You are currently browsing the monthly archive for January 2017.
Yep, still waiting for the chorus of enraged ‘egalitarian’ voices to protest this (continuing) oversight.
http://tehbewilderness.tumblr.com/post/155051414744/the-future-now-vera-rubin-the-woman-who
Author dudes, screen write dudes… Hell! Dudes of the creative class – watch and learn an important lesson that you’ve been missing well, since forever.
Females beautifully ‘ruining’ Star Wars one movie at a time. :)
H/T to Rey Walker for the animated gifs.
Where do elite priorities lie? Follow the coverage.
“Q: Moving on, has the media changed landscape since you wrote ‘Manufacturing Consent’ in 1989? Is the media manufacturing consent now?
A: Well, we didn’t actually say that media is manufacturing consent; we said that -that is what they are trying to do. We discussed the nature of the media. There’s a separate question – to what extent is it effective? And that’s an interesting question, but we didn’t discuss it. They’re still doing it in the same way. In fact, dramatically. Take November 8, two things of critical significance happened on November 8. One of them was massively reported, the other, which was much more important, received no report – that was the Marrakesh Conference of two hundred countries that tried to implement the Paris programmes to try to save the human species from destruction. That’s a lot more important than what happened in the US election. And, in fact, it was undermined by the US election. What happened in Morocco is astounding if you look at it; one country was leading the way to try to save civilization from self-destruction. One country was way behind, trying to lead the way towards self-destruction, the first was China the second was the United States. That is a remarkable spectacle. Did you see a comment on it?
Q: Nothing.”
Class based analysis of the system is what is required in order to raise consciousness so the work can be done to change the ground rules that are making a hot mess of things .
“A now-retired colleague of Marxist persuasion once remarked on what he saw as a telling omission on the part of many academics who study inequality. He observed that while everyone agrees that racism and sexism are wrong and should be eradicated, few people make the same argument about class. “Why is it imperative to oppose racism and sexism,” he asked, “and not class?” Between us, it was mostly a rhetorical question. We knew that the answer had to do with academics’ class privilege and need to embrace an ideology of meritocracy to justify that privilege. To call class into question would be to question not just a system of inequality but our own deservingness.
While social scientists certainly haven’t ignored class, the attention we’ve paid to it usually takes one of two forms: using class as a variable to predict the attitudes or behaviors of individuals; or studying the lives of people in certain class categories (e.g., ethnographic studies of working-class communities). Such studies can be useful for showing how people experience and are affected by their class locations. What’s typically missing, however, is analysis of how the class system works—how it is used by those who control the means of production and administration—to generate and maintain the inequalities that shape people’s lives.
Part of the problem is that some of the conceptual language useful for unpacking these matters has been stigmatized. The language exists but using it carries a high risk of being dismissed as an ideologue. To speak of a growing gap between productivity and wages over the last thirty years is acceptable. To speak of wage stagnation as a partial result of declining union membership is okay. To speak of ever more wealth accruing to the richest 1% is now within respectable bounds. But to speak of an increasing rate of expropriation enabled by capitalist victories in the class struggle is to invite trouble. Or invisibility.
This is not just a matter of how class is talked about in academic circles. How we study, talk about, and write about class has wider consequences. Focusing solely on diversity, inclusion, privilege, and mobility means having little to contribute when it comes to challenging capitalist power, advancing working-class interests, or transforming capitalism as a whole. It means, in effect, accepting a soft ringside seat.”
by Michael Schwalbe (writing in Counterpunch).
I’m currently reading a book called Weapons of Math Destruction, inside Cathy O’Neil details how ‘Big Data’ (via the use of opaque algorithms) is increasing inequality and threatening democracy in the industrialized world.
About half-way done and the sad word of the day that I’ve learned from the book is this –
This untidy word in question is “Clopening” and is defined as this: When an employee works late on night to close down the store or cafe and then returns a few hours later, opening it again. It makes logistical sense for a company, but leads to sleep deprived workers and crazy schedules.
Oh, and another term – “Churn” – the negative costs associated with hiring for and training a new person in a position. Churn speaks directly to the company’s bottom line and thus is a large input factor into many HR related algorithms.
Terminology aside, let’s take a look at the central idea of the chapter called ‘Sweating Bullets”:
“Scheduling software can be seen as an extension of the just-in-time economy. But instead of lawn mower blades or cell phone screens showing up right on cue, it’s people who badly need money. And because the need money so desperately, the companies can bend their lives to the dictates of a mathematical model.
[…]
The trouble, from the employee’s perspective, is an oversupply of low-wage labour. People are hungry for work, which is why so many of them cling to jobs that pay barely eight dollars per hour. This oversupply, along with the scarcity of labour unions, leaves works practically with no bargaining power. This means the big retailers and restaurants can twist workers’ lives to ever-more-absurd schedules without suffering excessive churn. They make more money while their workers’ lives grow hellish. And because these optimization programs are everywhere, the workers know all too well that changing jobs isn’t likely to improve their lot. Taken together, these dynamics provide corporations with something close to a captive workforce.
I’m sure it will come as no surprise that I consider scheduling software one of the more appalling WMD’s (weapons of math destruction). It’s massive, as we’ve discussed, and it takes advantage of people who are already struggling to make ends meet. What’s more, it is entirely opaque. Workers often don’t have a clue about when they’ll be called to work. They are summoned by an arbitrary program.
Scheduling software also creates a poisonous feedback loop. Consider Jannette Navarro. Her haphazard scheduling made it impossible for her to return
to school, which dampened her employment prospects and kept her in the oversupplied pool of low-wage workers. The long and irregular hours also make it hard for workers to organize or to protest for better conditions. Instead, they face heightened anxiety and sleep deprivation, which causes dramatic mood swings and is responsible for an estimated 13% of highway deaths. Worse yet, since the software is designed to save companies money, it often limits workers’ hours to fewer than thirty per week, so that they are not eligible for company health insurance. And with their chaotic schedules, most find it impossible to make time for a second job. It’s almost as if the software were designed expressly to punish low-wage workers and keep them down.
The software also condemns a large percentage of our children to grow up without routines. They experience their mother bleary eyed at breakfast, or hurrying out the door without dinner, or arguing with her mother about who can take care of them on Sunday morning. This chaotic life affects children deeply. According to a study by the Economic Policy Institute, an advocacy group, “Young children and adolescents of parents working unpredictable schedules or outside daytime working hours are more likely to have inferior cognition and behavioural outcomes.”
-Cathy O’Neil. Weapons of Math Destruction p. 128 – 129
I look at the grossly unfair conditions these people are facing and can see the self-perpetuating cycles that are being established. I thank the many heavens that I have a profession that keeps me out of this particularly cruel circle of horror. Unionized, and organized through my work, through my collectively bargained contracts I can count on stable work hours and a reasonable compensation. This condition of relative comfort seems far out of reach for so many people who are no less deserving than I – a stable means to live an raise a family are not unreasonable demands to make- but the Precariate’s humble demands are dismissed and ground down with the help of these WMD that perpetuate, codify, and bring to fruition the crippling inequality in our societies.
The push for unionization must always be kept at the forefront of any progressive movement, because left to their own machinations, corporations will exploit people and society for their own selfish ends.
A reminder, that the more egalitarian a society is, the better off it is for both the poor *and* the rich.
Consider this meme to be labelled ‘handle with care’. :)
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
Your opinions…