to the way medication often takes away the necessity of aspiring to a healthier lifestyle. Because of this apparent lack of any human sacrifice, the idea of the techno-fix goes hand in hand with a feeling of guilt, as if, like in the myth of Prometheus, we really don’t deserve to use technology. 

The crisis is slowly taking away our illusion of the tech fix. The essence of these (false) solutions is the illusion they create that we can “save” the climate without having to change our lifestyle. The underlying belief is that we’re not willing to make a sacrifice such as travelling less, for example, or reducing our total energy use. In fact, the main notion seems to be that human beings are not or barely able to adjust their behavior at all without the clear prospect of a reward. It would be interesting to make the climate crisis sensed evenly as immediately as current pandemic. This circles back to the notion that visibility calls for understanding, thus responsibility. As it is talked about in the Bridle podcasts: technological agency and climate change are both visual problems, or rather the lack of visibility. An artwork that succeeds in visually raising awareness for this is terra0, a forest that can autonomously sell its trees and eventually, using the accumulated capital, buy itself and become a self-owned economic unit. For now, it remains an artistic experiment designed to raise awareness, but in theory you could build such a program on the blockchain to make a forest represent itself.

For me, as a woman enrolled in a technologically-focused minor in a class in which the majority of the people identify as male, the text on gender, race and power in AI was really interesting and had contained some familiar frustrations. By connecting the unequal representation of women in the tech industry to and bias systems in AI, the author suggests two versions of the same problem. I find data violence, which enacts forms of administrative power which affects some of us more than others, a relevant modern day problem. In a world in which data and facts reign and where systems are trained upon existing data sets, representation is of uttermost importance. The authors stresses that, because AI systems play a important role in our political institutions (like healthcare), we need to re-asses the relationship between workplace diversity crisis and the problems with bias and discrimination in AI. In a future and ideal world, a supervising board would examine the politics of the design of such a system. It would check how a system was constructed and whose interests shaped the metrics for success or failure. 

Understanding 'bias' in data requires accounting of the social context through which the data was produced: how humans make data in context. It is also interesting to note that companies also use data violence to shape reports on diversity to their wishes. Only accounting the 80% of the full-time workforce is data manipulations with major implications and should in my eyes therefore be considered a crime or at least punished. Again, transparency is the only way for people to know what is going on inside a company and enables the to hold them accountable and to make knowledgeable  (consumer) decisions. To say that women are inherently less confident in their computing skills, is to totally ignore the male-dominated and therefore male-designed social institutions in which many obstacles have to be overcome. This week, I found a poc female on youtube talking about her career in coding and who recommended many resourced while talking about it in a transparent and non-elite way. This made me much more interested in it, and most importantly made me feel as if I could also find my place in male-dominated sectors. Also, talking two girls who participated in a summer residency of V2_Lab for Unstable Media and seeing their work made me feel more comfortable in that area already. Seeing yourself being represented certainly boosts your confidence in your own abilities. As stated in the article, "the inclusion of women becomes the solution for all gender problems, not just those of exclusion or absence. .. their mere presence builds the table they sit at in the first place." The ultimate goal is cognitive diversity, and cognitive diversity is correlated with identity diversity. That means it's not just about women in tech. It is about broad voices, broad representation.  

I have been thinking about my internship lately, which was unpaid and in a male-led studio. I worked really hard and participated in many interesting projects. But by giving me the feeling I should already feel rewarded and appreciated by this mere participation felt empty in the end. I have been thinking about students who might not have done the internship because they could not pay their rent that way and how this influences the diversity within a studio. I believe that if you appreciate an intern, care for quality of work and giving everyone an equal chance to grow as a designer, you would pay them. This would in the end contribute greatly of cognitive diversity in the field of design, which is also has been male-dominated in the recent past.Biological determinism, as mention by the authors, is also something that is interesting during these times inn which the political landscape is under pressure. There is more unrest and focus on the pandemic, both reasons for governments to 'silently' change important laws within a country. Example of this is the current situation in Poland, were abortion rights have been almost entirely taken away from women. Former Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk  also criticised the judgement. "Throwing the topic of abortion and a ruling by a pseudo-court into the middle of a raging pandemic is more than cynical". The coronavirus crisis will be global and long-lasting, economic as well as medical. However, it also offers an opportunity. This could be the first outbreak where gender and sex differences are recorded, and taken into account by researchers and policy makers. Also for too long, politicians have assumed that child care and elderly care can be “soaked up” by private citizens—mostly women—effectively providing a huge subsidy to the paid economy. This pandemic should remind us of the true scale of that distortion and how balancing unpaid work out between all genders can lead to more diversity in fields such as tech and design as well.

[thinkingcraft-dianne]

A thinktank website that I found, that deeply investigates possible futures (after covid-19).

[thinkingcraft-dianne]

[thinkingcraft-dianne]

Reflection on Donna Haraway & Bruno Latour

I believe the text and the accompanying film and talk all contain a thought-provoking and unusual dissent against our current societal patterns, with its focus on human exceptionalism and bounded individualism.

We must deepen our interests about the consequences of our action to better predict efficient systems for our wellbeing. Especially in the light of the thoughts of Louis Althusser and his focus on state apparatuses, which have grabbed my interests in previous projects. He underlines that state power is upholded state apparatus;

repressive state apparatus, which defends interests ruling classes. police, army, criminal law etc. — ‘functions by repression first'

ideological state apparatus (isa), regarding to religion, education, family life, culture etc. — ‘functions by ideology first’

I see tentacular thinking and kinship as an antidote for these apparatuses. In this turbulent as well as ’slow’ (covid) time, we are realising more and more that we are born into these pre-existing systems and that we are now more than ever capable to deconstruct or even critique these. By defunding the police, taking time to spend time with the ones closest to us and realising the consequences and following minimisation of our globalised world. Our shrinking global village is showing us the possibilities and chances in forming stronger kinships with the People (human and non-human) around us. Referencing back to Althusser, this hopefully will lead to a new dominant ideology that contributes to revising our values within state apparatuses.    Donna Haraway also talks about the notion that capitalistic apparatuses have the power to make real what they imagine; how these stories have the power to realise themselves. This reminded me of linguistics and especially the Sapir Whorf hypothesis: the idea that the language we use has an effect on our thinking and the way we perceive the world. Language appears to exert considerable influence over how people categorise, evaluate, and remember the world. For eg. the Hopi tribe didn't have any words for time – no direct translation for the noun time itself, no grammatical constructions indicating the past or future – and therefore could not conceive of it. They experienced reality in a fundamentally different way. Maybe if we change the way we talk about our existence, like by acknowledging the Cthulucene, Gaia human / non-human connections, we can change the way we perceive and control our world.

Illustrating this as well is that we use gross domestic product as a measure of economic growth. It completely ignores nature and human well being. And so it is a very limited concept. In a NYT article I added on my blog, scientists noted that food supplies are threatened by ecosystem collapse, climate change, the decline in pollinators and soil degradation from unsustainable farming. Conflict follows food and water scarcity. Everything, human and non-human, is connected and will in turn influence our lives. Many governments, within their ministry of environment, have a lot of ambition for biodiversity, but they don’t have enough power compared to the other ministries: agriculture, transportation, energy. By investing in nature, not only can we reduce extinctions, we can help address the climate issue. We can also have healthier landscapes and healthier people.

[thinkingcraft-dianne]

“Many governments, within their ministry of environment, have a lot of ambition for biodiversity,” said Anne Larigauderie, an ecologist who attended the conference in 2010 that adopted the 20 targets. “But they don’t have enough power compared to the other ministries: agriculture, transportation, energy.”

“By investing in nature, not only can we reduce extinctions, we can help address the climate issue,” Mr. Cooper said. “We can also have healthier landscapes and healthier people.”

Despite the overall failure, the report highlights areas of progress around the world, bright spots showing that people have the power to protect and restore nature, not just destroy it. Conservation efforts have prevented an estimated 11 to 25 bird and mammal extinctions over the last decade; without these actions, researchers calculated, the number most likely would have been two to four times as high.

To praise and inspire, the report is peppered with success stories big and small. Working with scientists, 20 million Chinese farmers decreased the amount of nitrogen they used on crops like rice and wheat while simultaneously increasing yields. Indonesia, Liberia and Gambia cracked down on illegal foreign fishing vessels, improving their fish stocks to the benefit of local fisherman. Guatemala rewarded landowners who restored forests with native species.

But such actions must be scaled up significantly. The scale of the crisis and the sheer number of humans living on the planet mean that conservation alone will not be enough. Instead, the report said, societies will have to transform how they produce and consume food and other goods. One of the targets addressed this directly: Governments, businesses and stakeholders at all levels were to take steps, at least, to achieve plans for sustainable production and consumption. Three-quarters of the countries reported back on their progress; of those, only one-tenth are on track, the report found.

“Our economic and financing systems are all screwed up,” said Robert Watson, a former chairman of two high-profile panels, one on climate change at the United Nations and the other on biodiversity. “We use gross domestic product as a measure of economic growth. It completely ignores nature. It completely ignores human well being. And so it’s a very limited concept.”

Without transformational change, the report said, all humanity will be affected, with Indigenous people and the poor bearing the worst effects. -- in this instance, it can be seen how our responsibility to each other and other ‘People’ is crucial.

Scientists say food supplies are threatened by ecosystem collapse, climate change, the decline in pollinators and soil degradation from unsustainable farming. Conflict follows food and water scarcity.

The report calls for eight urgent transitions in the way we use lands and oceans, grow our food, eat, build our cities, manage our fresh water and more. For example, we must eat less meat and fish, bring nature into cities and quickly stop burning fossil fuels.

With these bold changes, it is not too late to slow and ultimately reverse this crisis, the report found.

“We still need this planet to live on,” Ms. Mrema said. “And we still need this planet for our children.”

[thinkingcraft-dianne]

Notes on "Critical Zones" - discussion on Storytelling for Earthy Survival

We need a new narrative about earth. 

Bruno Latour and Donna Haraway are among a group of brothers and sisters who are going into the same direction. They argue we need thinking as a (complex) materialistic practice, bringing us closer together. We need to equip ourselves to ‘land on earth’; living in the terrestrial is being at risk to each other. 

We were all forced to take off into the great modernising projects of colonial capitalism. Many (non-human and human) people did not take off and are teaching us how to live now. —> they never stopped living in a terrestrial way (not the same thing as living innocently.) We have never been individuals: we are all ‘lichens’ now: we are responsible for and to each other. Trump stressing ‘good bloodlines’ in Henry Ford is fascist eugenics identification. 

Conservative revolution is gripping the earth. ‘Born ones’ are propelled by the same apparatus of destruction, radical simplification and the propelling of endless growth. This is accompanied by a (necrophiliac) disregard of lives without value. ‘Bad-numbering’ and oversimplification of biospheres can be countered by non-reproductive modes of kinship. We must be responsible for numbering attuned to justice and care, as the means and not just the end. Human exceptionalism is a radically narrowed conception of what is means to be human. Is extended into the notion of Gaia and how machines are not inanimate. Being response-able. Notion that history is western and will end is arrogant. 

  Capitalistic apparatuses have the power to make real what they imagine. These stories have the power to realise themselves. Taking the intimate seriously is being connected to the terrestrial, rather than it meaning to ‘leave politics’. It is about travelling; taking each other seriously. There is no way to to be engaged in the duality of care and poison. Practices of control are practices of keeping each other alive. (For eg. health care) 

Eugenics: the study of how to arrange reproduction to increase occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable. 

  Globalisation promised us a world without borders, but now we have created the opposite. Separation of mind and body; we can now send messages without our bodies.

[thinkingcraft-dianne]

Rather than mere product price, The Impact Receipt fronts up on information such as CO2, water-use, and energy consumption. It’s ASKET’s hope that by equipping customers with the knowledge of exactly what goes into their clothes and the overall impact of what they’re buying, they will keep them longer and, ultimately, buy less in the long run.