[iDC] A movement of unemployed teachers

Fri Jun 4 14:53:54 UTC 2010

The film about the movement in Oaxaca, Mexico, Un Poquito de Tana Verdad
tells the story about a similar movement in Mexico.

http://www.corrugate.org/un_poquito_de_tanta_verdad/un_poquito_de_tanta_verdad

It's a pretty amazing documentary.

-- Doug

On Jun 3, 2010, at 11:25 AM, micha cárdenas wrote:

> Again I'm not sorry for my genuine rage, but this is all compounded by
> the collapse of the educational system where so many of us are being
> presented with our expulsion from academia. We need a Movement of
> Unemployed Teachers like the unemployed workers movement in Argentina
> (if any hope of a movement is still possible, or which may be possible
> again now that we all have os much time on our hands). Just in sheer
> numbers, so many of us are being laid off, having tenure threatened,
> watching adjunct jobs disappear, that we must have the combined energy
> to DO SOMETHING in response... The coming insurrection sounds more and
> more like sweet music that makes so much sense as we're all told that
> we have no futures left...
>
>
> 2010/6/3 micha cárdenas <azdelslade at gmail.com>:
>> As I walk around campus today, I have the urge to peaches' I DONT  
>> GIVE
>> A FUCK song, because I'm so pissed about losing aaaarg.org. This is
>> TOO MUCH. When will we all finally reach our limit? It is my hope  
>> that
>> a million aaaarg mirrors will spring up...
>>
>> Of course a lot of us have been brewing these dreams of escaping
>> social networks for a long time...
>> (http://bang.calit2.net/tts/category/facebook/) but it seems that now
>> we need to organize, we need a distributed strategy, to both help
>> efforts to develop new autonomous networks like elgg, identi.ca,
>> opensim and diaspora, but also to infiltrate and disrupt networks  
>> like
>> facebook, twitter and second life. In fact, second life is a perfect
>> case study of the horror of what these network owners imagine, a  
>> whole
>> world where everything you own, everything that is you, every bit of
>> your body and identity resides on their servers, and everyday new
>> Linden Labs licensing restrictions come out to legally  bind people
>> into the system and prevent escape at all turns.
>>
>> Personally, I've been invested for quite a while in trying to develop
>> new networks, including networks such as radical porn sites, just one
>> example of the parts of ourselves and our lives that are excluded and
>> stripped from us in these corporate spaces. Actually my book calling
>> for the development of new autonomous networks stemming out of the
>> demand for the ability to change my identity constantly and at will
>> just came out (http://www.amazon.com/Trans-Desire-Affective-Cyborgs-C%C3%A1rdenas/dp/0982530994/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275588562&sr=8-1 
>> ).
>>
>> Still, even as we need to develop our own networks and software, we
>> also have to move to developing our own infrastructure
>> (http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/06/22/18603456.php)! We can no
>> longer rely on phone companies to provide our connections to each
>> other! We need to be in control of the very hardware itself, and we
>> all have routers in our homes that we can switch for just this
>> purpose!
>>
>> As the case of ricardo dominguez and the bang.lab shows, university
>> networks are no longer any haven for free thought and radical
>> experimentation, we need to seriously dedicate our own resources and
>> lives to these struggles before WIPO controls all of our daily
>> interactions...
>>
>> Sorry for the rant, I just can't take it anymore...
>>
>>
>>
>> 2010/5/28 Sean Dockray <sean at e-rat.org>:
>>>
>>> i'm not sure if I'm doing this (sending a message to the list in
>>> response to Geert) right, but here goes nothing.
>>> there's a few too many question marks and exclamation points and
>>> strident claims, but the form got the better of me.
>>> sean
>>>
>>> --
>>> FACEBOOK SUICIDE (BOMB) MANIFESTO
>>>
>>> Everyone now wants to know how to remove themselves from social
>>> networks. It has become absolutely clear that our relationships to
>>> others are mere points in the aggregation of marketing data.  
>>> Political
>>> campaigns, the sale of commodities, the promotion of entertainment –
>>> this is the outcome of our expression of likes and affinities. And  
>>> at
>>> what cost? The reward is obvious: we no longer have to tolerate
>>> advertisements for things for which we have no interest. Instead our
>>> social relations are saturated with public relations. But at least  
>>> it
>>> is all *interesting*!
>>>
>>> Unlike the old days, when we could invent online identities daily,  
>>> our
>>> social networks today require fidelity between our physical self and
>>> our online self. The situation is unbearable.
>>>
>>> The frightening consequence of it all is that we believe in the  
>>> value
>>> of these networks. We understand perfectly well that our privacy is
>>> being renegotiated without our consent; the rules are changing in
>>> plain view; but we still participate! It is like a new form of  
>>> money,
>>> something we realize is a myth, but we act like it is real and  
>>> that is
>>> its power. We can’t leave because everyone else is there! Or because
>>> we are invested in the myth ourselves.
>>>
>>> The question is how do we extract ourselves from this predicament?
>>>
>>> Recently, some programmers figured out how to computationally do
>>> exactly this. By entering in your username and password, the  
>>> software
>>> would delete as much information as possible, ultimately removing  
>>> the
>>> account itself. It was a radical enough idea to attract the legal
>>> attention of Facebook.
>>>
>>> This software did not go far enough!
>>>
>>> When someone disappears from Facebook, does anyone notice? Does this
>>> software retroactively invalidate all of the marketing data that has
>>> been collected from the account? Has this person de-dividuated
>>> themselves? No, silence has not disrupted the system in the  
>>> slightest!
>>>
>>> Social networks need a social suicide. In the same way that  
>>> 99.99999%
>>> of users on Facebook don’t exist within the cloistered world of  
>>> one’s
>>> home page, an invisible user – one who has committed suicide – is
>>> simply a non-factor in the constant and regular computational  
>>> logic of
>>> the thing. The answer isn’t silence, but noise!
>>>
>>> Suicide on a social network is a matter of introducing noise into  
>>> the
>>> system. It spreads viruses and misinformation. It makes things less
>>> interesting for others. It disrupts the finely calibrated  
>>> advertising
>>> algorithms on which suggestions are made – for friends, groups,
>>> institutions, ideas, and so on. Social networking captures,
>>> quantifies, and capitalizes on positive feedback. It records and
>>> reproduces similarity. Oh yes, everyone is not watching one of three
>>> mass-produced choices; but beneath all of the possibilities there is
>>> only one choice! The one for you!
>>>
>>> A roadmap for an effective Facebook suicide should do some of the
>>> following: catching as many viruses as possible; click on as many
>>> “Like” buttons as possible; join as many groups as possible; request
>>> as many friends as possible. Wherever there is the possibility for
>>> action, take it, and take it without any thought whatsoever.  
>>> Become a
>>> machine for clicking! Every click dissolves the virtual double that
>>> Facebook has created for you. It disperses you into the digital  
>>> lives
>>> of others you hadn’t thought of communicating with. It confuses your
>>> friends. It pulls all those parts of the world that your social
>>> network refuses to engage with back into focus, makes it present  
>>> again.
>>>
>>> Invisibility comes in many forms, and on social networks it is the
>>> form of a radical overload of information – a maximum participation.
>>> No more thought, because every considered click adds to the
>>> collaborative filtering algorithms that makes sure everyone  
>>> continues
>>> to like what they like, but in slightly modified form. Click
>>> everywhere, click often, and don’t stop until you have disappeared
>>> beneath a flood of meaninglessness.
>>>
>>> This is a call for suicide, for the abandonment of seriousness and
>>> belief. It is a call to reclaim ourselves from the sad version of
>>> ourselves that lives in that bloodless village. Don’t become  
>>> nothing,
>>> the singular point defined by an absence, become everything, with
>>> everyone else. Drown the system in data and make a new world in the
>>> ruins that remain!
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> micha cárdenas / azdel slade
>>
>> Lecturer, Visual Arts Department, University of California, San Diego
>> Lecturer, Critical Gender Studies Program, University of  
>> California, San Diego
>> Artist/Researcher, UCSD Medical Education
>> Artist/Theorist, bang.lab, http://bang.calit2.net
>>
>> blog: http://transreal.org
>>
>
>
>
> -- 
> micha cárdenas / azdel slade
>
> Lecturer, Visual Arts Department, University of California, San Diego
> Lecturer, Critical Gender Studies Program, University of California,  
> San Diego
> Artist/Researcher, UCSD Medical Education
> Artist/Theorist, bang.lab, http://bang.calit2.net
>
> blog: http://transreal.org
> _______________________________________________
> iDC -- mailing list of the Institute for Distributed Creativity  
> (distributedcreativity.org)
> iDC at mailman.thing.net
> https://mailman.thing.net/mailman/listinfo/idc
>
> List Archive:
> http://mailman.thing.net/pipermail/idc/
>
> iDC Photo Stream:
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>
> RSS feed:
> http://rss.gmane.org/gmane.culture.media.idc
>
> iDC Chat on Facebook:
> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2457237647
>
> Share relevant URLs on Del.icio.us by adding the tag iDCref

Douglas Schuler
douglas at publicsphereproject.org

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