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This is a personal project by @dellsystem. I built this to help me retain information from the books I'm reading.

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[...] Some authors claim that the free content being exploited commercially by platforms such as Facebook and Google could be monetised with the help of verification technologies (such as the blockchain ledger) and the profits currently monopolised by these behemoths distributed to the people who provide the content.

This seems unlikely to me. The tendency in many cases is surely towards free use and free access, rather than towards the distribution of commercial benefits. [...]

this is exactly the sort of myth I want to dispel with my adtech piece. value creation doesn't come from the users of Facebook and Google; it's nothing other than the surplus extracted from the actual producers of commodities primarily in the global south!!

—p.100 Our Economy (93) by George Monbiot 6 years, 2 months ago

We might also need new money. As the New Economics Foundation explains in its report 'Energising Money', monetary design helps determine the form that commerce takes. Developing new currencies could encourage both the protection of the gifts of nature and the distribution of the wealth arising from them. Were money to be tied to resources, such as energy (one proposal is for a currency backed by kilowatt hours), it could help stimulate a transition to a low-use economy. Money anchored to productive value--such as a basket of commodities--would reduce the incentive to exhaust those commodities to boost financial returns. The virtual wealth on which the financial sector feeds could no longer be detached from the real wealth on which all of us survive and thrive.

think about this more

—p.126 Framing the Economy (113) by George Monbiot 6 years, 2 months ago

The blockchain ledger [...] could be used to confirm online identities, and potentially votes [...] Its potential to transform democracy has been wildly exaggerated by some people, however, who see it as a means of dispensing with government altogether, replacing neoliberal fantasy taken to its ultimate conclusion. Even lesser roles for the blockchain ledger might potentially be co-opted, as those with the most computing power could come to control the verification process. [...]

—p.157 Our Politics (132) by George Monbiot 6 years, 2 months ago

To what extent do we still need nation-states? We tend to imagine that they have always existed and always will, but they are a recent phenomenon, and could be a temporary one. A study by the journalist Debora MacKenzie explains that, before the late eighteenth century, there were no clear national boundaries, and no border checks. Even in the nineteenth century, many Europeans could not name the nation to which they belonged. The locus of attachment for most people was their village or town. The discrete nation-state developed in response to rising industrial and social complexity. [...]

—p.162 Our Politics (132) by George Monbiot 6 years, 2 months ago

The new populist leaders recognize that they aspire to national leadership in an era in which national sovereignty is in crisis. The most striking symptom of this crisis of sovereignty is that no modern nation-state controls what could be called its national economy. [...]

control has been ceded to the global capitalist class

—p.2 Democracy fatigue (1) by Arjun Appadurai 6 years, 2 months ago

This, then, is what the leaders of the new authoritarian populisms have in common: the recognition that none of them can truly control their national economies, which are hostages to foreign investors, global agreements, transnational finance, mobile labour and capital in general. [...]

—p.5 Democracy fatigue (1) by Arjun Appadurai 6 years, 2 months ago

[...] In the US form, progressive neoliberalism is an alliance of mainstream currents of new social movements (feminism, anti-racism, multiculturalism and LGBTP rights) on the side, and high-end 'symbolic' and service-based sectors of business (Wall Street, Silicon Valley and Hollywood) on the other. In this alliance, progressive forces are effectively joined with the forces of cognitive capitalism, especially financialization. [...]

—p.41 Progressive neoliberalism versus reactionary populism: a Hobson's choice (40) by Nancy Fraser 6 years, 2 months ago

[...] Unable to tackle the global causes of such challenges as immigration and terrorism or growing inequality at the national level, or to combat them with long-term strategies, more and more politicians rely on law and order at home, together with the promise to make their respective countries 'great again'. In the Age of Austerity, it is evidently no longer possible to offer citizens much in their roles as workers, fellow sovereign citizens, school children or users of public infrastructure. In consequence, the political emphasis has shifted to the dimension of nationality, the promise of safety, and the restoration of the glory of a bygone age.

easy software analogy here: you know you need to refactor this shitty legacy system, but it'd be hard work, plus you'd need to cooperate with other people

—p.xi Preface (x) by Heinrich Geiselberger 6 years, 2 months ago

The Great Regression that we are witnessing currently may be the product of a collaboration between the risks of globalization and neoliberalism. The problems that have arisen from the failure of politicians to exercise some control over global interdependence are impinging on societies that are institutionally and culturally unprepared for them.

—p.xiv Preface (x) by Heinrich Geiselberger 6 years, 2 months ago

[...] As long as jobs, pensions and incomes continue to shrink, minorities and migrants will continue to be obvious scapegoats until a persuasive political message emerges from left liberal voices about restructuring income, social welfare and public resources. [...]

—p.8 Democracy fatigue (1) by Arjun Appadurai 6 years, 2 months ago