#conspiracy theorist mode engaged

[lidoshka]

Is the fact Sanji probably eat human flesh a conversation the One Piece fandom has or...?

[bringmemyrocks]

hey i've been reading what you've posted about "normalizers" etc and when you mentioned rim abdellatif i realized that a while ago the organization shoresh (anti-zionist israelis in the usa) posted something and she commented that it's a nonsensical psy-op for them to say they're anti-zionist israelis. i saw a few american anti-zionist jews agreeing with her but i'm not sure what to make of it tbh. like i've seen people renounce their israeli citizenship and i think that's good and members of shoresh could probably do that i guess, but idk. what you've posted about religious chauvinism is spot on from what i've seen so maybe i should talk to the jews i know who hold her as the standard to follow :/

Hi anon, so a few things. Please tell your Jewish friends why she, and the strict definition of antinormalization she espouses.

More info on my blog, specifically the antinormalization tag. I also have tags for JVP, etc.

TL;DR Reem Abdellatif is an antisemite, conspiracy theorist, and transphobe. Nobody should treat her as an authority on anything. She’s also not Palestinian. She is Egyptian and lives in LA. Most Israelis are not dual citizens and are not eligible for dual citizenship.  Shoresh is anti-Zionist org for Israelis in the US. Plenty of its members do not have US/other dual citizenship. Requiring them to renounce their Israeli citizenship would render them unable to leave Israel, unable to “just leave” like Reem and her peers want. 

Please do your own digging before accepting someone's evaluation of an org, including my own.

Elaborating: 

For any non-followers, I support a free Palestine from the River to the Sea. This does not mean that no Jews are allowed to live there. That’s never what it has meant. Most questions about “what about the Israelis” rn are a distraction from the ongoing genocide, but I believe that anon is asking in good faith. 

Note that Palestinians who engage in “normalization” (definition debateable) are tortured. This is not just about getting canceled online, or even losing your job. 

Sorry for NYT but it's the best summary of what happened: https://web.archive.org/web/20230316191855/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/world/middleeast/rami-aman-palestinian-activist-arrested.html 

Disclaimers: Israel is a racist society, and most Israelis polled right now do not support even a ceasefire. https://time.com/6333781/israel-hamas-poll-palestine/ 

Thus “what if all Israelis renounced their Israeli citizenship” is a total hypothetical. I know people who have renounced their Israeli citizenship. It is a powerful mode of activism if it is accessible to someone. These now former-Israelis had dual citizenship with the USA or another country. If these people did not have dual citizenship, renouncing would not help Palestine as they could not leave Israel. Note for any JISR types that I will be using the term “Israel” rather than “zionist entity” because I’m talking about citizenship and passports. 

Rim Abdellatif is a conspiracy theorist whom nobody should treat as an authority, regardless of their politics. (For anyone who doesn’t know who she is, she’s a big #notonormalization English-language Instagram influencer. She is Muslim but not Palestinian. Neither of those two things should discredit her, obviously)

Parroting Joe Rogan, claiming Epstein was a Mossad agent: https://www.instagram.com/p/C0ok6UeruE3/ 

Anyone who doesn’t share her strict beliefs is being paid off by zionists: https://www.instagram.com/p/C0uEB4wILwQ/  

Opposing permanent ceasefire, claiming it’s a Zionist plot: 

https://www.instagram.com/p/C0atdDIuD3R/?img_index=1 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CyjrqtjvJ-d/ 

Railing against the “emasculation of men” (not using any of the Palestine hashtags she usually uses when talking about Palestine–this is not about Israel and a comment clearly calls out the transphobia)   https://www.instagram.com/p/CzNV4KkrWyU/ 

A few examples of Islamic chauvinism 

Only admitting Muslim victims of Israeli apartheid and genocide (Nov 8): https://www.instagram.com/p/CzaVLoZLLDV/ 

https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/18023925487682417/ (second half of stories) 

Plenty more on her stories and Instagram posts but this post is too long already.

JVP is an antizionist organization that calls for a free Palestine from the River to the Sea. It does not get money from liberal Zionists (no liberal Zionist will go near them.) It’s clear here that Reem’s issue is that JVP are not Muslim. 

George Soros theorizing... (pics 2, 3, and 4 currently sequential on her story)

She also claims that any Jewish mention of the Holocaust said in solidarity with Palestinians is centering Jewish settlers, which is… Note that she’s accusing American Jews of being “settlers” in Israel. I’m very hesitant to throw around accusations of antisemitism, but this isn’t a great look. 

She has since claimed that Chabad (the Jewish org) is running a child sex trafficking ring out of their basement, pizzagate-style. (Note that there was an instance of some Chabad teens digging a tunnel in the basement, but it was a weird religious prophecy thing, not related to human trafficking jfc.) Article on harmful conspiracies like this.

Moving on. Israel, dual citizenship, and Shoresh. I can't find the specific comment you're talking about, so I'll talk about the general ideas instead.

Israel is absolutely privileged by the US, not just by $4 billion/year for military aid, but also because Americans can serve in the Israeli military without consequence. Israel also allows dual citizenship for new (Jewish) immigrants, so an American Jew relocating to Israel keeps their US citizenship.

Israel’s Jewish Israeli population is 9 million. Depending on your source, between 300,000 and 1 million Jewish Israelis have dual citizenship with another country. Around 200,000 of them are US-Israel dual citizens. This means over 8 million Jewish Israelis do not have dual citizenship. Say for the sake of argument another 2 million Israelis have an easy way to get citizenship in another country. That still leaves 6 million Israelis who do not have dual citizenship. 

Most American Jews (by birth and by practice–born Jews who convert to other religions are not eligible) are eligible for Israeli citizenship, but this does not mean they actually have Israeli citizenship. 

If you renounce your Israeli citizenship, you lose your Israeli passport. Stating the obvious just in case it’s necessary.

Thus, if your only possible nationality is Israeli, if you renounce your Israeli citizenship, you become stateless and cannot travel anywhere, including “just leaving” Israel. 

People saying “omg just leave” are understandable, coming from a place of pain, but it is not a statement that could apply to most Jewish Israelis. Again, this is hypothetical.

It would be interesting to see what percentage of antizionist Israelis have dual citizenship and what percentage do not, but I don’t have a way to find that out. 

Shoresh is an organization for anti-Zionist Israelis living in the USA. Per their own description “We are a movement of anti-Zionist Israelis in the U.S. for freedom and justice for all from the river to the sea.”  https://www.instagram.com/shoresh_us/ This is the section most prone to errors as I don’t know a ton about this organization. As with previous posts, I am not here to do PR for this org. 

Shoresh is an anti-zionist organization. This is a big deal in the Jewish world. Even some anti-occupation orgs won't use the label "anti-Zionist" but JVP and Shoresh both do. Good for them.

Shoresh allows activists to protest in the USA in ways that they could not under the current Israeli regime. 

Shoresh is not exclusively Israelis with US citizenship. It is simply a group of “Israelis in the US.” 

Thus much if not most of Shoresh’s membership is not capable of renouncing their Israeli citizenship because they are not dual citizens. If most of Shoresh is dual citizens (no way of telling,) they still do not restrict their membership to dual citizens. Some still wouldn't be able to renounce.

Even if all of Shoresh renounced their citizenship, they would lose their ability to leave Israel. 

Israeli passport holders can stay in the USA for a max of 6 months unless they have a work or student visa.  

Thus, “Everyone in Shoresh should renounce their Israeli citizenship and never return to Israel” doesn’t really work. 

It would still be powerful if the members of Shoresh who could renounce their Israeli citizenship did so. But I don’t get to tell people how to do their activism, (that's something everyone should internalize) and ultimately I don’t know which members are dual citizens. (NB: Their insta also shows Abby Stein and Peter Beinhart, both American Jews, neither of whom has Israeli citizenship to renounce.) 

General thoughts: Shoresh is not the most radical organization in the world, but that does not mean they are actively harmful (see J Street and other “pro-Israel pro-peace” orgs). You do not have to support Shoresh, but you also don’t have to say nasty things about them. You can ignore orgs you don’t like! You can march alongside them or even with them if you're comfortable and not agree with their positions. (And I wish “influencers” on Instagram would realize this.) I haven’t interacted with Shoresh, so I can’t speak to how much change they’re effecting. I know that they’ve been disrupting a lot of pro-IDF fundraising events in the USA, as well as going to/hosting rallies, and that’s substantial. 

They're located in NY so I have no direct experience with them. Again, not here to do PR for orgs.

I highly recommend this article on IDF fundraising parties in the USA and Shoresh’s disruption. It’s a bit long, but very worth the read. https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/friends-of-the-idf-gala-protests/

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Godzilla vs. Kong (Wingard, 2021)

This review contains mild spoilers.

The last time Godzilla and King Kong fought, the former was still a villain, or at least a monster of whom we should be fearful (human motivations perhaps don't apply to such creatures), having been established as a destructive force in a few prior films, and the latter was the more heroic one. (It wouldn't be for a few more films until Godzilla, like the Terminator, became a good guy, and with his belly-rubbing-and-hopping dance in Invasion of Astro Monster, achieved an official Cute designation. Membership fees are a few hundred a year, but if you're lucky, your employer foots the bill, and you get a few extra letters at the end of your name.) This time, well, we're a few entries into this new shared universe franchise, and we've spent enough time with our giant scaly and furry friends to know that neither one is bad deep down, and even though the movie sets one up as a heel to force some confrontations, astute viewers can guess that something is up.

I normally find shared universes exhausting in modern cinema (I shouldn't have to do a dozen movies' worth of homework to understand why one jag-off in pantaloons is punching out another jag-off in pantaloons). But I find them a lot more palatable with the kaiju movie, as here the plots very much don't matter so any excuse to bring together different monsters is welcome. Like with the Showa era classics, the human characters are very much secondary to the proceedings, but I think it's worth pondering the differences in worldviews between the two iterations. Matt Zoller Seitz goes into it with a lot more thoughtfulness than I can muster in this great piece for Vulture, but essentially where Ishiro Honda believed in the sanctity of institutions and that humans were capable of altruistic actions that had an actual impact, these new movies view human intervention somewhere between misguided and actively detrimental. I won't pretend I have any great insights here, but this tale of a giant lizard duking it out with a giant gorilla does hit a certain way when the tension between individual actions and institutional response to systemic problems and the Coronovirus pandemic have been on a lot of our minds.

That being said, it doesn't make the human scenes all that much more compelling, and a supposed twist involving Demian Bichir becomes as much as a surprise as the fact that can't trust the president of Cuba, a person whom Bichir once portrayed. I will say that I was more engaged when we spent time with the unexpectedly attractive smarty pants scientist types played by Rebecca Hall and Alexander Skarsgard and the unexpectedly attractive representative of the military industrial complex played by Eiza Gonzalez, and found the rapport between Hall and the deaf-mute child Kaylee Hottle fairly involving by the standards of these movies. I was much less involved when we hung out with Millie Bobby Brown, who was in one of these movies previously, her annoying friend Julian Dennison, and a conspiracy theorist played by Bryan Tyree Henry, who is very much in "Li'l Rel Howery in Get Out" mode.

I also watched this on a flight, which is perhaps not the ideal way to experience a movie of this scale. Which is to say, I found the monster carnage diverting enough and relatively colourful, but found it lacked the grandiosity of the 2014 Godzilla, the phantasmagoric qualities of King of the Monsters and the giddy textural pleasures of Kong: Skull Island. And the CGI very much felt like CGI to me, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't prefer the more concrete pleasures of people in suits knocking over cardboard sets, like in the previous confrontation between the two titular characters.

[karliesbuzzcut]

They just don't hate Jared and Ivanka as much as they hate Josh (lmao, it cracks me up, their excuses are so weak) and all bc he married Karlie. He hasn't always been the villain here, after the elections they started, but he became the devil only after 2018. Then that book about his family was published and they acted like every conspiracy theorist acts: they cherry picked like crazy.

Kaylor is built over a pile of urban legends that were told enough times to become facts.

They throw ideas at each other daily and, every so often, the group collectively chooses one of those ideas and starts building onto it. The more time goes by, the more credibility it gets.

When Karlie got engaged, they all probably went into panic mode, remembered that person who once said “Kushner? Like married to the Trump lady Kushner?” and they ran with it. Since then, they have been gathering to tell horror stories about Josh. Attributing everything the Kushners, the Trumps and the entire government of the United States has ever done to Josh. And even if sometimes it sounds ridiculous, since there are so many people around you saying, it must carry a little bit of truth to it.

[mackiemakesthings]

Artist Statement Questions

Form:

The form of your work, in short, is what the work is made of. This is the material, medium, mode of working, or actions used to create your work.

What medium are you working in?

Textiles

What materials have you used within your work?

Fleece, polyfil batting, cotton fabric, thread

Is there a history of this medium you are referencing in your work?

If anything, perhaps the vague Americana that quilts carry for me personally. 

Why is it important to you that you are working in this medium and this process?

In creating a quilt, I reference the search for comfort in uncertainty that leads people to these communities and the need for comfort that is demonstrated by the reaction to failed prophesies. It also references the normalization of alt-right ideologies. The process is significant in that the stitching of the quilt references the sunk-cost fallacy that makes it hard for members to escape.

Subject:

The subject of your work is what you have depicted in your work. This would be things like portraits of the LGBTQ community, scenes of police violence, light on surface, the human body in motion, abstract forms, objects of middle class fetishes, etc…

What is the subject of your work? 

Social media posts made by the alt-right conspiracist group QAnon

Why have you chosen this subject to depict? Go beyond just because you “like it”.

Fascination with “the other side of belief,” an odd (maybe misplaced) sense of empathy for the regular people who have become radicalized by the echo-chamber of social media

How has your mediation of this subject changed it for your viewer?

It brings it from the virtual to real world, express an ideology that most people would censor in general conversation. An understanding that this isn’t a handful of “crazy” people, meaning a contemplation on how and why they got to this point is necessary for engagement. 

 Is there a historical or contemporary conversation you are engaging with by using this subject matter?

The capital insurrection, “fake news”, distrust in government and institutions

 Content:

The content is what your work is about. This will often include your descriptions of the form and subject of your work but go further to describe what your use of them means. This would be something like, I create distorted depictions of American and Middle Eastern leaders interacting in absurd gestures to question the current relationship between these world leaders.  

 What is the content of your work?

The Quilt contextualizes the appropriated text as a search for comfort, the leaning into delusion as a means to avoid dealing with the fact that their belief is misplaced

 What do you want your viewer to think about as they view your work?

The normalization of these ideas within mainstream culture

 Are there other individuals who also work with this content? What do they say about their practice?

Not that I am aware of

Why have you chosen to work with this content? What is your personal interest in this content?

Recent events have made it clear that the alt-right is a major threat to democracy, and the support I’ve seen people show for QAnon conspiracy theorists is threatening to me as a gay woman.

[jeannietdunlap]

Sugar Pushes Buttons

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One night, I wrote a post about how America indoctrinates our children into the “Sugar Culture” from the word go. I really didn't expect the post to generate much interest.

Boy, was I off.

Now granted, my blog page is still in its infancy and doesn't see spectacular numbers, but in numbers of views, that post nearly tripled the next closest post. It was also a big topic of conversation at my workout that evening.

It seems that more people than I expected are also frustrated by the seemingly universal assumption that it's OK to bribe and/or reward children - yours and mine - with sweets.

If you'll indulge me on the subject, the whole thing has stirred my thinking about how we are influenced by our culture. Actually, “influenced” isn't a strong enough word here. Strike that and replace with “programmed.”

I really don't mean to go all conspiracy theorist on you - I'm not one of those guys - and I don't believe our government is inherently evil and trying purposely to brainwash us, blah, blah, blah. I do, however, believe that when enough people do the same insane thing over and over again enough times and over enough years, that once-clearly-insane thing eventually becomes sane. Even smart. Even mainstream. Even cherished.

This is, in fact, programming. Just like a TV network programs advertising. When we see enough of any product over and over again - regardless of its humanitarian merits or lack thereof - we will eventually buy it.

Oh, there are lots of examples of this; take your pick. But in the specific case of sugary foods, I think Western culture has clearly “bought” the advertising, and eating sweets have firmly become an important part of Us. Don't you dare try to take away the sweets, especially during the holidays!

It was never a fair fight. Once sugar touched the taste buds of the first caveman dessert-eater, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and even meat quickly became red-headed stepchildren. The first millionaire (of caveman currency, perhaps?) was probably the first guy who had the good sense to market sweet food.

His selling points?

It's cheap. It's easy to keep and it's portable. It makes you feel good. I'll cut the cavemen and women some slack. Although they probably noticed the spikes and valleys of their energy levels upon consuming sugar, they didn't have the science to understand why. But fast-forward to today. We now build computer chips that fit on your pinky nail. We have figured out how to plop a human being down on the surface of the moon and return him safely to Earth, and that was 40 years ago! We can make virtual reality worlds in the forms of motion pictures and computer games, can transplant one person's heart with that of another, can fly around the globe at supersonic speeds, and have created robotic vacuum cleaners that bump around our homes like near-sighted dogs while we watch football games on 70-inch, high-definition television sets.

But we're still eating Cinnabons and drinking Dr. Peppers.

We've known - conclusively - for years that sugar encourages cancer. That sugar makes us fat. That sugar makes us diabetic. That sugar makes us weak. That sugar may ultimately ruin our quality of life.

We know all these things, yet we keep eating it.

I'm certainly not the smartest guy in this or any other room, and I don't have the answers. What I believe, though, is that real improvement in our culture of food is going to have to start one home at a time. We are faced with an enemy that doesn't fight fair and that has the full weight of public sentiment on his side, but revolutions begin with small uprisings, and small uprisings begin with brave choices made by moms and dads who are fed up.

Get fed up. Think for yourself and cancel the programming. Let go of destructive traditions and have the guts to start healthy ones. Consider the health of your child as a 70-year-old rather than his or her's happiness as a 4-year-old.

Do the right thing.

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The post Sugar Pushes Buttons appeared first on The Good Men Project.

[karadin]

Description of conspiracy theorists online as fan fiction

Most commentary on the QAnon phenomenon is so quick to denounce the absurdity of the community’s obsessions that it fails to consider what’s interesting and novel about the movement. A laudable exception are the three authors behind QAnon Anonymous, who suggest we understand QAnon as fan fiction: “QAnon has a canon, but the canon is basically this coded language of the drops. (short vague posts) The tapestry of the story is done by these amateur researchers...it’s decentralized storytelling, like thousands of different fanfic threads going on at once with very little to chew on at the center.” While we might think this lack of a strong canon would present an obstacle to the strength of QAnon, it actually serves as a strength.

Much as there’s a robust online community extending the narrative of virtually any TV show, movie or beloved work of fiction, QAnon’s bakers are taking the narrative sketches offered by Q and extending them into a rich and detailed fantasy world.

While there’s ample fan fiction about well-loved stories like the Harry Potter series or Star Trek, many fanfic aficionados choose to extend flawed texts, fixing their shortcomings and amplifying their strengths. It’s far more fun to write fanfic for a bad show than for a perfect one, and the narrative put forward by Q on 4Chan and 8Chan is deeply flawed. It is filled with events that haven’t transpired and predictions gone wrong.

The QAnon Anonymous team considers QAnon to be “an improvisational game” where the players compete, “looking for an interpretation that will go viral within the QAnon community.” As a result, QAnon bakers are not only co-authors of the narrative, they’re proselytisers, both for the broader conspiracy and their particular interpretive frame.

We see the same dynamics in antivax, another conspiracy that’s having a moment in the sun with the return of measles outbreaks in the US. It is insufficient to be persuaded by the antivax or QAnon movements—those who’ve joined the movement feel an obligation to share the truth with those who’ve yet to be enlightened. Those who are most successful in converting others are rewarded with attention, a commodity that is easily convertible into other currencies.

Most of the popular QAnon podcasts feature sponsored advertising, notably products like emergency flashlights designed to help listeners survive the social upheavals destined to come about during The Storm. (There is, of course, the inevitable backlash to the commercialization of QAnon, with disaffected movement participants complaining that the conspiracy has been hijacked and is now being exploited for financial gains.)

Participatory media and the new normal

The participatory advocacy that QAnons are engaged in is a phenomenon that’s grown increasingly common as news media and participatory social media have become inextricably intertwined. In the broadcast model of media, the events of the world were interpreted by a group of professionals who selected a subset of possible narratives to amplify, then delivered them to audiences who had extremely limited channels in which to offer feedback and input. That model has been largely replaced by one in which the audience is a full participant, an essential circulator of information by retweeting, sharing and remixing it. The new centers of power in this ecosystem are discovery engines like Google and Facebook, which rely on feedback from users to determine what stories to feature or ignore.

Additionally, the people formerly known as the audience are now creators of content, adding new chapters to existing stories, and telling entirely new stories.

We have a tendency to assume, especially in academic communities, that the acceptance of unrealities, whether they are those of vaccine skeptics or climate change deniers, are the consequence of poor education or emergent technologies. Robert Proctor and Iain Boal coined the term “agnotology” to refer to the study of culturally induced ignorance or doubt in order to distinguish ignorance that is consciously created from that which occurs naturally. Those who benefit from the stasis caused by imposed doubt are those who are already in positions of power.

Those who suffer the most are those who have been excluded from power. In that sense, unreality and the doubt it generates is an inherently conservative force.This war between realities is the landscape we find ourselves collectively navigating. It is our task to understand how we act as individuals and citizens in a world where the emergent mode of discourse is not to persuade someone of your interpretation of the facts, but to recruit them to your own reality.

Our ultimate challenge is not only to navigate this space but, at best, to heal and transform it. - Ethan Zuckerman

https://jods.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/tliexqdu

[nchyinotes]

Alt-Age: Designing Belief

May 19 2018

https://designmuseum.org/whats-on/talks-courses-and-workshops/alt-age-designing-belief

Thoughts: I found the first session on conspiracy theories fascinating (because I knew nothing about it beforehand, and the Trump analysis was very cool too), I liked Daniel Keller’s crypto starter kit profiles (and he was super nice, I had a great conversation with him after his talk!), and I thought Timandra put an interesting perspective to data profiling.

Trumped Up: The President and Conspiracy Theories

DR CLARE BIRCHALL

which conspiratorial theories are successful and which fail at explaining contemporary ?

conspiracy theory: speculative story that fashions historical/contemporary events as outcome of a conspiratorial design. often sits at odds with official story. it asks who benefits, and points the finger.

Richard hofstadter’s paranoid style:

all of history is a conspiracy

perpetuates the idea that conspiracy theories are totally other and unhinged

clinical paranoia vs paranoid style

conspiracy theorists are naive people who can’t really engage in the public sphere because they’re so irrational and ??

fredric jameson: conspiracism is often a symptom of something else

marxist

narrative is a v flawed attempt to map out the ever elusive social totality

system of overwhelmingly subjugating and repressive landscape

conclusion is wrong - it’s the faceless system of capitalism that is to blame

doesn’t take the form the left wants politics to take

lived experience of social injustice gets turned into a conspiratorial narrative

historical precedent informs the turn to conspiracy as explanation

justified fear that black people have about the way black bodies have been used and abused (ie. tuscany syphilis study) - institutional supported

ie. impotence, AIDS

—> tools of resistance used to galvanise a community - this is their social function or cultural work that they do  (tanya??)

example of popular knowledge that puts on display undecidable nature of all knowledge. exaggerated version of modes of knowing. so share a lot with legitimised forms. risks showing us how all knowledge is ever theory, and legitimacy is conferred by mystical constructions. so this binary is drawn to secure our own position.

Trump

what kind of conspiracist is trump? He seeks to target and delegitimize three targets:

particular political opponents

institutions (liberal media, federal reserve)

any knowledge that threatens his interest (climate change)

trump’s style:

not as the sustained narrative that hofstader way, but uses conspiracist fragments to highlights gaps/doubts and dispenses with necessity of evidence.

never quite takes responsibility over theories, just repeats others.

“some people say”, “many people say”

meme friendly format

uses it as one tactic to disorientate and disarm

helpful ideas:

conspiracism can be employed for ideological reasons

conspiracism is often a symptom of something else

proliferation of conspiracy theories is due in part to fact that so many actual conspiracies have been uncovered during the 20th century

problematic ideas in age of trump

conspiracy theory is a pejorative term

identity of president, at white house, legitimises

conspiracy theories are tools of resistance for historically marginalised people

trump isn’t a minority lol

arise because it is not possible to limit interpretation or safeguard knowledge

idkkkk post truth era stuff

concept of fully agential, sovereign, cartesian individual who believes with their whole body and soul

fragments enter upon a thoroughly networked sphere, so they circulate virally

belief becomes distributed and exists within the network through method of circulation

belief without believers?

for many trump supporters, believing the theory may be of little importance. what builds is the impression of a figure that isn’t beholden to elitists, who says the unsayable. mode might be most important.

to understand role of trump here:

this isn’t the first time conspiracy theories have been expressed from positions of power but the info environment is different

languages of disenfranchisement can be mimicked and appropriated

must think about trump’s conspiracy fragments within whole range of post truth tactics

we might need to rethink the nature of belief in a digital, networked era

The Nouveaux Cryptoriche: A Consumer Profile

DANIEL KELLER

GINI coefficient - measurement of de/centralisation, all bitcoin and ethereum stuff is actually very centralised and unequal (wealth disparity of owner of wallets, etc)

within crypto: huge gender divide, white/male/millennials

all fairly libertarian and right wing in orientation - neo liberal logic that behaviour must be incentivised economically for anything altruistic to happen (ethereum, bitcoin, ripple)

motivation through economics = neoliberal + reactionary worldview

who are the cryptorich?

richest: white men, some asian men

starter kits: caleb, priscilla, andsprei, elijah, roger

PANEL DISCUSSION

With Daniel Keller and Michael Dieter. Chaired by Natalie Kane

spiritual/magical terminology in describing technology

manipulation as neglect (malice)?

no, intention in business model to maximise profits and attention, so no not neglect because its intentional

CA = great “accident” of this business model

mindless logic that goes into all the platforms we use today, addictive nature (brains have been completely rewired in the last 15 years)

digital dependency

neglect - politics of care ?

history of the whole science and technology studies being ignored

digital mindfulness - theres a genealogy to it

cyber culture + counterculture new ageisms

subversive tactics ?

florian kramer - subversive media

angela nagel - think of alt right in terms of subcultures and critiques of subculture theory

thinking more about continuities

platform capitalism fosters these communities - reaction of no platforming them? can further radicalise + alienate them

legitimate claim at being the alt bc of the monopoly on liberal terminology  

understanding truth is based on an understanding of what non truth is or are ?

forms of behavioural economics were embedded into platform design - promoting mode of behavioural design. tracking, nudges, in the context of business propositions.

tokenising all possible economic activity, market of IOT

politics of attention - extreme edgelord ism results on 4chan

critique of behavioural dimension on platforms as being very causal

by saying these mechanisms actually work and lead to addiction, there may be a chance to launch stronger critique against platform monopoly and get them to bear more responsibility for certain dynamics we associate with them

is this a mistake, bc do we really know to what extent these mechanisms actually work?

micro targeting

distracts us from thinking through what type of longer term social issues/conflicts/antagonisms are being manifest through these types of dynamics (algorithm is revealing something that’s natural, given too much credit for this stuff)

these things work we need to regulate them vs ^

deemphasising determining role software may have in this (is ignoring the possible slippery slope tho, negligence)

targeting: sub culture of people who feel like you’re be targeted + tracked constantly by government, mental health, communities that reinforce mental illness

philosophical regulation (speculative design theory) being seen as against innovation

level of ignorance they’re trying to preserve

reinvestment of desktop as focused productivity, minimise work dimensions of mobile devices (redesign of mobiles)?

people who aren’t on social media right now aren’t shaping the cultural discourse ? - national and international influence

foam space app - decentralised proof of location, micropayment constantly for that

steem it

conspiracy vs speculative design

hyperstition

epistemology of reductionism

Was It Big Data That Won It?

TIMANDRA HARKNESS

resources diverted by govt in targeting voters - 2 types of people, bc otherwise its a waste of time (ie. already have a strong affiliation + go out to vote)

daniel scarvaloni - obamas campaign

how politics ad targeting works now - tailor messages etc

profiling, data brokers, inferred data

easily misprofiled / inferring is not loads better than chance

we’re calling everyone else the “gullible fools”, we’re not the gullible fools

problem is this model of humanity - people that can be measured, predicted, nudged in ways (more complex lab rats) vs people with whom we have to engage

Beyond Belief: Being Converted in a Post-Truth Era

DR MICHAEL DIETER

digital well being strategies part of new behavioural design paradigm to deal with distraction, scandals

wellbeing.google

managing unconscious user and guiding them into habitual behaviours/habits even when it may actually be contradictory to their intentions

“conversion”: language

obfuscation is part of the business model

sleepwalking into new forms of exploitation

targeted if you share traits with other fragments of users (segregating into segments) - dominant ??? of captivation

james bridle + youtube as the great radicaliser - targeting children on youtube

UX conversion

alt right conversion

like attracts like

center for humane technology (humane tech.com)

new design politics to be articulated? realignment of tech with humanity’s best interests. who decides on what these interests will be? these structures or dependant on this type of behaviouralism.

paternalistic rather than exploitative nudging

Detecting Fake News and Misinformation: Spotting the Common Themes

BARNEY JACKSON (FACTMATA)

fake news spreads faster than true news

creating a quality score for content, to serve to advertising platforms

creating community driven AI, automated algorithms for detecting 5 things

author credibility, publisher credibility, headline analysis, ad/media analysis, content analysis

^ how did you come up with the criteria?

“toxic content”

hyperpartisanship

[lidoshka]

https://middle-earth-mythopoeia.tumblr.com/post/675644726371860480/please-do-not-support-amazons-lotr-tv-show-the (not mine btw it just has the right links)

Pls check this post out it's about amazon ROP and it's not just "I don't like the way Bezos makes it" it's actually useful

(you can always find a way to pirate such a big series)

Oh dear, I'm so sorry my dear...but what a terrible way to tell me not to do something because now all I feel in my soul is this:

[lidoshka]

Now that season 6 is coming, I’d love to find out what’s going on back home. I really hope Commander Holt told the news to the whole world and not just the military, because then the newsstands would look like this:

[lidoshka]

With the way this show foreshadows things, do you think when Lance said  "He's our leader, plus he's half garla, so I think he's like, the future"

it means we're gonna see more half garla in the future?

[lidoshka]

Axca and Keith??

Guys, maybe it’s a good thing Axca is now on the side of the good guys, and hear me out:

No one has ever specified what the lifespan of a garla is, much less half garla.

What if when the war is over, Shiro, Pidge, Lance, Hunk and every other human in the show age at their natural pace, but Keith remains in his prime.

And half garla don’t even have to live like 800 years or something, even a lifespan of 150 years would be enough for Keith to see the rest of the paladins…you know… 💀😢🙏

And while Allura and Coran and Romelle will still be there, they’d probably have their hands full restoring the altean colony.

In that case, it’s a good thing that now Keith can have Axca as a companion, and it doesn’t even have to be as a love interest, but as a comrade, a friend, or just someone who lived through that time and understands.

So yeah, I’m glad Axca is now around.