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Apr
Tue
6th 
Viceland, Drunk History
http://www.viceland.com/blogs/en/2010/03/15/chill-out-the-internet In the book you talk about this accepted lack of financial support for artists as “digital Maosim,” how did that phrase come about? Another theme in the book is the idea that, much like the width of railway tracks came to dictate the speed and abilities of train travel, current software design is defining and limiting the way we can work and shaping our thought processes. |
Mar
Sat
13th
“did you know?” kid cudi, organic coke, and the money-verse.did i know? […]
organic coke from nextnature.com WIKI: “Published accounts say it contains (or once contained) sugar crystals, caramel, caffeine, phosphoric acid, coca leaf and kola nut extract, lime extract, flavoring mixture, vanilla and glycerin. Merchandise 7X (lemon, orange, lime, cassia (a type of cinnamon), nutmeg oils) is the “secret ingredient” in Coca-Cola. Alleged syrup recipes vary greatly, and Coca-Cola reluctantly admits the formula has changed over the decades. For example, the formula was changed. The basic “cola” taste from Coca-Cola and competing cola drinks comes mainly from vanilla and cinnamon; distinctive tastes among various brands are the result of trace flavorings such as orange, lime and lemon and spices such as nutmeg.” nextnature.com’s related article: |
Mar
Tue
9th
very quick notes from “The Living Dead, You Have Used Me as a Fish Long Enough” - with timestampshere is the video.
Introduction. During the Cold War. Scientists who found a way of controlling the human mind attempt to change human memory, alter the way memories were stored. To free humans from the past, wipe memories of terrible experiences, leading to insanity, crime, war… but it got caught up in the politics of the day. What resulted was a time when no memories could be trusted. Neurosurgeon, epilepsy. wilder penfield (2:20) Cut the skin, roll it back, remove top of the skull, patient on local anesthetic, conscious. Electrodes would stimulate the brain, producing memories. penfield seemed to be able to turn memories on and off at will.. a mild electrical current causes a patient to have a memory from his own past. (3:34) He was convinced he learned how memories were stored, like patterns. He short circuited the brain. Penfield invites Cameron to research with him. He thought if one could change memories, they could improve the human being, make them more rational. Not only should they fix the sick, they should be in government, helping politicians to direct and monitor political activities. Because they knew better. Cameron had been an adviser to the judges of the Nuremberg trials. From this, he believed memories often existed as distorted, if one could produce rational memories, we could avoid war. (6:30)… wipe out nationalism. A clinic and center of research (7:00)… we looked at memory as a pattern of circuits which were deranged. To be replaced with a “healthy pattern” of memory. –Winston Churchill speech (8:00)– cold war begins. Memory becomes weapon in confrontation between USA and USSR. Refugees begin arriving in allied sectors. The knowledge they carried with them was critical, little was known of the USSR. All information was based on memory, which needed to be exploited. Cameron and CIA soon became afraid that communists learned to control the memories of citizens. Show trails of the 1930’s, they seemed to be able to program people. This ability griped USA scientists. (9:40) – video– 70 percent of American prisoners held by Chinese made elaborate confessions, (10:29)… is this really possible? Soviets influence human mind? How dangerous are they? –video– (11:11) group of CIA psychologies fly to Montreal, all (Cameron) fascinated by American prisoners. (12:10) he tried to brainwash his patients with the dorma phone - Absorbing information in their sleep. Psychic driving. Repeating messages on tape. Some people listened constantly. (13:23) tried to obliterate sick memories - even learn language CIA funds the experiments, interested in controlling behavior with memory, and afraid soviets already did it. Perhaps they programed people to rise high within society, even to infiltrate the CIA, at the guidance of foreign power. Alter a brain to the point it can hold two alter roles. (15:00) You can create memories that never were (15:19) if you do this, you implant memories, motivating behavior. You can shape and change of human thinking and feelings. (16: 11)electroshock CIA travels regularly to Montreal, disguised as scientists for the Society of Investigation of Human Ecology. The money pushed Camerons experiments way further, wiping totally human memory. On animals and people to change behavior. (17:44) Using electroshock differently to try and change the fundamental of the individual, to later the past memory, past ways of behaving, and as he had, to erase everything from their past. A clean slate for new behavior. Massive doses of shock, several, over time, hundreds. Reduced to primitive vegetable state. (18:58) Linda MacDonald (19:28) diagnosed schizophrenic, remembers nothing. Didn’t even know she was schizophrenic till 20 years later. Mega-doses of drugs, LSD, electroconvulsive shocks, no memory of this left. Clean slate. Treated with de-patterning, sleep 20 of 24 hours. They would descend in memory to “before they got sick” (24:43) nothing but left but essential functions. Material was fed into them after, to program the brain in a positive way. Tapes under pillows. A program. People like Linda would wake up another person. –video— (22:02) she didn’t fit, she watched her self doing things, she felt different, didn’t know how to become like others. A lonely scary place. Her children? Her husband? Whats husband? What’s making love? (23:16) huge ambition. New scientific way, the brain as computer (1950s). fast and clever computer. Science of mind, cognitive science. (24:30) perfect for the political needs of the cold war. Vulnerabilities allow them to be manipulated, automatons. (25:20) –video— wires planted in the brain. After amp, she’s giggling, but doesn’t like. CIA deeply involved in cognitive scientists, frontiers of brain research. Young scientists funded by CIA would do research that the CIA found interesting. 15 or 20 key people. Development of psychology today. (26:00) most of them don’t want to be named, embarrassed by their direct association – worked for- with the CIA, at the time. (27:50) despite being interested at the time. Animals too were programed to fight the cold war. ACOUSTIC KITTY to function within a cat, and withstand excruciating noises. Cut open, power pack, abdomen, wires to cochlea, to brain to override sexual and hunger desires. Then sent across the street to eaves drop, ran over by taxi. 25 million bucks gone. (29:00) soviet threat invades, Cuba gets involved in midst of presidential election. JFK if democrats win this election, USA will wage offensive for freedom all around the world. Need to get Castro, (30:20) head of government need to destabilize. The CIA were given task of assassinating Castro. Camerons experiments to program perfect assassin. Though his experiments didn’t go as planned, just wasn’t true. (cyclographics!) (31:57) couldn’t quite replace memories with new ones. LINDA, memories of being, how to be a social creature. Not driving or cooking, but how to communicate with new people. You talk on many different levels, lots of agenda and innuendo, memory is wrapped in what society says you should feel like. No crying at funerals. (33:16) – wasn’t that need to cry. —video— (33:50) afraid Russia might be on the same thing. So it became irrelevant that Camerons people were healthy or not, they just needed the perfect assassin. 1 simple task,. The fewer memories or emotions, the better. Amoral. Firearms indiscriminate, shoot and kill without thought, brutal techniques without concern. Cut a cats head off. erase memory to deal with this. (35:22) flirting at parties, dictionary, what was happening in rooms at parties, to be like them. Didn’t know what the script was, what are the cues… all as fiction, plot, characters, play…. (36:20 JFK SHOOTING VIDEO USA or USSR soldier? He had not acted alone, someone else was controlling his mind. Too much self control. Anticipated situation, as if he had been rehearsed. Anticipated every question, move, etc. by who? Who knows. (37:49) he’d been to soviet 4 years earlier, and assumed as a soviet agent. 2 months after it was a KGB agent, Yuri Nosenko, that claimed he had been assigned to watch Oswald, and that he had never been trained by the KGB. CIA paranoia sparks. Some senior agents say Nosenko was false, he was sent by the KGB to trick CIA. (38:40) soviet plant, lied, Oswald was in the KGB. Nosenko was interrogated, stuck to his story. CIA convinced he had been implanted with false memories. Open the brain to distinguish true from false memories. Uncover false memories. Break through amnesia, and confront conflict of experiences. Inducing mental illness possibly. —video— (40:41) one drug was very strong, I was floating. Couldn’t breathe COLD HOT COLD HOT water. kept in isolation for 3 years, all techniques failed. Those who accused him were then too accused of being under soviet control. (41:33). no way of telling if memory was true or false. The human is an extremely complex thing, no simply solutions. Very strange times (42:44). the only reason for this, was CIA/ KGB paranoia, while KGB had already abandoned such things. Psychology isn’t developed to make practical conclusions. Dostoyevsky would help you understand people IN the mind, the reasons for actions. CIA stops funding, So Cameron turns to studying simpler organisms. THE FLATWORM. But the dream of a controllable mind took a new turn. So instead of making a mind like a machine, they gave machines a mind of their own. Programmable memories, recognize and understand world around them. Driven my same beliefs of mind and computer relation. From the mind is like a computer to, the mind is a computer. (45:30). the only good psychological theory is a computer program. when people are that confident, they are good salesmen, and a lot bought the idea. Here the cold war changed direction. Not fought between human agents, but between machines. War of machines. Nuclear missiles. Mutually M.A.D. - fear of all out war. The idea of rational thinking by AI hopeful light at end of tunnel during cold war. Things would be looked after. Scientists always go the easy route. got caught up in political pressures of cold war. Department of defense, through its research agency ARPA. Would fund the new discipline of AI. In return, their work would be used to build intelligent weapons. The scientists were embarrassed. What was their real job? AI was funded for military purposes. (48:00) explicit goal of transferring technology into military industrial complex. HOW? (48:20) TV image processing, used then in military. New weapon, programmable memories. Cruise missile, planned target. Balance of power in cold war. AI became powerful. The idea of mind as computer came to dominate popular culture too. (49:40) enthusiastic televisions shows were made. – Minsky video – his work created memory of cruise missile. Public became imbued with “gee whiz” thinking, a thinking machine? When out of view was the development of revolutionary dangerous weapon systems, changing the nature of war. This was primary focus of research agency. Never mentioned. (51:28) this creates objective memory, created by ARPA, recreation of memory of soldiers in battle, plus variety of experts who studied results afterward. Gulf war Taylor made testing ground for ARPA systems. Flat land, less work in testing. Removing harm. (52:50) gulf was a triumph for ARPA, intelligent weapons. War without personal painful memories. Death and destruction was seen by computers. Soldier memories and public memories very different. That’s not how they recall it, blood sweat tears fear anxiety. Made it too simple, without blood or suffering. (54:00) scientists who had begun erasing memories 40 years before to extinguish human suffering, releasing them from past (54:10) had been followed the scientists who designed the weapons of the gulf war, had done just that. The records are not in human minds, but in a computer at ARPA, every bullet and person shot, can be played back. This record represents a ground truth of events as done, on given day. This record won’t change. Composite memory, not subject to embellishment or losses. (55:30) simple cold war structure started falling, USSR collapsing, due to another emerging of the past. A much more biological understanding, “slaves of the past” victims of the past (56:36) the idea of freeing people from ghosts of the past was a noble dream. Part of an age that it could control history by manipulating memory, it was an illusion, that age is over. We are caught up by the irrational forces once again, except for those few living in a world free of memory. LINDA (57:20) …i’m freed up from garbage. Memory is a dangerous thing. Not just for individuals, for cultures, societies, looking backwards, reshaping the past. Reliving what happened. I’m free of that. adam curtis, the living dead, transcribed, |
Mar
Mon
1st
banksy and villainy“I recommend graffiti to anyone, for no other reason than a trip across town is never boring — you’re always on the lookout for new spots and what you can do on them. Likewise, if you ever get bored going round a museum, the interest level ramps up substantially when you smuggle in your own piece under a coat and glue it up somewhere.” “I won’t be doing any more big gallery shows for a while, it’s all a bit dodgy. I’ve come into contact with a lot more villains since I moved from vandalism into selling paintings. The art world is full of shady people peddling bright colours. Anti-graffiti groups like to say tagging intimidates people, but not as much as modern art. That stuff is deliberately designed to make normal people feel stupid. I could try and get more legitimate mural work, but scaling a drainpipe is still probably a lot easier than getting an original idea past a committee.” |
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wendy brown, neoliberalism, and “quotidian nihilism”http://www.brokenpowerlines.com/?p=12 CPS: You have argued, speaking of neoliberalism, you have argued that neoliberalism does not simply promote economic policies but to quote you “disseminates market values into every sphere of human activity.” What distinguishes your perspective here from the despair found in someone like Adorno? What would it require to translate the despair that many people experience in very personal and de-politicized ways into a form of political mobilization? Wendy Brown: That is an interesting question because it assumes that neoliberalism produces despair. I wish it did but I am not convinced that it does. I think that the process that some of us have called neoliberalization actually seizes on something that is just a little to one side of despair that I might call something like a quotidian nihilism. By quotidian, I mean it is a nihilism that is not lived as despair; it is a nihilism that is not lived as an occasion for deep anxiety or misery about the vanishing of meaning from the human world. Instead, what neoliberalism is able to seize upon is the extent to which human beings experience a kind of directionlessness and pointlessness to life that neoliberalism in an odd way provides. It tells you what you should do: you should understand yourself as a spec of human capital, which needs to appreciate its own value by making proper choices and investing in proper things. Those things can range from choice of a mate, to choice of an educational institution, to choice of a job, to choice of actual monetary investments – but neoliberalism without providing meaning provides direction. In a sad way it is seizing upon a certain directionlessness and meaninglessness in late modernity. Again, I am talking mainly about the Euro-Atlantic world: without providing meaning, it provides direction. So I think it is quite a different order of things from the one that Adorno was describing. |
badiou and depressionhttp://jdeanicite.typepad.com/i_cite/2010/02/badiou-and-depression.html Badiou’s insight here is not that impotence is new—people have asked, ‘what do we do now?’ for years. What’s important is the way that this impotence is ‘acknowledged as an intrinsic dimension of electoral democracy.’ Badiou writes:
We know that a real choice isn’t offered because emphasis is always on the fact of choosing and not the outcome. Everyone praises the fact that people voted, that they showed up to vote. That they showed up is itself the triumph of democracy, no matter what sort of outcome—which means that democracy is indifferent to content. It’s simply a matter of form. ‘By their stupid number they brought about the triumph of democracy.’ Which means that referenda that take rights away from same sex couples are triumphs of democracy? Perhaps an underlying meaning: we are relieved that people voted instead of delegitimizing the system, exposing its fundamental corruption. We are relieved that they did not riot in the streets, loot the houses of the rich, break the windows and take what we know is rightfully theirs. Badiou:
Depression: disorientation, nostalgia, impotence. What is the cure? ‘Raise impotence to impossibility.’ What does this mean? Find, construct, and nhold on to a real point, a point that can’t be described or reduced part of the situation, but rather exceptional to it. We can call that point communism, a generic term for the move beyond capitalism, private property, financial circulation, etc. Such a point would be in a kind of dialectical relation to our depression, a way of negating it, persisting as its negation. The point punctures a hole in the situation of what we take to be reality. It says no to the service of wealth and yes to the possibility that there is something beyond it. |
