May 09 2026

from No Logo, Naomi Klein

“… many of today’s best-known manufacturers no longer produce products and advertise them, but rather buy products and ‘brand’ them …” p5

“[T]his corporate obsession with brand identity is waging a war on public and individual space; on public institutions such as schools, on youthful identities, on the concept of nationality, and on the possibilities for unmarketed space.” p5

“[M]edia and retail companies have inflated to such bloated proportions that simple decisions about what items to stock in a store or what kind of cultural product to commission … now have enormous consequences; those who make these choices have the power to reengineer the cultural landscape.” p165

“Streets are public spaces, adbusters argue, and since most residents can’t afford to counter corporate messages by purchasing their own ads, they should have the right to talk back to images they never asked to see.” p280

“The earth is not dying, it is being killed.  And those that are killing it have names and addresses.”  Utah Phillips (quoted by Klein on p325)

“… contest the authority of corporations to govern” p325  (Indeed.  They weren’t elected.)

“… children in Indonesia and China [are] working in virtual slavery ‘so that children in America can put frilly dresses on America’s favorite doll'” p328

“If Wal-Mart [has] the power to lower prices, alter CD covers, and influence magazine content, [does] it not also have the power to demand and enforce ethical labor standards from its suppliers?” p239

“Disney CEO Michael Eisner earns $9,783 an hour while a Haitian worker ears 28 cents an hou; it would take a Haitian worker 16.8 years to earn Eisner’s hourly income; the $181 million in stock options Eisner exercised in 1996 is enough to take care of his 19,000 Haitian workers and their families for fourteen years.” p352

“Please use your liberty to promote ours.” Aung San Suu Kyi (quoted by Klein on p403)

May 08 2026

Janelle Shane’s You Look Like a Thing and I Love You

a few bits from Janelle Shane’s You Look Like a Thing and I Love You

“Researchers have discovered that something as seemingly insignificant a a small sticker can make an image recognition AI think a gun is a toaster …” p4

And vice versa, I presume.  Well, that’s not alarming at all.

“A team at Stanford University once trained an AI to tell the difference between pictures of healthy skin and pictures of skin cancer.  After the researchers trained their AI, however, they discovered that they had inadvertently trained [it to be] a ruler detector instead—many of the tumors in their training data had been photographed next to rulers for scale.” p23

So when your GP asks your permission to use AI assistance … just say no.

“If you give a job-candidate-screening AI biased data to learn from (which you almost certainly did, unless you did a lot of work to scrub bias from the data), then you also give it a convenient shortcut to improve its accuracy at predicting the ‘best’ candidate: prefer white men.” p26-27

Yeah.  Garbage in, garbage out.

“AI has the approximate brainpower of a worm.”

“AI does not really understand the problem you want it to solve.”

“AI will take the path of least resistance.”

 

 

 

Apr 28 2026

“What Does it Mean to Work Under Algorithmic Eyes?”

What Does it Mean to Work Under Algorithmic Eyes?

”

“We should not take computer scientists at their word that the paradigms for human emotions they have developed… can produce ground truth about human emotions.”

Part of the reason is that machines are biased. Women, older employees, neurodiverse workers, and people of color are far more likely to be misread and mismeasured. What the algorithm flags as “disengagement” may simply be fatigue, cultural difference, or, god forbid, a moment of quiet reflection. Yet those misreadings can influence performance reviews, promotions, and layoffs.”

Yeah.  Computer scientists are in waaaaay over their heads on most AI applications.

Apr 24 2026

Suppose that worldwide …

Suppose that worldwide, women flood the military, soon comprising, say, 40% of the ranks (which will be perceived by men as a majority) (go figure).

Suppose then, as happened when women flooded the ranks of bank tellers, secretaries, and teachers, being a soldier became devalued, losing its prestige, its glory, its funding, its media coverage.

And when being a soldier has about as much appeal as being a waitress … the end of war?

Apr 21 2026

some funny bits from Tim Dorsey’s The Maltese Iguana

“I don’t need to read anything to know what I’m talking about!” / “In one sentence you’ve just summed up everything wrong wtih our country today!”  p152

“A few short years ago, we could look at a drinking glass and agree it was filled to the midpoint with water, then argue about what it meant.  But today?  Good lord!  We all look at the same glass now, and it’s either A: half-full, or B: a squirrel.”  p153

“Entertainment,” said a smiling Serge.  “I love watching when assholes hit a wall.  their brains aren’t wired for anything that can’t be solved with shittiness.”  p214

“After all, a woman was being savagely attacked …  Something needed to be done.  So everyone swung into action and turned on their cell phone cameras.”  p226

“So,” said Serge.  “What do you like in a man?” / “Absence.”  p260

 

Apr 12 2026

Suppose two married women …

Suppose two married women get jobs outside the home at the same time, forcing their husbands to hire someone to do the cooking, cleaning, and childcare.  Ten hours/day, 5 days/week, at $20/hr.  It’s a lot to afford, but the men have so-called ‘breadwinner’ salaries.

Suppose it turns out that Emma is hired by Alyssa’s husband (on Alyssa’s recommendation) and Alyssa is hired by Emma’s husband (on Emma’s recommendation).

And they’re both really enjoying their evenings off and their $52,000/yr incomes.

Apr 02 2026

Who’s ethically responsible for an AI’s behavior?

Excellent question.  One I’ve thought about (as a philosopher and an ex-ethics consultant) and raised here.

One might suggest that an AI is like a gun, and ‘we’ve’ always argued that those who create guns and bombs should not be held responsible for how they’re used.  Not sure about that, but regardless, an important difference is that a bomb doesn’t have agency.  Well, I guess not until now.

So it’s more like the issue of whether we should hold parents responsible for their kid’s behaviour.

I’m leaning toward yes.  Especially since most people, and AI techies, create children and AI agents without having any qualifications whatsoever regarding child or AI development, and that includes MORAL development.

 

 

Apr 01 2026

Suppose by some biochemical quirk …

Suppose by some biochemical quirk, the hormones we’ve been feeding cows inhibits testosterone in humans, so the more meat men eat, the weaker they become.

Suppose that within a year, males lost their 30% physical strength advantage over women.

What would happen?

Mar 23 2026

Naomi Alderman’s The Power meets Monty Python’s “Hell’s Grannies”

A man struts and huffs and puffs and expands like a blowfish, but all the old women close their eyes. Deny him the female gaze. Refuse to be a witness to his Almighty Greatness, let alone a cheerleader.

And not only does he deflate, he disappears in a puff of, well, nothingness. Existential nothingness. Beauvoir would be delighted.

Camus would be pissed though.

Cool. So … very cool.

Yeah, it’s not that we’ve stopped reflecting men at twice their size, thank you Dale Spender and Sally Cline; we’ve stopped reflecting them at all.

*

She kills him.

WTF!

He consented. She paused. Did anyone hear him say ‘No’?

Next time she drugs him. Then kills him.

WTF!

He consented. She poked at his inert body. He didn’t resist.

Next time, she asks him. I’d really like to kill you.

What?

Do you consent?

What?

She looks at the others. I swear half of them are too stupid to live.

She shoots him.

WTF!

Relax, no one saw me. I’m an old woman. Invisible.

Unfuckable.

Same thing.

Yeah.

Mar 08 2026

The blink. This is perfect.

“She blinks at me. … The blink isn’t confusion. It’s not processing. It’s a screensaver. It’s her brain going into standby mode because the incoming information doesn’t match the preset programming.”

from a repost with no author name