It's The Greatest Love Story of Our Time - A Love Story for the Whole Planet. David Graeber interview: ‘So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they think are unnecessary’ A few years ago David Graeber’s mother had a series of strokes. Social workers advised him that, in order to pay for the home care she needed, he should apply for Medicaid, the US government health insurance programme for people on low incomes. So he did, only to be sucked into a vortex of form filling and humiliation familiar to anyone who’s ever been embroiled in bureaucratic procedures. At one point, the application was held up because someone at the Department of Motor Vehicles had put down his given name as “Daid”; at another, because someone at Verizon had spelled his surname “Grueber”. Graeber made matters worse by printing his name on the line clearly marked “signature” on one of the forms.
Steeped in Kafka, Catch-22 and David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King, Graeber was alive to all the hellish ironies of the situation but that didn’t make it any easier to bear. “We spend so much of our time filling in forms,” he says. “I like to think I’m actually a smart person. First Robot-Run Hotel Opens in Japan to Save Money on Paying Human Staff. In the coming “smart” future run by artificial intelligence, it has been predicted that robots will begin taking over most of the low-to-medium wage jobs first. Why? Because tech is increasingly cheap and doesn’t require any benefits or lunch breaks. For example, eight out of the ten jobs that employ the most people in the U.S. and account for about 20% of our current workforce stand a greater than 90% (and in some cases a 98%) estimated chance of being replaced by a robot. In other words, once the smart grid robo-future is fully instituted, millions across America and the world will likely lose their jobs to robots.
Now the first hotel run almost exclusively by robots has opened up in Japan… specifically to offset labor costs. Via RT: While a dino receptionist does the check-in and check-out for English-speaking visitors, a female android resembling a remote ancestor of the robotic servant from the “Humans” TV-series welcomes guests in Japanese. Welcome to the trendy new future. Facts & Figures | Facing Death.
What It's Like to Grow Up on the Party Island of Ibiza | VICE | Australia / NZ. A young lady in Ibiza. Screen shot from our documentary Big Night Out: Ibiza This article originally appeared on VICE UK. It's always easy to predict the response to the statement: "I grew up in Ibiza. " The most common presumption is that I spent my teenage years chewing rocks of MDMA whole, sipping sangria outside Amnesia, and generally living like some marauding, indestructible party phoenix, rising each day from the flames blown on beaches and outside bars by those women in sweaty leather corsets and impractical hair jewelry.
"Oh, your parents still live out there? " they ask. The reality couldn't be any further from all that: my mom's a teacher and my stepdad's a lawyer. "Ibiza's changed a lot, but I still find it a magical place," said Stephen. It's fascinating to hear this perception, and something I can empathize with completely—though not in relation to the place I was raised. Lidia is 25. He has a point. Related: Watch our film 'Big Night Out: Ibiza' We Talked To The Woman Who Asked 25 Countries To Photoshop Her Face. Esther Honig is exploring beauty on a global scale. A freelance journalist and social media manager by day, Honig is frequently subject to manipulated photos across the web, and came up with the idea to varying interpretations of aesthetics from culture to culture.
In a photo series titled Before and After—which is has gone viral and is getting covered all over the web—she made a simple request to graphic designers from 25 different countries: “Hi my name is Esther Honig and I would like you to enhance this image [of me] using Photoshop. I trust you to take whatever steps you see necessary. The results from each country’s designer are stunningly different. The brain (and face) behind this project spoke in depth to The Creators Project about the process of being intimately reinterpreted more than 20 times over, the influence of Photoshop in modern society, and what she’s learned from the process. The United States The Creators Project: What inspired the photo series Before and After? Kenya. Why Poor People's Bad Decisions Make Perfect Sense. Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com/ makler0008 November 23, 2013 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email.
There's no way to structure this coherently. They are random observations that might help explain the mental processes. Rest is a luxury for the rich. When I was pregnant the first time, I was living in a weekly motel for some time. I know how to cook. The closest Planned Parenthood to me is three hours. When Most People Didn't Think Rape Was Wrong. LINCOLN, CA - September 06: Bill Cosby performs in support of his Far From Finished tour at Thunder Valley Casino Resort in Lincoln, California on September 06, 2014 Photo Credit: Randy Miramontez / Shutterstock.com It’s becoming clear that this summer will go down as the one where Americans finally had a reckoning not just with the present problem of sexual violence, but with the past.
The Associated Press finally dug up what many considered the smoking gun in the Bill Cosby rape saga, an admission from the man that he had procured sedatives to give women, which aligns with the over 40 reports of sexual assault women have come forward in recent years to share. Then the Huffington Post published a disturbing account from Runaways bassist Jackie Fuchs where she recounted being raped by her manager Kim Fowley in front of multiple witnesses when she was a teenager in the 70s.
The question a lot of people are asking is, why now? Many Cosby accusers have said similar things. Joe Rogan: Do What You Love, Because Society Is A Trap And Work Is Meaningless. Sofie McAdam, True Activist Here, comedian Joe Rogan talks about work and meaning in his own unique style, asking some important (and sometimes uncomfortable) questions about what our purpose is as a society, and as an individual.
Aren’t we supposed to be contributing? He asks. Is contributing the same as working? “We got sidetracked and diverted into these boxes, these cubicles in offices,” he says. Do you agree with Rogan’s ideas? Here's What Happens to Good Cops When They Stand up to Bad Cops. Claire BernishJuly 24, 2015 (ANTIMEDIA) Headlines and social media posts attest an inexcusable escalation in instances where law enforcement’s use of brutal tactics or lethal force are alarmingly unwarranted. In fact, the reality that police regularly inflict indiscriminate violence with blatant impunity has exhausted any expectations of justice for family members of countless victims.
With numb cynicism, a sardonic common theory concludes that good cop has to be an oxymoron—because if there were any good cops they would arrest the rotten ones . . . right? As a theory, that scenario works surprisingly well. But it ignores two interrelated points of considerable weight—and the first might shock you, so brace yourself.
As former supervisor of the Chicago Police Department’s Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA), Davis was tasked with investigating the department’s shooting incidents with an impartial eye to determine if they were justified. But Davis’ findings were never made public. Untitled. John VibesJuly 22, 2015 (ANTIMEDIA) When donating to charity, it is important to be careful and do diligent research on the organization that you will be donating to, because sadly, it is common for charities to be run by scammers. In the case of the New York-based National Children’s Leukemia Foundation, the organization brought in millions of dollars that were intended for children with leukemia, but it was recently discovered that just 1% of those donations actually went towards helping children with the disease.
The organization was well-respected and perceived as a legitimate charity for many years, despite the fact that most of the donations went towards salaries and elaborate fundraisers to bring in more money. “Start listing some legitimate sounding programs like a bone marrow registry and people very often have a hard time saying no,” Deputy State Attorney General Yael Fuchs said in a statement. “NCLS didn’t make any dreams or wishes come true,” he added. Duty Of Care: Protecting Children In War. Warning graphic content. The scenarios in this innovative, gaming-style video are drawn from real-life testimonies of children in War Child’s projects across Africa and the Middle East, who have witnessed and experienced the most unacceptable violations to their rights. The HELP campaign is urging reform in the humanitarian system which currently neglects the needs and rights of children in war.
You can sign the HELP campaign petition at The hard-hitting ‘Duty of Care’ video is at the forefront of War Child UK's HELP campaign. It subverts first person shooting games by showing the horror of war through the eyes of Nima, a nine-year-old girl. The creative team behind the video were Heydon Prowse from BBC3's The Revolution Will Be Televised, Creative Directors Guy Davidson and Daniel Clarke from London-based agency TOAD, Director Daniel Luchessi and the post production team at H&O and OgilvyOne. Why I give my students a ‘tragedy of the commons’ extra credit challenge. GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP/Getty Images Imagine you’re a student and your teacher poses this challenge to the entire class: You can each earn some extra credit on your term paper. You get to choose whether you want 2 points added to your grade, or 6 points.
But there’s a catch: if more than 10% of the class selects 6 points, then no one gets any points. All selections are anonymous, and the course grades are not curved. I pose this exact challenge to students each semester in my social psychology course at the University of Maryland. This summer, one of my students happened to tweet about it, and his reaction went viral. This exercise impels students to consider how their actions affect others, and vice versa. Many professors in my field use versions of this exercise, which was first developed 25 years ago.
It feels good to be cooperative both from a strategic and moral perspective. Some have asked me if today’s college students are more prone to self-interested behavior. Horizon-1: A New Horizon For Humanity. The end of capitalism has begun. The red flags and marching songs of Syriza during the Greek crisis, plus the expectation that the banks would be nationalised, revived briefly a 20th-century dream: the forced destruction of the market from above. For much of the 20th century this was how the left conceived the first stage of an economy beyond capitalism. The force would be applied by the working class, either at the ballot box or on the barricades. The lever would be the state. The opportunity would come through frequent episodes of economic collapse. Instead over the past 25 years it has been the left’s project that has collapsed. If you lived through all this, and disliked capitalism, it was traumatic. As with the end of feudalism 500 years ago, capitalism’s replacement by postcapitalism will be accelerated by external shocks and shaped by the emergence of a new kind of human being.
Postcapitalism is possible because of three major changes information technology has brought about in the past 25 years. Terence McKenna - You Matter. Because You're Worthless - Challenging The Current Economic System in 3 Minutes. Spoken Word- The Bad Side Of The Earth. You need never use a bank again. Here's why | Guardian Sustainable Business. Dissatisfaction with the banking sector over the last decade has led to numerous calls for the industry to change. Last month, the governor of the Bank of England spoke of how the UK financial sector bears the scars of a market gone wrong, while others have highlighted how the oligopoly of our big five UK banks are not only too big to fail and too big to jail, but simply too big to compete and unable to serve customers needs. Transforming the system from within is one way to do bring about change, for example by turning The Royal Bank of Scotland into a network of local banks.
In a report published earlier this year, my colleague Tony Greenham demonstrated how doing this would transform the face of UK domestic retail banking and bring significant economic benefits in the process. But there is also a second transformation picking up speed, one which comes from outside the financial establishment. 1. Peer-to-peer lending 2. 3. Complementary currencies do just that at close to 0% interest. British Reporter Returns from Gaza and Gives Heartbreaking Account of What He Saw.
China’s Market Rout Is a Double Threat. Photo HONG KONG — For nearly three years, President Xi Jinping of has crushed opposition by silencing and often locking up anyone who dares defy the government. But that aura of invincibility has been shaken by stock market speculators who have made a mockery of efforts to halt a steep slide in share prices. The losses — Chinese shares have shed more than a quarter of their value in three weeks — pose an added risk, and possibly greater danger, to a global economy grappling with Greece’s difficulties in repaying foreign loans and its possible exit from the euro.
About $2.7 trillion in value has evaporated since the Chinese stock market peaked on June 12. That is six times Greece’s entire foreign debt, or 11 years of Greece’s economic output. Continue reading the main story The faltering of these measures has put an embarrassing dent in the halo of unruffled supremacy built up around Mr. It could also have political ramifications. Unlike his predecessor, Hu Jintao, Mr. Ms. Mr. The American Empire Crumbling Before Our Eyes Right Here at Home. Photo Credit: Shannon Ruvelas/Shutterstock.com To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com here. As America's new economy starts to look more like the old economy of the Great Depression, the divide between rich and poor, those who have made it and those who never will, seems to grow ever starker.
I know. I’ve seen it firsthand. Once upon a time, I worked as a State Department officer, helping to carry out the occupation of Iraq, where Washington’s goal was regime change. It was there that, in a way, I had my first taste of the life of the 1%. Unlike most Iraqis, I had more food and amenities than I could squander, nearly unlimited funds to spend as I wished (as long as the spending supported us one-percenters), and plenty of U.S.
I returned to America to find another sort of regime change underway, only I wasn't among the 1% for this one. On the Boardwalk: Atlantic City, New Jersey In 1909, Ernest T. Looking Ahead. Give Up Hope: It's The Best Chance We Have to Save Everything We Love. Dominican Republic to be 'Socially Cleaned' in two days. Comedy Sketch Shows Deep-Seated Sexism in Advertising. Housing minister Brad Hazzard visits the homeless - and gets a few surprises. Dark side of the boom: Half of Sydney says housing is 'not at all' affordable. Homeless have no hope as city prospers. RSA Animate - Smile or Die. We'd Have Revolution If People Understood This. On the Bright side..
RSA Animate - First as Tragedy, Then as Farce. Society, A Perpetual Cycle [Alan Watts] What is Wrong With Our Culture [Alan Watts] Why Do People Defend Unjust, Inept, and Corrupt Systems? What Amazon Isn't Telling You. Forget Facebook, Abandon Instagram, Move To A Village. How Popular Music's Lyrics Perpetuate American Idiocy. "We Are In a Revolutionary Moment": Chris Hedges Explains Why An Uprising Is Coming, And Soon. Societies With Little Coercion Have Little Mental Illness. Elementary School Cafeteria Worker Fired for Giving Hungry Students Free Lunch. To Change Everything, Start Everywhere. The Lie We Live. Beyond Capitalism and Socialism: Could a New Economic Approach Save the Planet? Atul Gawande: How do we heal medicine? Activists Subvert London Billboards: Don't Vote, Engage With Politics, Take to The Streets.
Facebook Is Eating the Internet. Are You A Slave To The System? This Haunting Cartoon Might Cause You To Think Twice. Evicted and Abandoned: Exposing The World Bank (trailer) Am I a ‘Radical’? The Next System Project. The Continuing Depopulation of Detroit. EXPERIMENT: WHAT IF THE HOMELESS GAVE YOU MONEY? (VIDEO) Work less, play more. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The danger of a single story. Leslie T. Chang: The voices of China's workers. Overcoming the Shock Doctrine - Guerrilla Translation! Turning Off the Water of the Poor in Baltimore Violates Human Rights. Enhancing responsibility: Nicole Vincent at TEDxSydney 2014. Stop kidding yourself: the police were created to control working class and poor people - Sam Mitrani.
Ten Days at the Mad-House: How Nellie Bly Posed as Insane in 1887 in Her Brave Exposé of Asylum Abuse. Six reasons you’d be happier if you stopped saying “busy” They Offered Her A Million Dollars To Move, But This 84-year-old Refused... What Resulted Is Brilliant. The Disease of Being Busy. This Amazing Spoken-Word Film Captures the Madness of Shopping in 4 Minutes. After Watching This, You Will Never Trust Your Television Again.
Other options. Human nature. Social control. Nestle CEO Makes Case Against Capitalism Clear. Medicine Man - Black Elk's story of The Great Circle. Cambodia: A history of wage struggle on Vimeo. Is The Internet Good or Bad? Yes. — Matter. Comic Relief Is a Bad Joke - Make Charity history! Why we need to slow down our lives. Tim Harford: Trial, error and the God complex. Eminent Biologist: Religion Should Be Eliminated for the 'Sake of Human Progress' Adora Svitak: What adults can learn from kids. TED under 20 | Playlist. Words, genes, and the science of past human deeds › Analysis and Opinion (ABC Science) Noam Chomsky (2014) "Full Interview With Chris Hedges"
How cultures around the world make decisions. How language can affect the way we think. Misfit Subculture: Learning from Hermits, Gangsters, and Occupiers (Video) Can Civilization Survive "Really Existing Capitalism"? An Interview With Noam Chomsky. Morgan Freeman Narrates the Greatest Story of Our Generation. Peak Inequality: The .01% And The Impoverishment Of Society. A Tangible Math Lesson - Four Types of Institutional Lies. Generation Y didn’t go crazy in a vacuum. How can we enjoy life when our future is so uncertain? | Eleanor Robertson. Critical Path (book) How do you define yourself? Lizzie Velasquez at TEDxAustinWomen.
Nothing to see here | The Verge. The War Against Human Nature in the Social Sciences — Quadrant Online. Frank Salter - War on Human Nature, Replacement Level Migration in the West & Crime of Diversity. Social Technologies | Managing human nature in built environments. Brené Brown: The power of vulnerability.