the_abecedarian

Continue the resistance after the protests, this flyer has ideas

"Meta devised an ingenious system (“localhost tracking”) that bypassed Android’s sandbox protections to identify you while browsing on your mobile phone — even if you used a VPN, the browser’s incognito mode, and refused or deleted cookies in every session."

Really good analysis of the past few years here

At first, it seems innocuous: baby on board! Please be a little more careful driving near this vehicle.

But what does this imply? Shouldn't we be driving carefully enough to preserve life and health, regardless of who is in the next car over? Does the absence of a "baby on board" sticker imply "don't worry about us as much! Feel free to be more aggressive" ? I'd hope not. Besides, babies aren't the only people who are more fragile than an assumed strong, healthy adult. Cars everywhere have plenty of elderly people and people with various conditions who would be in more serious danger in a car crash. I'd go so far as to say everyone on the road is somewhere on a spectrum between "peak human physical and mental condition" and "extraordinarily fragile", and we cannot know or judge where each person is at. We should be driving carefully out of an abundance of caution no matter what.

Maybe the idea is based on assumptions about the longer potential remaining lifespan of a baby, compared to an adult? A kind of utilitarian argument about reducing harm by preserving more years of life? If that sounds a bit familiar, it is part of the concept of Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs), which is an integral concept in Effective Altruism, among other uses. I won't go into the details of Effective Altruism, but let's just say it's a pretty terrible system for deciding where to spend resources that glorifies the ability of rich people to do philanthropy and provides support for some racist and eugenicist outcomes. In any event, it certainly doesn't make sense for every driver on the road to be making some kind of QALY analysis of their neighbors on the road at every point of the journey.

I believe that all life is precious. I make an effort to drive that way, too.

P.S. the best interventions to make driving safer for everyone are systemic and infrastructural: crash-compatible vehicles, available alternatives to driving, slower speeds, modal filters, etc. I don't blame baby on board sticker havers for the absence of these things.

EDIT: fixed the video url

Murray Bookchin talks about his history in various communist and anarchist movements, discusses trends in anarchism and libertarian socialism (taking positions against anarcho-primitivism and lifestyle anarchism), talks about the working class' need for free time to even begin to engage with politics (as distinct from "statecraft"), predicts the rise of the right in the 21st century, and more.

(The link skips the first 35 minutes of the video, in which he reads a lifestyle anarchist pamphlet being distributed as part of a mini-protest outside his talk and has a very brief interaction with the folks distributing it.)

Invidious link: https://inv.nadeko.net/LFswTGgDG-E?t=2095

The Institute for Social Ecology is in conversation with author Eleanor Finley about her newly published book - Practicing Social Ecology: From Bookchin to Rojava and Beyond! Eleanor is a longtime friend of the ISE and her book is an excellent contribution to social ecology as a living theory and practice. This event includes a talk from the author as well as audience Q&A.

Purchase Eleanor's book from the publisher Pluto Press: https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745346908/practicing-social-ecology/

Author Bio:

Eleanor Finley is a researcher at the University of Massachusetts, an associate of the Institute for Social Ecology (ISE), and an affiliated researcher at George Mason University, Next System Studies. She has published numerous articles on social ecology and related themes, such as Kurdish democratic confederalism, energy and environmental justice, and degrowth, and conducted dozens of workshops, talks, and lectures to diverse audiences in North America and Europe. She lives in Fairfax, Virginia.

Book Description:

How can we harness society's potential to change the trajectory of the climate crisis? So many of us feel helpless in the face of corporate environmental destruction, however, in Practicing Social Ecology Eleanor Finley shows that there is an amazing well of untapped power in our communities, we just need to know how to use it.

Drawing from her experience of working in democratic ecology movements from the revolution in Rojava to Barcelona's municipalist movement and beyond, she shows how to develop assemblies, confederations, study groups, and permaculture projects.

Looking to history, she maps out how social ecologists, such as Murray Bookchin, have led inspirational struggles around climate and energy, agriculture and biotechnology, globalisation and economic inequality. This guide is perfect for anyone curious about how to challenge unending capitalist growth through the democratic power of social ecology.

The research focused on a model where small, interconnected subgroups operate within larger populations, allowing decisions to emerge through a structured, bottom-up process. This network-based model enables populations to make complex decisions efficiently while still reflecting the will of the broader group.

"Our findings highlight the value of decentralized, structured decision-making," noted Cohen, who is also associate professor of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health. "The way these groups are organized -- and the connections between them -- can fundamentally shape the outcomes."

I'd had my Centurion LeMans RS since 2019, but never really got a bike fit adjustment for it. I thought my issues -- getting tired easily, hand pain at the palms -- were technique and fitness issues, but a few bike fit adjustments made a huge difference!

All we did was raise the seat for full leg extension (I.e. more efficient pedaling), change the stem and handlebar for a more upright, comfortable ride, and add a double layer of grip tape. I've also ordered padded gloves that I hope will help. I'm excited to bike more places!

Part of what I see with 50501/Hands Off protests is that they have a theme of "defending the Constitution" from Trump. This is really a somewhat conservative position and doesn't have much historical rigor to it.

Prof. Aziz Rana of Boston College Law School is having a moment on Jacobin Radio right now. His basic thesis is that the Constitutional order is so deeply antidemocratic that the left argued with itself and the liberals over whether to focus efforts on challenging it in the early 20th Century. In the broad sweep of history since then, Americans have come to view the Constitution as a sacred text, but in fact, that order is part of what gives the Republicans and the far right their advantages despite losing the popular vote.

The shorter interview: https://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html#S250424 (April 24, 2025)
The 4-part long interview: https://thedigradio.com/archive/ (see the Aziz Rana episodes starting in April 2025) - Part 4 isn't up yet.

So why should we venerate the Constitution, when it holds us back from real, direct democracy? I think part of what our liberal friends and family hold onto is a trust in the Constitution and the framers. They weren't geniuses, they were landowners worried about kings taking their property. Use these interviews, or Prof. Rana's book, to handle those arguments.