ancianita
ancianita's JournalIndispensable reading for all who are concerned about cyberspace, corporate capture and democracy.
From the author:Who controls code? is the urgent civics question.
A struggle is taking place right now as corporations, states, criminal elements, and parts of civil society vie to build the coded environment around us. Hackers are savants in this world. But their identity is protean. Sought after for their talents, almost folkloric in status, they’ve been recruited and reviled, celebrated and imprisoned.
While there are IT authoritarians capable of bringing down critical infrastructure and sowing strife between nations, hackers might also be vital disrupters in the emerging digital environment with its dystopic, anti-democratic tendencies.
There is an astounding array of hacker experiments underway right now that could fundamentally change the current political economy.
Hacking can become a practice, an ethos, and a metaphor for a growing social movement in which ordinary citizens are taking things into their own hands when reform is out of sight.
At a time when people’s faith in elites to govern has never been lower, hacking is inspiring a new wave of activism, a new way of thinking and acting, as citizens fight to take back their democracies.
… Citizen hackers are inventing new forms of distributed democracy. The central question will be how we ordinary citizens and tech insiders go forward together to accomplish the hard work of democracy in the digital age.
We’ve got to try.
From Cory Doctorow:
This is a book about hackers and hacker politics: the nuts-and-bolts and the big picture. The people who appear in it are, like our fellow human beings -- deeply flawed, cracked vessels who struggle to contain bad impulses and to let the pure water of our noble ones pour out freely.
Hacker politics are anti-authoritarian because hackers know that authorities are just as damaged as they are. Hacker politics are pluralistic because hackers know that unchecked power is a catastrophe in the making, because without those checks, the bugs in the system will run wild and brick the device before you even know there's something wrong there. It is a political ethos that accounts for the fallibility of human beings as much as for their unlimited potential. It is designed to avoid making things worse, even if it doesn't always know how to make them better.
Hacker politics may not solve our problems, but as this book makes clear, they are going to be part of the solution.
I apologize to DU.
Though I have posted support for Kanye West's artistic record and reputation, I believe with you that his expressions of anti-semitism are unacceptable.
All "othering" is toxic and troubling. I stand with you and the ADL re Kanye. I realize I'll have to let him go. I still wish him a turning away from this dark side, and healing.
I hope DU will accept my apology. 
In 2022, the nations that are free, partly free, not free
https://www.axios.com/2022/02/24/global-democracy-index-freedom-house-2022-mapBelow the graphic, Freedom House's interactive map link shows freedom measures for "Global Freedom," "Internet Freedom," and "Democracy Status."
https://freedomhouse.org/explore-the-map?type=fotn&year=2022
Based on corporate history, my theory is that corporate autocracy rises as it captures democracies and their structures.
Corporations have accomplished their wealth building through their objectification/exploitation of all humans as profit centers or, when they fail or humans fight back, humans become expendable “collateral damage” and their deaths become ledgered losses and tax write offs.
The untaught history of corporations reveals their 21st Century goal of “privatized freedom.” Because to them, money and wealth ARE freedom. Charles Koch — past president of the Mont Pelerin society, executive planner of the yearly Aspen Institute conference, yearly participant at Davos -- has explicitly said those words.
Timothy Snyder on the Necessity of Journalists Covering Events of Ukraine, Its History & Lessons
Rachel Maddow would love Snyder's approach to history and human agency.
Famine is political history. Welsh reporter Gareth Jones was the only journalist who reported the enforced famine in Ukraine. Stalin's aim in 1932, 1933, was a colonial famine; it was also Hitler's corporate, wealth driven plan to control the fertile agricultural territory of Ukraine, because he thought Stalin was doing this.
Had journalists covered it at the time, had we known, and had historians written of it, events since might have been quite different.
In 2022, Putin is using the same strategy in Ukraine, and the world's food supply will suffer.
Prices of grain will go up worldwide (inflation); China will hoard agricultural goods (choke supply chains);
with Putin's blockade, the world will starve.
These events can be known in advance and are unfolding right now.
The West's story is that the Russian state is rational & Putin is a technocrat -- not true.
Also not true is the deeper, darker version of this war, which has been one of mass starvation.
Re journalists: that there are plenty of reporters doesn't mean that there isn't a real need for reporters from Africa and the global South.
Victim reversal has already begun -- blaming Ukrainians for their starving; calling journalists and Ukrainians Nazi for 90 years, which has chilled coverage.
Thus, the West's memory is faulty about Ukraine's colonial history.
Putin is still using the the same European colonial arguments used during the global historymaking of colonialism:
-- these people are not a nation
-- this political organization is not a state
These historical propaganda ideas set up the West to believe two policies and practices toward objectified people of both Africa and the West:
-- the people in Africa and Asia don't matter, and
-- the Ukrainians will be blamed if they do;
Imperial powers objectify the Ukrainians and the "others" around the world, seen as a 'means to an end' (or as 'collateral damage,' imo).
(My opinion: By "imperial powers" I mean today's corporations. Since their formation in the 13th Century, their lingo has been alienating language about us humans; e.g., "some say..." or "some believe..." the slaveowners' use of "we," also objectifying language which its media have helped us adopt about the 'other.')
Snyder's advice:
1. Execute a plan to free Ukrainian ports
2. Get reporters on the ground; get reporters from the global South to Kyiev
3. Reporters must frame Ukrainian, African and Asian agency all at the same time; do not let the Russian propaganda dominate
4. re the Future: what reporters report matters right now; what reporters must access is the background history of colonial Ukraine exploitations and mass death, and report how that is unfolding right now.
The West's biggest mistake happened in 1989 when it adopted the most dangerous idea of our time -- the future is going to be automatic -- and its corollaries that
-- capitalism's going to make everything okay, that
-- everyone's going to want to be democratic
That idea took us out of the future. That idea took our agency away. That idea gave our agency to all the "larger forces" (which I call the world's still-hidden corporate oligarchs). That idea made us educate a couple of generations to the idea of the automaticity of the future coming to you. Which it isn't.
And so the Fierce-Urgency-of-Now Goal for Journalists (as different from media):
Depending on how journalists cover the present -- the more concepts and values and knowledge journalists bring into their coverage of the present -- shapes the more and broader futures that people can be able to see.
The future isn't just one thing. So what people can see depends largely on what journalists write.
Cue Richard Engel and Rachel Maddow.
Start 3:18
Space X and NASA News
okay not all big corps is bad
Lindgren led a mission that included NASA astronauts Bob Hines and Jessica Watkins, as well as European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti. Upon landing, the spacecraft was met by two SpaceX "fast boats" that secured the toasty-looking vehicle before it was brought on board the Megan recovery ship, named after Megan McArthur, an astronaut aboard an earlier SpaceX flight.
This mission, Crew-4, was the fourth operational mission flown by SpaceX for NASA. Earlier this month, the Crew-5 mission launched four astronauts to the space station, where they will remain for about six months. Including an initial demonstration mission in 2020, and two private spaceflights -- Inspiration4 and Axiom-1 -- Crew Dragon has now carried 30 people into orbit.
In a little more than two years, SpaceX has surpassed the total number of astronauts launched into orbit by China, whose human spaceflight program dates back to 2003; and in the time Crew Dragon has been operational, it has exceeded even the Russian Soyuz vehicle in terms of the total number of people flown into space during that period.
Over the last two years Dragon had a few flaws, including an intermittently problematic toilet and a lagging parachute on one flight, but NASA officials have been extremely pleased with the vehicle's performance. It has safely returned the United States' capability of human spaceflight, which had been lost since the space shuttle's retirement. Had Dragon not been available, NASA would have been in the uncomfortable position of relying on Russia for crew transport amid the Ukraine war.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/10/since-crew-dragons-debut-spacex-has-flown-more-astronauts-than-anyone/
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/14/spacex-crew-4-splashdown-live-stream-nasa-astronauts-return-to-earth.html
Asking lawyers in the house: by my count, Trump broke 17 federal laws -- am I off?
1.18 U.S. Code 371 conspiracy to defraud the United States/commit federal crime
18 U.S. Code 2384 seditious conspiracy
18 U.S. Code 2383 rebellion or insurrection
18 U.S. Code 1505 obstruction of proceedings
18 U.S. Code 1341, 1343, 1346, 1349 wire fraud
18 U.S. Code 2071 concealment, removal or mutilation of government documents
18 U.S. Code 1519 obstruction of justice; destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations and bankruptcy
18 U.S. Chapter 37 Espionage Act
-- Code 793 gathering, transmitting, losing defense information
-- Code 798 disclosure of classified information
18 U.S. Code 1001 lying about status of government documents
18 U.S. Code 1512 tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant
18 U.S. Code 872 extortion by officers or employees
44 U.S. Code Chapter 22 removal of presidential records
2 U.S. Code 192 refusal of witness to testify or produce papers
2.
Only by the court filings will we know under what laws the DOJ will make its cases.
The breadth of evidence is not yet known, so we have to trust AG Garland’s DOJ to lay out the ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ level evidence for each. Even one piece of evidence, however, is sufficient to indict.
I’m no lawyer, but I'd still guess that given any evidence reported so far, the number charging counts number from a few to the hundreds.
It might or might not just be arduous for a jury to decide the defendant's guilt or innocence of these charges.
It might be that putting a jury together will be an unprecedented difficulty.
Once Trump is charged, at least 30 more people who the Jan 6 Committee said have taken the 5th, can either be charged with these, or with 'aiding and abetting' or ‘accessories after the fact’ under these laws.
Beyond those 30, elected congress people can be charged if there is evidence that they attempted, conspired, or aided and abetted any of these federal crimes.
3.
We know why there will be indictments. Because
-- No one is above the law.
-- A failed coup without consequences becomes a training exercise.
Finally, IMPO, those Republicans who have testified ( Barr, Meadows, the Trump family, etc), and provided evidentiary witness and documents,
and those Republicans who have trashed, threatened, or destroyed those sworn testifiers' reputations
-- they will ALL still vote Republican.
Big Corps v Humans
Books reviewed in this article of The New York Review of Books:
Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber
by Mike Isaac
Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don’t Talk About It)
by Elizabeth Anderson
Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire
by Brad Stone
Your Boss Is an Algorithm: Artificial Intelligence, Platform Work and Labour
by Antonio Aloisi and Valerio De Stefano
"The Boss Will See You Now," by Zephyr Teachout, reviews books that increase our knowledge of corporate surveillance, worker exploitation and other stealth anti-democratic operations. It complements our growing knowledge of corporate capture of our government, as shown by Sheldon follow-the-money Whitehouse.
If Republicans haven't sufficiently groomed Americans for fascist rule, their corporate bosses will. So far, what corporations have done in America have been legal, but not lawful, as Elizabeth Warren and Katie Porter have shown.
As Liz Cheney said today in the perhaps final Jan 6 Committee hearing, unlike Americans, most people of most countries have not been free. We are feeling the campaign onslaught of corporate dark money this year as corporations -- we like to keep it at the Republican bag man level -- go all out to end rule of law, by any means necessary, and move this nation into the global corporate network.
"Legal" is the language of the corporate world. "Lawful" is the language of the human world.
Activtrack inspects the programs used and tells bosses if an employee is unfocussed, spending time on social media. OccupEye records when and for how long someone is away from their workstation. TimeDoctor and Teramind keep track of every task conducted online. Similarly, Interguard compiles a minute-by-minute timeline that monitors all data such as web history and bandwidth utilisation and sends a notification to the managers if workers pick up anything suspicious. HubStaff and Sneek routinely take snapshots of employees through their webcams every five minutes or so to generate a timecard and circulate them to boost morale. Pragli synchronises professional calendars and music playlists to create a sense of community; it also features a facial recognition that could display a worker’s real-world emotion on their virtual avatar’s face.
Right now, there may be limited proof that these tools are used to vary pay in traditional workplaces. But the authors argue that these technical tools are not hard to combine with legal innovations in work contracts. Contracts that allow for adjusted wages can easily bring many of the conditions of gig work to traditional employment. Corporations may soon jettison the fixed-wage model that has been a feature of blue collar employment for decades.
It is no coincidence that routine work surveillance followed closely on the heels of the Reagan antitrust revolution and the collapse of private sector unionization. Nothing except unionization or new laws would stop an employer from taking all the data it is gathering from sensors and recordings and using them to more precisely adjust wages, until each worker gets the lowest wage at which they are willing to work, and all workers live in fear of retaliation. This is no more sci-fi than Facebook and Google serving users individualized content and ads designed to keep us on their services as long as possible, allowing them to sell as many ads as possible.
The bespoke clothing that my Park Avenue boss wore was a mark of privilege, a step above mass manufacture—suits made to fit her individual body, shoes tailored to the grooves and arches of her feet. The modern promise of tech personalization, building on a romanticized notion of individuality and authenticity, is that we can all live in similarly tailor-made worlds, with newsfeeds adjusted to our preferences and professional and leisure interests. You may be one of few listeners who loves both Kenny Rogers and the Cure, but Spotify knows you, and can bring you songs that speak to your singular soul.
But extending this tailor-made ethos is exquisitely unromantic: these eyes may have the intimacy and memory of a lover, but they lack all affection. Modern surveillance technology means that tailor-made wages are coming for all workplaces. The mass-produced, nonunionized depressed wages of the late twentieth century were already alarming, but the new, specially commissioned AI wages of the twenty-first century enable a new level of authoritarianism. To stop it, we’ll have to outlaw particular forms of spying, and use antimonopoly and labor laws to restructure power.
Tracking technology may be marketed as tools to protect people, but will end up being used to identify with precision how little each worker is willing to make. It will be used to depress wages and also kill the camaraderie that precedes unionization by making it harder to connect with other workers, poisoning the community that enables democratic debate. It will be used to disrupt solidarity by paying workers differently. And it will lead to anxiety and fear permeating more workplaces, as the fog of not knowing why you got a bonus or demotion shapes the day.
This matters because work is not an afterthought for democratic society; the relationships built at work are an essential building block. With wholly atomized workers, discouraged from connecting with one another but forced to offer a full, private portrait of themselves to their bosses, I cannot imagine a democracy.
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2022/08/18/the-boss-will-see-you-now-zephyr-teachout/
Judiciary Subcommittee Hearing On Transparency and Accountability for 21st Century Courts
Sheldon Whitehouse convenes this meeting to address the issue of judicial integrity, including information from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse on ’the amicus problem,’ ’the Justice recusal and conflict of interest problem,’ and ’the Justice willing exposure in resorts to lobbyist activities problem,’ and his legislative remedy in The Disclose Act.
His meeting convenes on the issue of judicial restructuring.
Kennedy says that this committee’s efforts to change SCOTUS destabilize SCOTUS, and he will not be a part of any effort to destabilize and challenge the integrity of justices of the SCOTUS. He bases his refusal to participate on what justices are supposed to do; and repeats his belief that he sees Americans as free to give their opinions, and that one side thinks it has a monopoly on the truth. Kennedy implies that one side is trying to tear down the courts while both sides are spending mightily to get rulings they profit from. Kennedy says, in effect, that things do look bad and I want to look into it, but I don’t intend to do anything about the court; instead, to find out what the Dept of Justice is made of in ferreting out the latest SCOTUS leaker.
Assuming that the witnesses give sufficient valued information re SCOTUS problems and solutions, the subcommittee should be able to move forward in the judicial reform path that Senator Whitehouse will try to move Congress.
Start: 11:10
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Gender: Do not displayHometown: New England, The South, Midwest
Home country: USA
Current location: Sarasota
Member since: Sat Mar 5, 2011, 12:32 PM
Number of posts: 36,009