"Whatever the eventual success or failure of [the] efforts to alter the nature of technology, our understanding of how technology changes can only profit from them. For, by making contingency and choice actual rather than merely hypothetical, they throw into ever-sharper light the ways in which social relations shape technical development. Perhaps too the process can be dialectical, rather than one-way. Perhaps understanding how existing technology has been and is being socially shaped can help in reconstructing it. If that can be so, and if Marx’s account of the machine is useful to that understanding, then the shade of Marx will surely be happy. For it was of the essence of the man that he believed, not simply in understanding the world, but also in changing it."

stickyembraces:

The adventures of Marx and Engels, #6

(via marxist-feminism)

Media theorist Gary Hall withdraws his labour from presses supporting the Research Works Act.

"As an aside in a discussion of the status of the concepts of economics, Karl Marx wrote “The handmill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist.”’ The aphorism has stuck; as a succinct precis of technological determinism it has few rivals. Apt and memorable (even if historically inaccurate) as it is, it is nevertheless misleading. There is much in Marx’s writings on technology that cannot be captured by any simple technological determinism. Indeed, his major discussion of the subject—occupying a large part of volume 1 of Capital—suggests a quite different perspective. Marx argued that in the most significant complex of technical changes of his time, the coming of large-scale mechanized production, social relations molded technology, rather than vice versa. His account is not without its shortcomings, both empirical and theoretical. Yet interest in it is beginning to revive, and deservedly so. It resonates excitingly with some of the best modern work in the history of technology. Even where these studies force us to revise some of Marx’s conclusions, they show the continuing historical relevance of his account of the machine. Its possible political relevance is shown by an interesting connection between the practice of the “alternative technology” movement and an important way of studying the social shaping of technology."

"Now, in contemporary industrialized democracies, the legitimate administration of violence is turned over to what is euphemistically referred to as “law enforcement”—particularly, to police officers, whose real role, as police sociologists have repeatedly demonstrated, has much less to do with enforcing criminal law than with the scientific application of physical force to aid in the resolution of administrative problems. Police are, essentially, bureaucrats with weapons."

David Graeber (via bbcity)

*edit LINK

(Source: libcom.org, via bbcity)

devteam:

Here’s a quick breakdown of how many A5 owners have jailbroken their devices since Friday morning. The numbers as of Monday afternoon are:

• 491,325 new iPhone4,1 devices
• 308,967 new iPad2 devices
• 152,940 previously jailbroken (at 4.x) iPad2 devices

Total: 953,232 new A5 jailbreaks in a little…

pasttensevancouver:

Communist Meetings, Thursday 22 January 1931

For some context, see “Vancouver’s Red Army”

Source: Vancouver Sun

(via becoming-wave)

(via scientificillustration)

lukesimcoe:

Who knows exactly why the site was shut down… But it doesn’t change a thing IRT file-sharing. As evidence, here is a list of alternative storage locker sites which essentially provide the exact same service:

Rapidshare

Hotfile

FileSonic

Wupload

Uploaded

Letitbit

Extabit

FileServe

…

"The nature of academic and research librarianship changed today. Today, all Harvard librarians were essentially given pink slips, asked to participate in a website that has tips on rewriting your resume and changing your career, and also asked to basically re-apply for their jobs. You can read updates on twitter at #hlth"

So this just happened. (Twitter channel.)

Well, this is alarming.

(Source: katherinestasaph, via towerofsleep)

philosophy-of-praxis:

and then getting a decent sized spit and a fire pit.

sonofapritch:

anticapitalist:

stfucarnists:

anticapitalist:

stfucarnists:

Respecting others’ choices is the last resort of the timid idealist.

(submitted by ryanoverton)

Oh wow. stfucarnists exists?

Do you really expect everyone to be vegan given food deserts, class privilege and social differences?

Fuck that.

Damn right this blog exists. As long as bloodmouths exist, so will angry vegans.

Are we really going back to this bullshit cop out again? So because there might be some impoverished person who doesn’t have any current knowledge on veganism, that means you are now allowed to use that as a reason for why you’re personally not vegan?

I’m vegetarian. I’m not vegan because the last time I went vegan for 2 days, I passed out. I’m already really underweight. I value my health.

Yes, food deserts exists as do class and social differences. Do these things erase the responsibility of the individual to not push their problems off on those less fortunate than themselves? Abso-fuckin-lutely not.

Basically:

“Pull yourself up from your bootstraps and go vegan”

lolno.

You bring up class differences and privileges among humans while completely ignoring the fact that any human has a considerable amount of privilege over every non-human animal regardless of their circumstances.

>Human privilege

Da fuck?

Humans have ‘privilege’ therefore they should die/suffer while trying to not eat meat or animal products?

What about the privileges of every human being, in that we will never have to worry about being systematically bred and exploited all of our lives simply for our flesh or our milk or eggs like all non-humans are? Or what about the privilege we have which allows us to be seen by most people of the world as being automatically deserving of rights? What about the privilege humans have where we are seen as more worthy of life and happiness than every other sentient life form, simply because we were born human? You can’t fight for the rights of humans while ignoring the plight of all of those with even less power and rights than humans. It’s all the same fight.

Because we have ‘privilege’ (lol), it’s not okay for us to eat other animals, but it is fine for other animals to be omnivores or carnivores, as needed by their diet.

Humans have dietary needs, just like all other animals. We can’t ignore our food requirements in the name of some abstract privilege.

And let’s be real here. What’s your reason for not being vegan? Because you think one person’s circumstances might excuse them from ethical consideration of those without voices, that means you shouldn’t have to use your brain and consider how your choices affect others? Ignoring the fact that you excusing someone from veganism is downright speciesism, let’s just take a look at what you’re really saying. “Well, I think so and so may not be able to go vegan, so that means now I should say no one has to go vegan and I can therefore say that no one should give their actions ethical consideration.” Do you not see how fucking ridiculous that is?

I’m arguing against militant veganism because it ignores people’s circumstances.

Here you are, trying to push your lifestyle onto everyone else, without considering people’s situations, and you are calling ME ridiculous.

I explained why I’m not vegan above. Though I plan on going vegan in college. But not because of your ‘human privilege’ bullshit, but because I care about the environment.

Yeah, just go ahead and fight against a system that oppresses humans, while fully supporting a system that exploits and oppresses billions of other sentient beings who are just as capable of suffering, and expect to not get called out on the utter hypocrisy of that. Makes perfect sense.

- quoilecanard

Veganism is a boycott. Like all other boycotts, it operates within capitalist hegemony. If you want real change, dish capitalism altogether. Change within the system doesn’t do shit. Especially if you are marginalizing the plights of others.

If you think “fundamental psycho-biological differences” = “privilege,” you’re a fucking idiot. If I followed that logic to its conclusion then every animal would be privileged by virtue of the fact that it was different from another animal. Difference is not privilege; difference is Being, yes, but not privilege. Don’t be ridiculous.

Reblogging because “bloodmouths” caused root beer to come out my nose. Cool story, bro. 

(Source: )

Marxist Literary Group—CFP (Vancouver) special topic on “Capital, Culture, Communism”

CFP: 2012 MLG Institute on Culture and Society, 06/25-29/2012, Simon Fraser University, 

Vancouver BC, Canada

Call for Papers

2012 Marxist Literary Group Institute on Culture and Society

Special Topic: “Capital, Culture, Communism”

Deadline for Proposals: March 1, 2012.

The Marxist Literary Group’s 2012 Institute on Culture and Society (2012 MGF-ICS) will convene this summer on the Vancouver, BC campus of Simon Fraser University on June 25-29.  

This year’s special topic will be “Capital, Culture, Communism.”  How do these three “Cs” relate to a range of issues in contemporary politics and aesthetics, including 

—the recent uprisings in the Arab world,

—the assault on the welfare state in Europe and North America,

—the Occupy movement, etc. and how they are to be understood in today’s global economy

—the resurgence of religion and other cultural/national affiliations within world politics

—the ongoing necessity to develop adequate analyses of the economy

—the return to the language of “communism” in contemporary social theory and aesthetics

—and the ways in which past and present conditions and struggles are represented and, in turn, shaped by various cultural practices and modes of communication?  

Is there a distinctively capitalist culture? Is there a distinctively communist culture? Can one imagine a communist culture emerging from a capitalist one? How central is culture to capital and communism? Capital to culture? Can we perceive now the outlines of a future communism? 

What will remain of capitalist culture in a communist one?  Do recent political events—Occupy Wall Street, the Arab Spring, the global financial crisis—anticipate a future communism?  

Current politics, struggles and theories are of course wedded to older histories and theoretical models. How do Marx and other theorists define and represent capital, culture and communism? 

What is the value of these terms, on their own and/or in relationship to one another? How has the organization and functioning of capital changed? Stayed the same? What are the best strategies for representing capital? Communism?  Papers on these topics, as well as others, are welcome. 

As always, submissions on other topics related to Marxism, including, but not limited to, Marxist considerations of literature or literary considerations of Marxism will be considered.  Please also note that the reading groups this year will focus on primary (i.e. Marx/Engels) texts.

The Institute on Culture and Society is run in consecutive sessions, and the discussion is most fruitful when participants stay for the entire Institute. Housing is available on campus, and every effort is made to keep the cost of attendance low. Graduate student participation is subsidized by 

the Marxist Literary Group. Proposals are welcome for:

Traditional panels

Individual presentations Roundtables

Film Screenings

Performances

Reading Groups (on primary Marxist texts)

All proposals except panel proposals should be a maximum of 250 words in length, and should include title, author, and author’s affiliation.  Panel proposals should include for each proposed paper a 250-word abstract, including title and affiliation, as well as a title and 100-word rationalefor the session itself.  Please send submissions (plain text or commonly used file format) by 

March 1, 2012 to:

mlgics2012@hotmail.com