“When we get past the chaos, the horror, and the paradoxical hope of all that’s unfolding, what we’re talking about and living through is apocalyptic collapse as a spiritual path.” Last Thursday I noted that we were then living through a week of apocalypse here in America. The very next day saw the first-ever police…
Tag: surveillance
Recommended Reading 38
Mexican Cartels Dispatch Trusted Agents to Live Deep Inside United States The Washington Post (Associated Press), April 1, 2013 Mexican drug cartels whose operatives once rarely ventured beyond the U.S. border are dispatching some of their most trusted agents to live and work deep inside the United States — an emboldened presence that experts believe…
A surveillance state beyond Orwell’s wildest dreams
Bruce Schneier is the unofficial dean of security experts in the digital age: an “internationally renowned security technologist,” a TED speaker, and the author of a popular newsletter plus 2012’s Liars and Outliers: Enabling the Trust That Society Needs to Thrive and a huge library of additional books, blogs, and essays. “The closest thing the…
Recommended Reading 36
This week: How entire U.S. towns now rely on food stamps. The regrets of the Iraqi “sledgehammer man,” whose image became famous in Western media when Saddam’s statue fell. The Obama administration’s epic (and hypocritical) focus on secrecy. The demise of Google Reader and what it portends for Net-i-fied life and culture. The sinister rise…
The NDAA and America’s looming totalitarian dystopia
Chris Hedges has brought a lawsuit against President Obama for signing into law Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Here’s his explanation of what’s at stake. Read slowly and carefully, the better to take it in. The section permits the military to detain anyone, including U.S. citizens, who âsubstantially supportâ — an…
Recommended Reading 24
This week we bring you an exceptionally rich list of excellent reading and, in two cases, excellent listening. Topics include: the inherent — and ongoing — problem with financial institutions that are “too big to fail”; the siege of higher education in its traditional form by tech startups and the exploding online college movement; the…
Recommended Reading 20
This week’s recommendations cover the history of Wall Street’s addiction to inhumanly fast and economically abstracted trading practices; the history of “dark money” in American politics, culminating in the current game-changing dominance of hidden funding; the rise of real-life “cyborgs” via the burgeoning body-hacking movement; a couple of considerations of what it means for human…
Hacked and surveilled: Warnings from our digital dystopia
If you’re at all involved in the world of online identities and interactions — as you obviously are, since you’re reading this blog post — then an article/essay published yesterday by a tech journalist for Wired may prove to be one of the most frightening things you’ll read this year. And its impact is augmented…
Recommended Reading 18
This week’s links, reading, and viewings encompass America’s apocalyptic obsession, the troubled future of America’s electricity situation, the continued rehabilitation of psychedelic research in academic and governmental contexts, the rise of America’s internal surveillance state, a worried critique of art’s monetization, the hijacking of social media by megacorporate interests, a warning from by-God Silicon Valley…
Recommended Reading 16
This week’s recommended readings include an essay in defense of the philosophy of science; thoughts and insights on channeling, creativity, savants, and the farther reaches of human potential; a recounting of Bobby Kennedy’s defense of LSD research during the heady 1960s; essays about the influence of neuroscience on novelists and the deep value of the…