Lauren Lee McCarthy is an LA-based artist examining social relationships in the midst of surveillance, automation, and algorithmic living.
This week, we look at the ways the internet could have been—and could be—different.
Relevant: Let‘s build a better internet. An Internet powered by the people and for the people.
The Stigmergic Myth of Social Media, or Why Thinking About Radicalization Without Thinking About Radicalizers Doesn't Work.
In areas where cooperation and equality prevails, the Stigmergic Myth is useful. But in areas of conflict and inequality, it can be a real hindrance to understanding what is going on. It can be far less less an expression of collective will or desire than other less distributed approaches, and while fixing the signals and the system is crucial, it’s worth asking if the underlying myth is holding our understanding back.
Markdown, bidirectional graphs, outlines!
Roam Research – A note taking tool for networked thought. (Via ribbonfarm.com.)
As easy to use as a word document or bulleted list, and as powerful for finding, collecting, and connecting related ideas as a graph database. Collaborate with others in real time, or store all your data locally.
This CDC “Respirators and Facial Hair” Infographic: Useful, Darkly Hilarious.
From the Making Sense of the Digital Society lecture series.
Scholar and activist Shoshana Zuboff’s outlook on the future is grim. For her, governments need to outlaw the collection and selling of human data (data that captures internet users online behaviour) and the trade in these data to business consumers (advertising firms, etc.). Otherwise, she predicts that online users will be remotely controlled on a vast scale. Enough data in the “wrong” hands – she predicts – will make it possible to manage individuals as human systems, stripping them of their autonomy.
Veterinary behavior expert demystifyies feline behavior.
"If you need to hug something, get a stuffed toy."
Mozilla lost the browser wars. It still thinks it can save the internet.
In 2016, Mitchell Baker, the chairwoman and interim CEO of Mozilla, sat down to update her manifesto. Well, technically, it's Mozilla's manifesto, but it's Baker's handiwork. Think of it as a sort of Bill of Rights for the internet, or maybe a Ten Commandments: 10 principles about what the internet should be, with ideas about promoting privacy and openness and community. It repeatedly uses words like "individual" and "public" and starts with the premise that the internet is for human beings and needs to be treated as such.
What Is the Hardest Language in the World to Lipread?