irenicalintent

Part of the deal permitting the US$ as the world’s primary reserve included austerity for its population, which suited well-worn racist norms of social control.

A healthy, educated, secure population is impossible under conditions of extreme inequality.

It’s incredible to consider what percentage of their economy is driven by policing and incarceration.

Laziness, shortcuts, indifference to the suffering of others

I think a lot of us get hope wrong. Hope, I do not believe, is an emotion. In fact, hope makes space for lots of emotions to exist alongside it. You can DO hope scared, angry, sad etc...

Hope doesn't find us. We make hope through action and struggle. It's a practice of living and is re-made daily.

🤦‍♂️

Okay, thanks!

Well, I don’t and many I relate to simply don’t. Have you read Jonathan Crary’s Scorched Earth? You wouldn’t hear him promoting Silicon Valley. Anyway, message sent.

I did organize at city and state levels against these entities. Much more than policing people like you

Big difference between not using and promoting, esp as voice ostensibly critical of tech

Was looking forward to your Lynch piece then immediately put off. The normalization of uberization that we now suffer the political manifestation of makes me show my teeth at times. I’m sorry. I’ll remove my comments.

Hope not all casually promoting Silicon Valley darlings Lyft and AirBnB, which legislated to preempt local controls after ‘moving fast and breaking things’

People just casually mentioning that they use Uber, the f’n vanguard of ‘move fast & break things’

It could have to do w MN holding out against the far right takeover WI & MI underwent abt 15yrs ago, in part aimed at seizing the Great Lakes and piping oil from Canada

Yes, and a material culture w all the accoutrements of domination (lifted trucks, guns, etc.) which deepen divisions, form alliances around terrible ideas, etc.

What a beautiful beginning, in the spirit of rejuvenating our public sphere, which should restore some hope.

Sigh… how much expended to ensure inequalities, how many possibilities foreclosed, how much catastrophic waste

In terms of US politics, Bush v. Gore is the defining event of the century. It set the template: a ruthless right that instinctively seeks power & doesn't give a shit about rule of law...and a bunch of hapless, feckless octogenarian Dems worried about the good opinion of centrist opinion columnists.

Terry Eagleton · Pregnant with Monsters: Schopenhauer makes a stir Schopenhauer has long held the title of gloomiest philosopher in history. He sees human existence not as grand tragedy...

What a delightful piece in contrast to its chief character and in multiple ways exemplary in its expression of right and left. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Thanks, again. . . persistent messaging abt the influence of infrastructure obvsly matters a great deal.

Boycott Uber, Lyft, Grubhub, PayPal, really every Silicone Valley enterprise hostile to regulations that protect workers and environment.

vulgar indeed when the earth’s precious biodiversity and resplendent cultural tapestry is traded for childish pleasure in shaming and schadenfreude

Some systems require more energy than others.

Yes, while diverting precious wealth, building data centers, more mines, drilling, military, all things utterly unsustainable and anti-democratic, all from students of ‘disruption’.

YouTube video by Bao Nguyen - Grad. Admin Comparative Literature Andreas Malm's Public Lecture, October 10, 2025, Audio Only

"Denial is not an idiosyncracy or private pathology, but a certificate of membership in this particular society, a kind of credit card necessary for moving around in it and accessing its commodities and living without going nuts"

- Prof. Andreas Malm

youtu.be/fVYO7w6UHi8

These Christian “survivors” stubbornly worthy of objects to lament, always anxious and menaced by subordinate others; they should be deprived any means of social domination. (Great thread btw.)

Isn’t there a transformative/prefigurative aspect though—an ongoing privileging, to the extent possible, of other priorities over profit-making, such as education, autonomy, local/eco sensitivities, the blurring of divisions of labor/decision, etc?

Where “owning the libs” has to compensate for loss of everything else.

“If witnessing had ‘its own language,’ it would no longer be witnessing—it would be proof.”
Catherine Malabou

Yes, to expanding state job guarantee as multivalent, transformative policy tool: