We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Saturday, August 25, 2018

Articles recommended for Saturday, August 25, 2018

It is the endpoint of the submission of human beings under the logics of the [capitalist] machine, the blind mechanics of endless capital accumulation and the disciplinary apparatuses. The digitalized human only exists as a set of data, and consequently all that makes up life – spontaneity, emotional experience and creativity – have vanished. Of course this is not what Google is saying, quite the contrary, but it is what happens, if you follow their ideas.

Now, the question is: Do we want to entrust our future to people with visions of that kind? Do we want to feed them with our data, see the world through their Google glasses and move around in cars that are steered by their algorithms? Or are we going to free ourselves from the Matrix they have created, in order to regain reality, our bodies and our minds?
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