28 APR 2024 by ideonexus
Juridification is the Enemy of Legality
Modern governments, their hands increasingly tied by the robber-barons of global finance, often try to assert their power with their feet: by kicking out at another high-profile social problem, real or imagined, with another big policy initiative. Usually they come up with an accompanying raft of new laws. Legislative incontinence prevails. Not only is much of the legislation futile and even counterproductive from the start, we are also left with ever more relics of now-forgotten reforms. Bet...1. The sheer breadth of laws renders ‘the law’ in its entirety, unknowable.
2. This vastness means that the law cannot be enforced evenly.
14 OCT 2023 by ideonexus
How the Human's Short Lifespan Influences Their Behavior
Humans are the most adaptable and ambitious people among the common races. They have widely varying tastes, morals, and customs in the many different lands where they have settled. When they settle, though, they stay: they build cities to last for the ages, and great kingdoms that can persist for long centuries. An individual human might have a relatively short life span, but a human nation or culture preserves traditions with origins far beyond the reach o f any single human’s memory....From a fantasy description of the species.
18 APR 2023 by ideonexus
Avoiding Communication Vexes Online Surveillance
‘The idiot does not “communicate”’,2 writes philosopher Byung-Chul Han in Psychopolitics. He may speak, sure, but not to convey a certain message. That makes the idiot instantly subversive in our time, where communication counts among the highest goods. Not so much because we value the exchange of information or because we can learn from each other. But rather, because the ever-accelerating, 24/7 communication cycle is what keeps surveillance capitalism going. It feeds the database an...Folksonomies: resistance surveillance
Folksonomies: resistance surveillance
17 OCT 2021 by ideonexus
Early Advocacy for Public Education
From the first moment of life, men ought to begin learning to deserve to live; and, as at the instant of birth we partake of the rights of citizenship, that instant ought to be the beginning of the exercise of our duty. If there are laws for the age of maturity, there ought to be laws for infancy, teaching obedience to others: and as the reason of each man is not left to be the sole arbiter of his duties, government ought the less indiscriminately to abandon to the intelligence and prejudices...Folksonomies: education public education
Folksonomies: education public education
29 SEP 2017 by ideonexus
Government Internet Shutdown Mobilized the Masses
The government could have been smarter. The best way to divert our youth from politics would have been to give them free, unlimited internet access a few days before the protests, and drop the price of beer and condoms – all the while playing “Be safe, live long” songs on the radios. The youngies would have been watching porn, WhatsApping and YouTubing, and would have been too distracted to think about politics. Shutting down the internet achieved the opposite. Far from limiting youth ...10 MAR 2017 by ideonexus
Argonauts: Memes and Policies
These are the Argonauts’ core memes. Individual argonauts might be motivated by some or all of them. • Social Responsibility: Scientists must be held to professional standards, especially as technology becomes more enabling and potent. Profit or political/military gain should not be the deciding factor in which technologies are pursued; whatever benefits transhumanity most should prevail. • Opposing Government/Corporate Intervention in Science: Science should not be limited or restrai...10 MAR 2017 by ideonexus
Argonauts: Charter on Scientific Responsibility
CHARTER ON SCIENTIFIC RESPONSIBILITY Abuse of science and technology is a major threat to the existence of humankind. Our era has seen destructive climate change, tactical use of nuclear weapons, famine, public health crises, and now, the militarization of space. Our corporate stakeholders and the governments representing them have made inhuman, unwise decisions, and show little sign of changing their behavior. Scientists, technologists, and mathematicians can be an effective voice for resp...21 JUN 2014 by ideonexus