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wrrn + society   329

Daily Maverick :: Ilan Godfrey wins OPENPhoto Award
Johannesburg-based photographer Ilan Godfrey has won the inaugural OPENPhoto Award for the essay Legacy of the Mines, his intriguing and evocative series of square images depicting people on the fringes of the commodity world
photography  southafrica  society  culture  art  documentary 
19 days ago by wrrn
Kranzberg's laws of technology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral.
technology  tools  media  culture  society 
5 weeks ago by wrrn
Researchers Show How Social Interaction and Teamwork Lead to Human Intelligence | Neuroscience News
By allowing the brains of these digital organisms to evolve freely in their model the researchers were able to show that  the transition to cooperative society  leads to the strongest selection for bigger brains. Bigger brains essentially did better as cooperation increased.
social  society  evolution  game-theory  community  computational-science  thepropagandasarecoming 
6 weeks ago by wrrn
Politicsweb - Solidarity Movement to plough R1bn into civil society - FEATURES
Because a plan is only as strong as its intellectual depth, the Solidarity Movement's building plan makes provision for two research institutes. They are the Solidarity Research institute, focussing on labour and civil rights, labour economy and labour relations, and the NP van Wyk Louw Research Centre, focussing on the internationally-recognised idea of cultural freedom. Further, the establishment of an international office which will liaise with international forums and South Africans living abroad is also envisaged.
southafrica  civic  society  union  politics  activism  participation 
6 weeks ago by wrrn
Bordering Populism in Immigration Activism » ThickCulture
Overall, each of the group’s stark rhetorical shifts for and against the government, businesses, and immigrants concurrently crafted and dismantled rhetorical borders, creating an unstable (counter)public forgoing the possibility of democratic communication and community
immigration  research  sociology  culture  society  philosophy  beinghuman 
6 weeks ago by wrrn
New Left Project | Articles | Is Porn Hijacking Our Sexuality? (Part 2)
Ditum, and similarly minded women who support an industry built on the backs of poor and underprivileged women, are empowered. To varying degrees they have economic, educational, and skin privilege that allows them to celebrate porn from a safe distance.
porn  human  sex  relationships  culture  society  philosophy 
8 weeks ago by wrrn
New Left Project | Articles | Is Porn Hijacking Our Sexuality? (Part 1)
– Dines finally offers what could be interpreted as her working definition of pornography. It is, she writes, “depictions of cruel acts that one group [ie men] is perpetrating against another group [ie women].” (It’s notable that Dines elects not to look at gay or lesbian pornography, thereby depriving herself on an opportunity to test her thesis about porn’s modelling of male-female sexual relationships by comparing it to the presentation of male-male or female-female relationships.) In other words, she has defined porn a priori as cruel.
porn  human  sex  relationships  culture  society  philosophy 
8 weeks ago by wrrn
Lessons from Literature for a Fracturing Country
life  literature  trends  debate  culture  social  society  politics  from readability
9 weeks ago by wrrn
Personal genomics: no longer just for white folks | Wired Science | Wired.com
recent numbers on the ethnic breakdown of 23andMe customers indicate that of the ~81,500 customers with self-reported ancestry in the company’s database a whopping 74.7% are primarily of European descent. African-Americans are particularly poorly represented in the customer base, comprising just 1.2% (compared to 12.6% of the total US population).
genetics  society  science  technology  human 
11 weeks ago by wrrn
Software Studies: SOFTWARE STUDIES
Google searches and Amazon recommendations, airline flight paths and traffic lights, email and your phone: our culture runs on software. How does software shape the world?

Software Studies is a new research paradigm in the humanities and media studies that emerged in the second part of 2000s.
software-studies  software  culture  society  philosophy  digital-humanities 
february 2012 by wrrn
Politics of Beauty and Pleasure » Cyborgology
I argue that these artifacts, rather than dissolving hierarchical gendered boundaries of bodily control and sexual pleasure, surreptitiously trace over these boundaries with invisible ink, only to be revealed under the light of critical sociological analysis.
gender  politics  society  Beauty  culture  sociology  philosophy 
february 2012 by wrrn
The Wire: Adventures In Sound And Music: Article
@derekwalmsley: Cool reader put together by Simon Reynolds for #CriticalBeats panel at Stratford Circus 23 February http://t.co/7jOWIOKx - February 16, 2012 at 02:44PM
music  culture  critical_thinking  society 
february 2012 by wrrn
Amazon.com: Liars and Outliers: Enabling the Trust that Society Needs to Thrive (9781118143308): Bruce Schneier: Books
This book represents my attempt to develop a full-fledged theory of coercion and how it enables compliance and trust within groups. My goal is to rephrase some of those questions and provide a new framework for analysis. I offer new perspectives, and a broader spectrum of what's possible. Perspectives frame thinking, and sometimes asking new questions is the catalyst to greater understanding.
security  hacking  books  society  information-society  civil-liberties 
february 2012 by wrrn
South Africa: patriarchy, paper, and reclaiming feminism | openDemocracy
These 'brother ideologies' have similar consequences for women and men, for gender relations. Patriarchy, nationalism and militarism reinforce each other. Nationalism's in love with patriarchy because patriarchy offers it women who'll breed true little patriots. Militarism's in love with patriarchy because its women offer up their sons to be soldiers. Patriarchy's in love with nationalism and militarism because they produce unambiguously masculine men and submissive women.
southafrica  politics  feminism  gender  culture  society 
february 2012 by wrrn
3quarksdaily: On Morozov's "The Death of the Cyberflâneur"
Evgeny Morozov's piece in the NYT's Sunday Review has received some critical attention.

First, over at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, episode 3 of their podcast has an extensive and interesting discussion of the article.

Second, Jesse Darling in The New Inquiry
internet  culture  psychogeography  society  media 
february 2012 by wrrn
Arcades, Mall Rats, and Tumblr Thugs – The New Inquiry
The flâneur, according to Morozov, is someone who doesn’t know what he cares about: if that’s what it takes, then surely flânerie is alive and well over on yelp and youtube and 4chan. But I guess Evgeny Morozov hasn’t spent too much time on 4chan lately, and who can blame him. It’s not a great place to go alone after dark: better stick to ebay, and reading through your ads on Facebook, persuading yourself not to click.
internet  culture  psychogeography  society  media 
february 2012 by wrrn
Police accused of discriminating against urban music scene | Music | The Guardian
"We looked at it and were of the view that form 696 was discriminatory and completely unnecessary. It appears that problem still exists and it is still being used by the Met to target particular types of music."
form696  music  UK  discrimination  culture  politics  society 
january 2012 by wrrn
Occupy as psychogeographic urbanism [draft 2]
police  people  society  place  social  institutions  from readability
december 2011 by wrrn
“Friends”: Social Anxieties and Linguistic Technology » Cyborgology
In short, we are experiencing a cultural lag, or more specifically, a linguistic gap, in which cultural relationships, facilitated by quickly developing technologies, do not yet have adequate linguistic representation.
society  social-software  technology  relationships  language 
november 2011 by wrrn
Demoting Halder
A Short Story by Andy Oram As he snatched up his phone, Allen caught notice of the index rating on the screen and saw that Mona stood at 2,440. This struck him as odd, because it was highly unusual to add fifteen percent to one’s index in just two weeks. But putting the thought aside, he pressed the answer button. “Sup.” “Just…
social-software  society  human-computation  reputation-systems  culture  future  panopticon  from readability
november 2011 by wrrn
WORKSHOP: Data as Documentary | and
Databases carry the same seeds of creativity that early documentary makers saw in film. Both can empower people by helping them to master information; equally, both can be misread for the purposes of propaganda and deception.
database  information-society  media  society  power  thepropagandasarecoming  panopticon 
october 2011 by wrrn
on:africa | a thematic africa-focused journal
on:africa is a thematically-driven web-based portal for the exchange of high-quality research, creativity and multi-media expressions relating to Africa.
africa  media  culture  society  from delicious
september 2011 by wrrn
UK riots: political classes see what they want to see | UK news | The Guardian
And if you've not read it yet, take on the political reaction to is second to none:
ukriots  london  riots  politics  media  society  social  DD306  from twitter_favs
august 2011 by wrrn
Blag Hag: Context matters
Rebecca is receiving some shittacular comments about how she's hypersensitive and oppressing male sexuality, and how men are the real victims here because they can't flirt without seeming like sex crazed rapists. I get the same sort of comments whenever I make similar observations. So I want to spell it out very clearly:
human  feminism  gender  culture  rape  society  violence  from delicious
july 2011 by wrrn
Guest Blogger Starling: Schrödinger’s Rapist: or a guy’s guide to approaching strange women without being maced « Shapely Prose
When you approach me in public, you are Schrödinger’s Rapist. You may or may not be a man who would commit rape. I won’t know for sure unless you start sexually assaulting me. I can’t see inside your head, and I don’t know your intentions. If you expect me to trust you—to accept you at face value as a nice sort of guy—you are not only failing to respect my reasonable caution, you are being cavalier about my personal safety.
human  feminism  gender  culture  rape  society  violence  from delicious
july 2011 by wrrn
The Author of ‘Fear of Flying’ Detects a Backlash Against Sex. - NYTimes.com
Not only did we fail to corrupt our daughters, but we gave them a sterile way to have sex, electronically. Clearly the lure of Internet sex is the lack of involvement. We want to keep the chaos of sex trapped in a device we think we can control.
sex  human  relationships  society  history  from delicious
july 2011 by wrrn
Homepage | Poor Economics
Their book is radical in its rethinking of the economics of poverty, but also entirely practical in the suggestions it offers. Through a careful analysis of a very rich body of evidence, including the hundreds of randomized control trials that Banerjee and Duflo’s lab has pioneered, they show why the poor, despite having the same desires and abilities as anyone else, end up with entirely different lives.
poverty  economics  finance  society  books  from delicious
june 2011 by wrrn
Cultural hegemony - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
the philosophic and sociological concept, originated by the Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci, that a culturally-diverse society can be ruled or dominated by one of its social classes. It is the dominance of one social group over another, e.g. the ruling class over all other classes. The theory claims that the ideas of the ruling class come to be seen as the norm; they are seen as universal ideologies, perceived to benefit everyone whilst really benefiting only the ruling class.
philosophy  culture  sociology  society  marx  from delicious
june 2011 by wrrn
A Brief History of the Corporation: 1600 to 2100
it is a sort of grim privilege for the generations living today to watch the slow demise of such a spectacularly effective intellectual construct. The Age of Corporations is coming to an end. The traditional corporation won’t vanish, but it will cease to be the center of gravity of economic life in another generation or two.  They will live on as religious institutions do today, as weakened ghosts of more vital institutions from centuries ago.
business  corporation  economics  history  social  society  from delicious
june 2011 by wrrn
Science in shackles | John Sulston | Comment is free | The Guardian
The fruits of science and innovation have nourished our society and economy for years, but nations unable to navigate our regulatory system are often excluded, as are vulnerable individuals. We need to consider how to balance the needs of science as an industry with the plight of those who desperately need the products of science.
intellectual-property  society  research  science  economics  from delicious
june 2011 by wrrn
Boston Review — Junot Díaz: Apocalypse (Haiti, Japan, earthquake, tsunami)
Apocalypses are not only catastrophes; they are also opportunities: chances for us to see ourselves, to change.
Haiti  japan  environment  nature  society  JunotDiaz  from delicious
june 2011 by wrrn
Susan Sontag: An Interview
I am astonished and disheartened by the very subjective view of the world that most people have, whereby they reduce everything to their own personal concerns and involvements.
photography  art  writing  culture  society  history  Sontag  beinghuman  from delicious
may 2011 by wrrn
DICE 2010: "Design Outside the Box" Presentation Videos - G4tv.com
Carnegie Mellon University Professor, Jesse Schell, dives into a world of game development which will emerge from the popular "Facebook Games" era.
games  gamification  future  mobile  culture  society  thepropagandasarecoming  from delicious
april 2011 by wrrn
Erasing Individual’s Digital Past - NYTimes.com
But like a metastasized cancer, the incriminating data had embedded itself into the nether reaches of cyberspace, etched into archives, algorithms and a web of hyperlinks.
internet  memory  identity  tools  society  human  humancomputer  privacy  from delicious
april 2011 by wrrn
Why the Basis of the Universe Isn’t Matter or Energy—It’s Data | Magazine
In his new book, The Information, science writer James Gleick documents the rising role of information in our lives and the way new technologies continue to increase its velocity, volume, and importance.
information  society  science  history  technology  books  Gleick  reviews  from delicious
march 2011 by wrrn
Tools for Thinking - NYTimes.com
Steven Pinker of Harvard asked a smart question: What scientific concept would improve everybody’s cognitive toolkit? The good folks at Edge.org organized a symposium, and 164 thinkers contributed suggestions.
tools  cognition  ideas  human  philosophy  critical_thinking  culture  society  from delicious
march 2011 by wrrn
The School of Life : The Two Approaches to Well-Being
As a sort of happy medium between these two opposites, we hear about the importance of combining Kelsey’s narrative approach to life with Halliwell’s ‘resting-in-the-moment’ approach
beinghuman  knowledge  information  culture  human  society  psychology  from delicious
march 2011 by wrrn
Jane McGonigal’s Mind is Broken
Wow. 2 harsh by 1/2, but I do largely agree in substance. RT : epic takedown
games  humancomputer  collaboration  society  Gamification  from twitter_favs
march 2011 by wrrn
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/12/2010_in_photos_part_1_of_3.html
2010 in photos: pt1 pt2 pt3 one crazy ass year!!
photography  culture  society  art  history  from twitter
december 2010 by wrrn
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/12/2010_in_photos_part_2_of_3.html
2010 in photos: pt1 pt2 pt3 one crazy ass year!!
photography  culture  society  art  history  from twitter
december 2010 by wrrn
Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction - NYTimes.com
human  psychology  society  culture  from instapaper
december 2010 by wrrn
Decade of distraction: While we play with our iPhones and waste time on Facebook, things go to pot
human  psychology  society  culture  philosophy  from instapaper
december 2010 by wrrn
Cross-check: Scientific regress: When science goes backward
I don't mean what the philosopher Imre Lakatos referred to as a "degenerating research program," which produces diminishing returns. That's merely declining progress. I mean fields of research that actually go backward, as measured by some specific benchmark.
science  society  research  knowledge 
november 2010 by wrrn
Open government and "next generation democracy" - O'Reilly Radar
The use of technology to connect government with the governed is not a new idea. The printing press was the Internet of the 17th and 18th centuries; news and opinion was circulated by a myriad homegrown newspapers eagerly read and discussed in coffeehouses and cafes. Benjamin Franklin pioneered the idea of "publick printer" in Pennsylvania and other colonies before the American Revolution
government  web2.0  social-software  society  EaaS  api  collaboration  distributed  information-society 
november 2010 by wrrn
A radical pessimist's guide to the next 10 years - The Globe and Mail
You'll spend a lot of your time feeling like a dog leashed to a pole outside the grocery store – separation anxiety will become your permanent state
ideas  future  culture  society  DouglasCoupland 
october 2010 by wrrn
Comment: Why do so many black boys under-achieve at school? | World news | guardian.co.uk
The real poverty that our children face is a poverty of aspiration - they have linked themselves with the prevailing anti-learning culture of their white working class counterparts. The sin that you commit is to give this "mentality" credence by reducing it solely to white racism
uk  race  culture  society  youth  learning 
october 2010 by wrrn
Adam Elkus: Facebook and the Database Society
If there is a "cybernetic totalism" in Facebook, it lies in our own desire to make our own lives closed, self-regulating systems. The emerging database society reflects individualism, a desire for personal control, and hyper-consumerism. Facebook gives people the ability to categorize, organize, and experience the raw data of their social worlds.
facebook  society  community  cybernetics  control  media  humancomputer  panopticon 
october 2010 by wrrn
New Statesman - 50 People who matter 2010
our annual list of the individuals who have global influence - for good or ill.
media  people  politics  art  technology  information-society  culture  society 
september 2010 by wrrn
10 ways data is changing how we live - Telegraph
The availability of new sets of data has changed the way we live our lives: here are 10 examples of data which have changed everything from how we assess wars to how companies deliver milk.
data  information-society  culture  society  human 
august 2010 by wrrn
On Facebook, Google, and Our Evolving Social Mores Online - John Battelle's Searchblog
The problem is, while I agree with the idea of designing around people, the truth is that we haven't quite figured out what this design looks like. It's rather like attempting to design an industrialized city while living in 1200 AD. Not only has the technology not evolved (power grids, modern plumbing, automobiles, communications networks etc.), but equally importantly, the social mores have not developed as well.
facebook  social-software  society  human  relationships  culture  panopticon 
august 2010 by wrrn
Paradox or Paradise: Music Choice in the Digital Age - MTT - Music Think Tank
So far, we have only investigated choice overload in culture through the narrow lens of a record store and have yet to explore the digital sphere.  While there are many reasons to believe that the web has created a “paradise of music” for fans, as we’ll soon see, that may not necessarily be the case.
music  culture  psychology  creativity  society  connectionmachine 
july 2010 by wrrn
Everything you need to know about the internet | Technology | The Observer
The internet has quietly infiltrated our lives, and yet we seem to be remarkably unreflective about it. That's not because we're short of information about the network; on the contrary, we're awash with the stuff. It's just that we don't know what it all means. We're in the state once described by that great scholar of cyberspace, Manuel Castells, as "informed bewilderment".
internet  technology  media  tools  culture  society  knowledge 
june 2010 by wrrn
Blackdown: Pitchfork June: Kode9
“There are so many mini micro sub-niche parts of what used to be <insert thing here>, and it feels like everything is in transition. And to be honest, it feels like it's a holding pattern before something else comes.”
music  culture  society  creativity  interview  labels  artists  Kode9  hyperdub 
june 2010 by wrrn
Moneyless man reveals how to live a cashless life without starving | Mark Boyle | Environment | guardian.co.uk
When I began living without money 18 months ago, the most common question people asked me was "How on earth are you going to eat?". An understandable remark, but an insight into the burgeoning degrees of separation between the stomach and the soil.
money  society  food  manufacturing  markets  vegan 
june 2010 by wrrn
n+1: Dating
Dating presents itself as an education in human relationships. In fact it’s an anti-education. You could invent no worse preparation for love, for marriage, than the tireless pursuit of the perfect partner. Keep Looking, says dating. You’re Not Done Yet. What About That One? And That One? Dating, like the tyrant, seeks perfection
human  relationships  society  culture 
may 2010 by wrrn
Children in care: Where the she-louts rule | Society | The Guardian
On a material level, they are well looked after, but in terms of giving them guidance and inculcating them with values and life-skills, I saw very little of that in care homes I worked in. I now work in supported housing, and what inspired me to write was how the state disempowers young people.
UK  society  class  NGO  social 
april 2010 by wrrn
New drug set to replace banned mephedrone as a 'legal high' | Society | The Observer
Analysts at the Psychonaut Research Project, an EU-funded organisation based at King's College London, which monitors the internet for new trends in drug abuse, said it had identified the substance as the likeliest contender to replace the former "legal high".
mephedrone  drugs  UK  policy  politics  society 
april 2010 by wrrn
Facebook, Happiness & The User Data Black Market
"The results were clear," the company said. "The more people use Facebook, the better they feel. They have higher levels of both kinds of social capital, and feel less lonely...Regardless of how much time people in the study spent on Facebook, how many friends they had, and how many News Feed stories they read, those directly interacting with their friends scored higher levels of well-being."
facebook  human  happiness  society  social-software  panopticon 
april 2010 by wrrn
Global Guerrillas: THE SIMPLIFICATION OF COMPLEX SOCIETIES
ocieties solve challenges by creating new rules and processes (new complexity) that are then added on to the existing system ad infinitum. More successful outcomes = more complexity.

However, as noted above, problem solving comes at a cost. Each solution leaves a residue, a layer of complexity that never goes away (laws, taxes, monopolies, treaties, etc.).
complexity  society  politics  evolution  social 
april 2010 by wrrn
Global Guerrillas: JOURNAL: Resilient Communities and Darknets Featured in Time Magazine
This transformation will be not so much political as antipolitical. The decision to turn away from broken and brittle institutions, like conventional schools and conventional jobs, will represent a turn toward what military theorist John Robb calls "resilient communities," which aspire to self-sufficiency and independence
4thGenWar  resilient-community  distributed  society 
march 2010 by wrrn
Monitor: The net generation, unplugged | The Economist
Michael Wesch, who pioneered the use of new media in his cultural anthropology classes at Kansas State University, is also sceptical, saying that many of his incoming students have only a superficial familiarity with the digital tools that they use regularly, especially when it comes to the tools’ social and political potential. Only a small fraction of students may count as true digital natives, in other words.
learning  GenerationY  future  education  society 
march 2010 by wrrn
The School of Life : Alain de Botton on Distraction
The need to diet, which we know so well in relation to food, and which runs so contrary to our natural impulse, is something we now have to relearn in relation to knowledge, people and ideas. We require periods of fast in the life of our minds no less than in that of our bodies.
philosophy  human  society  beinghuman  ideas 
march 2010 by wrrn
The afflictions of liberty | Tristram Riley-Smith | Comment is free | The Guardian
If America could adjust its frame of reference by tempering its brand of liberty, it might come closer to the vision of the Founding Fathers. Given the temper of the times and the mindset of so many American voters, however, this would be a brave change, indeed. But I suspect Barack Obama understands why it matters. And this might explain why the key omission from this year's address was any extensive reference to the great American fetish – freedom.
politics  philosophy  equality  freedom  justice  liberalism  obama  US  society 
february 2010 by wrrn
This vetting system is unfit for purpose | Tim Gill | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
Common sense tells us that the ideal of a zero-risk childhood is untenable, if not impossible. Of course, children have a just claim for a degree of protection from harm. But when it comes to protecting them, our responsibility should surely be to tackle the most serious threats first and foremost.
society  government  UK  civil-liberties  VettingSystem 
february 2010 by wrrn
The Man Who Looked Into Facebook's Soul
If what people call Web 2.0 was all about creating new technologies that made it easy for everyday people to publish their thoughts, social connections and activities, then the next stage of innovation online may be services like recommendations, self and group awareness, and other features made possible by software developers building on top of the huge mass of data that Web 2.0 made public. It's a very exciting future, and Warden is about to fire one of the earliest big shots in that direction.
facebook  social-software  sociology  data  information-society  connectionmachine  society  data-mining  SentimentAnalysis 
february 2010 by wrrn
Global Guerrillas: THE EVOLUTION OF CIVILIZATIONS
Carroll Quigley's (a legendary professor at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service) 1961 book, "The Evolution of Civilizations." It is a hidden gem of a history book, chock full of useful models he derives through the application of the scientific method and aggressive analysis/synthesis
history  evolution  war  4thGenWar  future  society 
february 2010 by wrrn
Flavorwire » Review: You Are Not a Gadget by Jaron Lanier
we’ve slipped into a vortex of retro-crunching mashups without creating anything new; we’ve allowed the principle of anonymity to foster a vicious, troll-filled commons; and we’ve elevated the cloud or hive mind above the spirit, intelligence, and idiosyncrasy of the individual.
humancomputer  society  culture  technology  book  Lanier 
january 2010 by wrrn
Voyager Golden Record - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is a present from a small, distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours.
music  human  space  culture  society  sound  history  nasa  media  language 
january 2010 by wrrn
Digital World Explorer - Q & A - GOOD
We've been studying 4chan and Anonymous, which are sort of the dark holes of the internet. But they also have bright spots. These happen to be places where methods of maintaining anonymity are constantly being practiced and updated.
culture  internet  ethnography  identity  society 
december 2009 by wrrn
Meme Content Breakdown: “The Evolution of the Hipster.”
Feel like this represents a human who ‘lives on the internet.’ Consumes memes, viral vids, and even shops at exclusive online boutiques, or possibly large scale retailers that sell zany tshirts with memes on them designed by common ppl. Feel like I prefer the consumer female alts the most, instead of these ‘comfy, free-spirited’ bitches.
meme  hipsters  culture  society 
december 2009 by wrrn
Liss Living in Surveillance Societies :: Latest News
European research programme designed to increase and deepen knowledge about living and working in the surveillance age, in order to better understand the consequences and impacts of enhanced surveillance, and subsequently to make recommendations about its future governance and practice.
surveillance  society  research  EU  panopticon 
december 2009 by wrrn
The School of Life : On Adultery
‘Why is what was called cuckoldry in the seventeenth century called adultery in the nineteenth?’ His answer was inheritance law. Once, first-born sons got it all, then the law changed, giving every child a portion of the estate. So husbands who once worried only about the paternity of their heir grew to fear every cuckoo in the nest. And society grew fiercer about female infidelity, while in men a mistress remained a badge of success
human  relationships  society  culture  feminism 
november 2009 by wrrn
Technology Review: Blogs: arXiv blog: The Curious Threshold For Creativity
And yet creativity has its downsides too, say Stefan Leijnen and Liane Gabora at the University of British Columbia in Canada. Creative solutions can only spread if they are adopted by other individuals. These imitators play an important role in society. They act as a kind of memory, storing the results of successful creative strategies for future generations. But the time that individuals spend creating means less time imitating. Clearly we cannot all be creators all the time but neither can we all be imitators.
networks  creativity  meme  society 
november 2009 by wrrn
Quitting the Paint Factory by Mark Slouka « adamantine
You must hand over the rainy afternoons, the light on the grass, the moments of play and of simply being. You must give it up, all of it, and by your example teach your children to do the same, and then – because even this is not enough – you must train yourself to believe that this outsourcing of your life is both natural and good.
culture  society  politics  power  human  time  beinghuman 
october 2009 by wrrn
Apartheid replaced with apathy - Mail & Guardian Online: The smart news source
She was spitting with fury already, but my next question tipped her over the edge: "Who is 'they'?" She did not answer. She walked away from me with a dismissive angry gesture. The crowd looked away.
southafrica  crime  race  poverty  society  equality/difference 
october 2009 by wrrn
Democracy and the individual | open Democracy News Analysis
My interest in pluralism, for the individual or the group, is that it provides an encounter with ‘the other’ which, while it may confirm one’s original position, will add something to the sense of the context one is in and may help us better to understand a different perspective. It may also change our minds, allow us to negotiate an enhanced way of living side by side, or lead to an entirely new, shared way of looking at the issue in contention.
individuality  plurality  society  collective  politics 
september 2009 by wrrn
Dissident Voice : Drugs and Social Progress Since the Greeks
Hillman shows that Classical writers were well aware of the risks posed by psychoactive stuff; they warned against the power it had to distort personality and breed contempt for traditional lines of authority, particularly, as I’ve noted, in that hidebound patriarchy from which our own descends, in the hands of women.
culture  society  history  drugs  religion  censorship 
september 2009 by wrrn
Ten Rules for 5G Warfare - Umair Haque - HarvardBusiness.org
Welcome to 5G warfare. There's a war going on in America today: an information war, being waged digitally. It's not physically violent — but it's culturally, socially, and economically violent. And its ultimate goal is that of any war: political defeat.

4G war was network against state. Think Al-Qaeda vs America. 5G war is network against network, market against market, community against community
4thGenWar  information-society  net-war  networks  war  society 
september 2009 by wrrn
Drilling compliance into children | Henry Porter | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
the state has a policy of grooming our children for an age of conformity and unquestioning obedience, where some avuncular authority that springs from an indeterminate alliance of police, Home Office and control-freak schoolteachers plays more part in the upbringing of children than parents do.
UK  politics  police  surveillance  society 
september 2009 by wrrn
The evolution of the modern blockbuster movie
Matt Zoller Seitz and Aaron Aradillas recently completed a five-part video series on the evolution of the summer blockbuster movie focused on the summers of 1984 and 1989.
culture  history  film  media  society 
september 2009 by wrrn
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