Stuff I Read Today

2013-02-24

If you’re a liberal who was upset by the murder of Travyon Martin but not Abdulrahman al-Aulaq, then you’re a racist imperialist

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The Real is not one thing among others but gradients of resistance.

There is no difference between the “real” and the “unreal”, the “real” and the “possible”, the “real” and the “imaginary.” Rather, there are all the differences experienced between those that resist for long and those that do not, those that resist courageously and those that do not, those that know how to ally or isolate themselves and those that do not.

No force can, as it is oftenn put, “know reality,” other than through the difference it creates in resisting others.

—Bruno Latour

2013-02-22

thepeoplesrecord:

mothernaturenetwork:

Why We’re Obsessed with the Zombie Apocalypse:

Zombie apocalypse tales actually invoke hope amidst destruction and death, as survivors battle for their lives.

I think we’re probably playing out (through art) fears about structural oppression, and the instinct that I think most of us have (whether we’re socially conscious or not) that we’re headed in a disastrous direction, with capitalism’s monopoly-stage grotesquely, transparently, possessing, transforming for profit, and destroying everything from the earth to the water to the peoples and communities that occupy space in our society.

Even if we’re optimally propagandized into believing there is nothing wrong - that this is the natural state of things, or ‘human nature’ or whatever nonsense it is that people believe that allows them to be free-market enthusiasts, the instinct, the internal gut-wrenching “THIS IS SO WRONG” remains. And survivalist movies & fantasies seem pretty clearly to be a response to that internalized anxiety.

I think this is why libertarians are so-often obsessed with disaster-stuff and survivalist preparation. When you don’t understand the source of systemic problems, the anxiety has got to be THAT MUCH worse.

Yep, when the “Zombie Apocalypse” happens, those “Zombies” are going to be your sick starving neighbors. Thinking of them as zombies is a way to otherize them (zombies are always white people, or hyper-white mutants like in “I am Legend”). It’s a ways to acclimate soldiers and law enforcement into firing on their peers.

It’s like people forget that when the collapse happens, we’re all still going to be here. And unlike in “Lucifer’s Hammer”, there won’t be a showdown between white scientists and an army of Black / Latino cannibals over the fate of a nuclear power plant.

Source: mothernaturenetwork

2013-02-19

psychedelic-physicist:

I read this in his voice

What kind of people would invent such a character and then think it was the embodiment of perfection.

(via imagineatoms)

Source: astrodidact

2013-02-18

Since musicians are known to set down their ideas in the form of sheet music, these curious black dots and lines must constitute the “language of music.” It is imperative that students become fluent in this language if they are to attain any degree of musical competence; indeed, it would be ludicrous to expect a child to sing a song or play an instrument without having a thorough grounding in music notation and theory. Playing and listening to music, let alone composing an original piece, are considered very advanced topics and are generally put off until college, and more often graduate school.
As for the primary and secondary schools, their mission is to train students to use this language— to jiggle symbols around according to a fixed set of rules: “Music class is where we take out our staff paper, our teacher puts some notes on the board, and we copy them or transpose them into a different key. We have to make sure to get the clefs and key signatures right, and our teacher is very picky about making sure we fill in our quarter-notes completely.
One time we had a chromatic scale problem and I did it right, but the teacher gave me no credit because I had the stems pointing the wrong way.

— A Mathematicians Lament

yukidama:

dapsandhugs:

this week on White People are Wild

is anybody even remotely surprised at this point

This is so fucking disgusting. But positive representation doesn’t matter, right? Fuck. I’m so angry.

cracker crazy

Source: hylianears

2013-02-02

O Hai exponentiated Menger Sponge!

2013-01-14

Aaron suffered from depression, but that is not why he died. Aaron is dead because the institutions that govern our society have decided that it is more important to target geniuses like Aaron than nurture them, because the values he sought – openness, justice, curiosity – are values these institutions now oppose. In previous generations, people like Aaron would have been treasured and recognized as the remarkable gifts they are. We do not live in a world like that today. And Aaron would be the first to point out, if he could observe the discussion happening now, that the pressure he felt from the an oppressive government is felt by millions of people, every year. I’m glad his family have not let the justice system off the hook, and have not allowed this suicide to be medicalized, or the fault of one prosecutor. What happened to Aaron is not isolated to Aaron, but is the flip side of the corruption he hated.

—

Aaron Swartz’s Politics