society of control

  • Fracking and environmental (in)justice in a Texas city

    Ecological Economics publishes a peer reviewed econo,if and environmental justice study of shale gas development in my hometown of Denton, Texas. The article is co-authored by my  colleagues Matthew Fry, Jordan Kincaid and Adam Briggle. You can access the full text for… Continue reading

  • Irony Incarcerated

    Below is a picture of a product made by unpaid Texas prison inmates who work for extra privileges (like time off of their sentence, the ability to buy goodies at the commissary, exercise in the yard, etc.). They get rooming,… Continue reading

  • Down with Activism; Up with Revolution

    …we imagine that we are revolutionaries when we are nothing more than temporary rebels.  Activism is far from revolution, and the left at the centres of capitalism is dominated by activists and activist groups––NOT revolutionaries and revolutionary movements.  The most popular and predictable… Continue reading

  • PredPol: Tomorrow’s Minority Report Today

    How the the gathering of infometrics by Amazon and Wal-Mart teaches the police to “predict” crime… The future of policing, it seems, will look a lot like the present of policing, just faster and with more math. Instead of using… Continue reading

    PredPol: Tomorrow’s Minority Report Today
  • Fate and the Wire

    Tautological understanding is very much a part of The Wire‘s metaphysics. David Simon directs/authors the series structurally along the lines of Greek Tragedy rather than the Shakesperean variety. Essential paths–following the strict law of identity–play a huge role in instantiating a… Continue reading

    Fate and the Wire
  • Bibliometrics: The Leiden Manifesto

    Data are increasingly used to govern science. Research evaluations that were once bespoke and performed by peers are now routine and reliant on metrics1. The problem is that evaluation is now led by the data rather than by judgement. Metrics… Continue reading

  • Charting more diffuse influences across time

    My colleagues Adam Briggle, Robert Frodeman and Britt Holbrook continue their work on the philosophy of impact and the impact of philosophy… Today even the humanities are expected to have an impact. In the 2014 REF, for instance, philosophy formed… Continue reading

  • Remember This: Capitalism IS Race

    … It’s not just a race. Consider the radical beginning of Memorial Day in the now forgotten Decoration Day, a holiday that originally recalled the violent partisan political struggles of emancipation as a central aspect of remembrance. At least until… 1877,… Continue reading

    Remember This: Capitalism IS Race
  • Soundthropology: Eno and Graeber in Dialog

    The 2014 Artangel Longplayer Conversation between Brian Eno and David Graeber took place 7pm, Tuesday 7 October 2014 at the Royal Geographical Society http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuBpOXGLn_o Continue reading

    Soundthropology: Eno and Graeber in Dialog
  • Tax (Break) Day – Truthout

    Listening to what corporate America has to say about their taxes, one might draw the conclusion that the US tax system places an unequal burden on big business. However, that’s simply not the case: Over the last 50 years, the… Continue reading

  • Authentic sharing – The New Inquiry

    I thought I should share this… “Sharing economy,” of course, is a gratingly inappropriate terms to describe a business approach that entails precisely the opposite, that renders the social field an arena for microentrepreneurship and nothing else. Yet the vestiges of “sharing”… Continue reading

  • Counting Down to Doomsday: Can We Turn Back the Clock?

    …there’s an important difference between a real clock and the Doomsday Clock. A real clock, as long as its batteries are working, will always move forward, from second to second and minute to minute. The Doomsday Clock, in contrast, does… Continue reading

  • These Computer Programs “Feel You”

    Rhafi Khatchadhourian at the New Yorker takes a look at new developments in recognition software that are game changers on computers interpreting our emotive reactions to what we are reading/viewing on our electronic devices. Like every company in this field,… Continue reading

    These Computer Programs “Feel You”
  • Control Continued – Oh, Dear

    Confusion, uncertainty–oh, dear. Continue reading

    Control Continued – Oh, Dear
  • Does Cultural Oppression Affect Us Genetically?

    Whether one is talking about coffee farmers in Ethiopia or the service employees at a local McDonald’s, there are the stressors being pressed down upon the working poor at every turn. What are the epigenetic consequences of oppression? Continue reading

    Does Cultural Oppression Affect Us Genetically?
  • Herbert Marcuse and Seth Rogen

    Watching THE INTERVIEW with Herbert Marcuse in mind. Continue reading

    Herbert Marcuse and Seth Rogen
  • Science Fiction and the Post-Ferguson World: “There Are as Many Ways to Exist as We Can Imagine”

    Walidah Imarisha, a writer and activist, coined the term “visionary fiction” to describe how we can use science fiction, horror, and fantasy genres to envision alternatives to unjust and oppressive systems.I talked with Imarisha about how science fiction can inspire… Continue reading