Amazon’s brutal workplace culture
Basically: extreme Taylorism with digital tracking. From Simon Headās new book, Mindless
[Its Chief of Operations and Customer Relations] Mark Onetto in his lecture describes in detail how Amazonās present-day scientific managers go about achieving speedup. They observe the line, create a…
For many white people the only kind of anti-black racism that exists is one of slurs, overt discrimination, and stand your ground style violence. This mode of āopt-in white racismā is almost useless as an analytic tool for discussing issues in which race plays a role, but is very useful in distancing oneself from the necessity to engage those conversations. What is more interesting to me is why white people find comfort in white spaces, seemingly without the ability to see those spaces as white.
Erecting more balcony guardrails wonāt persuade frat brothers to stop hosting offensive Asian-themed ragers and sending mass emails referencing ārapebait.ā It wonāt stop them from from throwing beer bottles at black students, calling them āTrayvon Martin,ā or more or less getting away with sexual assault.
If you look at the way that the world works now, you can point to very specific things, like Twitter and blogging and the changes that are happening in the music and publishing industries, and you can actually point to this set of people, this set of thinking, and the stuff that came out of it and say, āHoly shit. That worked.ā
The first hundred or so times Expereal asked me how I was feeling, my assessments were the kinds of superficial ones you might respond with if a stranger asked you on the street: āIām fine.ā, āAll good.ā, āFrustrated by a supermarket line.ā Reviewing my answers after the first few weeks, it dawned on me: I had been politely lying to my smartphone.
My own concern is primarily the terror and violence carried out by my own state, for two reasons. For one thing, because it happens to be the larger component of international violence. But also for a much more important reason than that; namely, I can do something about it. So even if the U.S. was responsible for 2 percent of the violence in the world instead of the majority of it, it would be that 2 percent I would be primarily responsible for. And that is a simple ethical judgment. That is, the ethical value of oneās actions depends on their anticipated and predictable consequences. It is very easy to denounce the atrocities of someone else. That has about as much ethical value as denouncing atrocities that took place in the 18th century.
Plus I find the Bay Area conĀgested, racist, inĀcesĀtuĀous, and overĀpriced. So I was never reĀally tempted.
Steve McQueen talks lack of Diversity in Film
This warms the cockles of my heart for so many reasons:
1.) When asked about the lack of diversity, Steve gets right to the point by basically saying, āWhy the fuck you asking the black guy, the minority in the room? Ā How about asking the 8 other white guys who donāt cast minorities as leads in their films?ā Thank you for that, Mr. McQueen.
2.) The white panelistsā complete refusal to participate in the conversation is representative of their refusal to address/acknowledge the problem of a lack of minority representation in film. Ā One even has the audacity to say, āIām not getting into it.ā Ā As if the issue at hand is completely irrelevant to his job as a director. Ā As if to say, how dare they, despite being part of the problem, be asked to engage in a conversation aboutā¦the problem. Ā The lunacy of it all!Ā
3.) Steveās utter disregard for white feelings.Ā
THE LAST BIT ABOUT ALTERNATE REALITY IN FILM/ IāVE BEEN SAYING THAT FOR A MINUTE, WHEN MCQUEEN CAME OUT WITH IT I NEARLY FLEW OF MY CHAIR
They never did anything to me personally, or even threatened me, but they didnāt need to. You donāt need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. They were Ć¼ber-right-wing. Now, Iām not talking about Rush Limbaugh; Iām talking about the people who make life-and-death decisions. And itās not necessarily evil; itās more realistic. Charles was ex-CIA. Itās weirder than you can possibly imagine. I certainly never got the truth. Since then, everything thatās happenedāfrom Nirvana going crazy and on and on and onānone of that holds a candle to how weird that situation was. Thatās David Lynch weird.
George Orwell would be flummoxed. āLet me get this straight: You pay every month for your tracking device?ā
"Just being black in the US is often all it takes to arouse suspicion. Here are 21 examples from the last five years of some of the things black people can’t do without others thinking they’re up to no good.
Listen to loud music at a gas station.
Walk home from a snack run to 7-11.
Wear a hoodie.
Drive in a car with a white girl.
Walk on the wrong side of the street.
Wait for a school bus to take you to your high school basketball game.
Drink iced tea in a parking lot.
Seek help after a car accident.
Inspect your own property.
Show up at your job.
Talk trash after an NFL game.
Throw a temper tantrum in kindergarten.
Buy designer accessories at Macy’s.
Enter your own home.
Be a tourist.
Lay face down in handcuffs.”
Source: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/02/21-things-you-cant-do-while-black
“All mammals play when they are young and those that have the most to learn play the most. Carnivores play more than herbivores, because hunting is harder to learn than grazing. Primates play more than other mammals, because their way of life depends more on learning and less on fixed instincts than does that of other mammals. Human children, who have the most to learn, play far more than any other primates when they are allowed to do so. Play is the natural means by which children and other young mammals educate themselves. In hunter-gatherer bands, children are allowed to play and explore in their own chosen ways all day long, every day, because the adults understand that this is how they practise the skills that they must acquire to become effective adults.
The most important skills that children everywhere must learn in order to live happy, productive, moral lives are skills that cannot be taught in school. Such skills cannot be taught at all. They are learned and practised by children in play.”
āWhy is black pride OK but white pride is racist?ā If students are taught that whiteness is based on a history of exclusion, they might easily see that there is nothing in the designation as āwhiteā to be proud of. Being proud of being white doesnāt mean finding your pale skin pretty or your Swedish history fascinating. It means being proud of the violent disenfranchisement of those barred from this category. Being proud of being black means being proud of surviving this ostracism. Be proud to be Scottish, Norwegian or French, but not white.
I think a person should be able to dial a number, make a purchase, send an SMS, write an email, or visit a website without having to think about what itās going to look like on their permanent record.
[gallery]
Amazing visualization of the psychogeography of running with smartphones.
When I run, Iām an invisible observer of my city, a ghost forgotten by the people I pass almost as quickly as I disappear from view. Iāve gotten a broad, hard look at this city and its people. Some of it is challenging to see, but at times I think I can see the things that connect every citizen of the city. … We run across the invisible divides that segregate us from neighbors and, in that way, we come to understand where we live.
Alon Abramson: The First Steps, YIP ā Young Involved Philadelphia
Running as psychogeographic dƩrive.
Whiteness was never about skin color or a natural inclination to stand with oneās own; it was designed to racialize power and conveniently dehumanize outsiders and the enslaved.
We have surveillance video from the hotels that shows people turn on the shower, direct the nozzle at the wall and then leave the room for the whole day.
Dmitry Kozak, deputy Prime Minister responsible for the Olympic preparations, assuring people that the Sochi failures have been exaggerated by western visitors.
(via ericcannedy)
As Americans have grown increasingly comfortable with traditional surveillance cameras, a new, far more powerful generation is being quietly deployed that can track every vehicle and person across an area the size of a small city, for several hours at a time. … A single camera mounted atop the Washington Monument, McNutt boasts, could deter crime all around the Mall.
It looks more and more as if high levels of extra antioxidants can actually give people cancer, or at the very least, help along any cancerous cells that might arise on their own. Evidence for this has been piling up for years now from multiple sources, but if you wander through a grocery or drug store, you’d never have the faintest idea that there could be anything wrong with scarfing up all the antioxidants you possibly can.
[gallery]
Thanks for the submitting -Ā See you on Friday for our 1840s GIF Party!Ā
"Surfbort."
This goes perfectly with Outkast’s “Hey Ya”
Update: Also perfect with Shaggy’s “Boombastic”. Don’t take my word for it!
The key is to remember that the surveillance and the abuse doesnāt occur when people look at the data, it occurs when people gather the data in the first place.
[gallery]
universalequalityisinevitable:
David Suzuki, from this video.
Much as we marvel at Babylonian clay tablets listing measures of grain, future generations will find just as much meaning in our log files as they will in the media we consume.
A Guide to White Privilege for White People Who Think They’ve Never Had Any