Re: The Twitter Revolution Must Die (by Ulises A. Mejias)

Re: Some thoughts on Facebook

ei Emile, nice work!

> I left facebook last week.
>
> tired of the mirrors, noise and eyes.
> tired of prickly, intimate and fleshy human relationships being

What is astonishing is the number of 'radical' net-workers & activists from the 
1990s on this very list who have melded with such ease into the FB space.  Had 
FB been described to this list in, say, 1997, IMHO it would have been consumed 
in an apocalyptic conflagration of flaming disgust -- as a puerile distopian 
fantasy spawned of the "California Ideology," and with an aim for total 
mind-control.

But, aging makes even the most radical mellow out: go with the protocol that is 
easiest ... resistance is futile ... pragmatic career concerns and PR become 
paramount.

> the incessant ‘now’ of FB started to infect my creative process;
> making for ‘blip’ attention spans and the enormous appetite of the
> beast, as Geert Lovink puts it ‘feeding a machine’. I want to think in
> longer time frames to make deeper work.

every moment given to attentive eye-glued-to-screen-and-remote-presence is a 
moment gone forever.  the possibility of turning from screen to the warm (or 
even cold) human most proximal for eye-to-eye, face-to-face, 
shoulder-to-shoulder life.  who will calculate the loss, and who will care for 
what is lost?

Re: Farah Stockman: Foreign activists stay covered online (Boston Globe)

IT'S THE TOR REVOLUTION!!!!1!

(just kidding)

On Jan 31, 2011, at 10:43 AM, Patrice Riemens wrote:

> 
> bwo Michael Polman/ Antenna
> 
> original at:
> http://www.boston.com/news/world/africa/articles/2011/01/30/mass_groups_software_helps_avoid_censorship/
> (http://bit.ly/hbeghy)
> 

Re: The Twitter Revolution Must Die (by Ulises A. Mejias)

Re: the facebook / twitter revolution etc.

I've been teaching in French lately so thought I'd practice my
French skilz on adult news translation, rather than just convincing
6-year-olds to hate Windows.

Saw this (below) in Le Figaro and thought you might like.

I like that Lacour-Astol likens the Arab street to La Resistance, a
hoary old chestnut in France I'm sure but a nice counterpoint to HRC's
abominable Yankee-State-Department dithering. And her emphasis on

I don't like that she negates the information-sharing aspect of
any technology, as if the "interior alignment" of the individual
is mystically predetermined, rather than formed by observational
experiences or newly-learned conditions or events, or even prior
personal loyalties, and, she seems to think, the network serves
only to connect individuals in a common cause that pre-dates the
relationship or even communication of any kind.

"Egypt and Tunisia: Facebook doesn't light the flame."

LE FIGARO, Jan 31 2010 
unauthorized translation by Flick Harrison

http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2011/01/30/01003-20110130ARTFIG00138-egypte-et-tunisie-twitter-et-facebook-ne-creent-pas-la-flamme.php

http://tinyurl.com/4hckor8

In Egypt, as in Tunisia, observers note the importance of social

Slavoj Zizek: Why fear the Arab revolutionary spirit? (The Guardian)

bwo Sarai Reader List/ Sonja Jabbar (but re-layouted from print version of
original at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/01/egypt-tunisia-revolt


Slavoj Zizek
Why fear the Arab revolutionary spirit?

The western liberal reaction to the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia
frequently shows hypocrisy and cynicism

Egyptian demonstrators An Egyptian demonstrator uses his shoe to hit a
picture of President Hosni Mubarak during a protest in Cairo. Photograph:
Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images

What cannot but strike the eye in the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt is the
conspicuous absence of Muslim fundamentalism. In the best secular
democratic tradition, people simply revolted against an oppressive regime,
its corruption and poverty, and demanded freedom and economic hope. The
cynical wisdom of western liberals, according to which, in Arab countries,
genuine democratic sense is limited to narrow liberal elites while the
vast majority can only be mobilised through religious fundamentalism or
nationalism, has been proven wrong. The big question is what will happen
next? Who will emerge as the political winner?

When a new provisional government was nominated in Tunis, it excluded
Islamists and the more radical left. The reaction of smug liberals was:
good, they are the basically same; two totalitarian extremes – but are
things as simple as that? Is the true long-term antagonism not precisely

Nicholas Kristof: Banned in Beijing! (NYT)

One more in the ongoing Mozorov yes - Mozorov no discussion!

source: paper NYT supplement in the SDZ found in the ICE yesterday (!)
original at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/23/opinion/23kristof.html?_r=1

Banned in Beijing!
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

BEIJING

Psst. Don’t tell the Chinese government, but I started a Chinese-language
blog here in China, and it contains counterrevolutionary praise of
dissidents. It’s at http://blog.sina.com.cn/jisidao.

Now let’s count — 1, 2, 3 ... — and see how long my blog stays up. My
hunch is that State Security will “harmonize” it quickly. In Chinese, Web
sites are mockingly referred to as “harmonized” when the government
vaporizes them so as to nurture a “harmonious society.”

China now has about 450 million Internet users, far more than any other
country, and perhaps 100 million bloggers. The imprisoned writer Liu
Xiaobo, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, has said, “The Internet is God’s
gift to the Chinese people.” I tend to agree, but it’s also true that
Chinese cyberspace remains a proletarian dictatorship. In November, the
government sent a young woman, Cheng Jianping, to labor camp for a year
for posting a single mocking sentence.

My teenage kids accompanied me on this trip, and they’re used to being
dragged around to witness one injustice or another. But my daughter has

Re: Some thoughts on Facebook

I second that thanks - it's always nice to hear this kind of thing. (from a
non-FB user)
And I also second the sentiment about the irony of how easily a counter
culture gets consumed. Not that it is surprising - re: culture industry etc.
- but it is important to remember what these celebrated tools really are.
especially when they become glorified as revolutionary.
Next on the list, breaking up with google...

In solidarity!
Heather

On Tue, Feb 1, 2011 at 12:46 AM, John Hopkins <jhopkins@...>wrote:

> ei Emile, nice work!
>
> > I left facebook last week.
> >
> > tired of the mirrors, noise and eyes.
> > tired of prickly, intimate and fleshy human relationships being
>
> What is astonishing is the number of 'radical' net-workers & activists from
> the 1990s on this very list who have melded with such ease into the FB space.
> Had FB been described to this list in, say, 1997, IMHO it would have been
> consumed in an apocalyptic conflagration of flaming disgust -- as a puerile
> distopian fantasy spawned of the "California Ideology," and with an aim for
> total mind-control.
 <...>

--

-- 
Heather Dewey-Hagborg

egyptian shorts [x3: harrison, neyrat, noronha]

Flick Harrison <flick@...>
     Re: <nettime> Ben Rooney: Egypt Cuts Off The Net. Net Fights 

frederic neyrat <fneyrat@...>
     Re: <nettime> Egyptian Revolution: 2nd decolonialisation for all

Frederick Noronha <fredericknoronha@...>
     And now... cartoons

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From: Flick Harrison <flick@...>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Ben Rooney: Egypt Cuts Off The Net. Net Fights 
     Back (Wall Street Journal Tech Blog)
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2011 09:03:47 -0800

T-shirt, anyone?

> "According to relevant laws, regulations and policies, the search 
> "results are not shown"

--
* WHERE'S MY ARTICLE, WORLD?
http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Flick_Harrison

* FLICK's WEBSITE & BLOG: http://www.flickharrison.com=20

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Dror Kamir: Egypte, brûle-t-elle?

Dear nettimers,

I wanted to share this story with you all. It ran on the Critical  
Point of View mailinglist that belongs to the Wikiresearch network  
with the same name. Dror Kamir is an Israeli Wikipedian with lots of  
knowledge of the 'region', and, like many in that part of the world, a  
colorful (online) personality and complex political agenda (as they  
say...).

Greetings! Geert

PS. somewhere in March-April the CPOV reader will be out. The  
publication reaches the final stage of copy-editing.

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dror Kamir <dqamir <at> bezeqint.net>
> Date: 31 January 2011 7:55:41 PM
> To: cpov <at> listcultures.org
> Subject: <CPOV> Egypte, brûle-t-elle?
>
> Hi,
>
> I suppose you have all noticed that Egypt is going through rough  
> time, but I wonder if you looked into the history of the article  
> about the events. It almost seems as if the article preceded the  
> actual events. The article on the English-language Wikipedia is  
> entitled "2011 Egyptian protests". It already exists in 39 languages  
> (incl. English). In Arabic and Egyptian-Arabic it is entitled "The  

Re: Egyptian Revolution: 2nd decolonialisation for all

On Tue, 2011-02-01 at 18:19 +0100, frederic neyrat wrote:
> "(some of the ideas and notions put forward in this posting have been
> developed in collaboration with Brian Holmes in the technopolitics
> project)": where is it possible to find this project, please?

a preliminary outline is here, but that's already really outdated:
http://www.thenextlayer.org/node/1211

Brian has recently posted a better summary here:
http://brianholmes.wordpress.com/2011/01/13/ten-postulates-for-technopolitics/

much of the actual work is carried out online, within a closed group of
thenextlayer.org ... to join that you first need to join tnl and then
the group

we are also doing occasional meetings when possible, the next one in
Vienna at the beginning of March. an announcement will be posted a few
weeks before it happens

regards
armin

--

-- 
thenextlayer software, art, politics http://www.thenextlayer.org