Tuesday, October 13, 2020

Episode 161: WTN Aphoristic Dissonance

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We all use language to codify and structure the reality around us. We have to be careful, though, not to hide within unexamined aphorisms internal impossibilities that mask from us what is really going on. Hence, Episode 161: Aphoristic Dissonance.

In this episode, I read from: Wendy Brown's book appropriately named Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism's Stealth Revolution; my computer's quickie dictionary; and from Anand Giridharadas' book Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World. There's a lot more good stuff in this book, which I'll give you in dollops in future episodes.

I play: President Barack Obama proving that he isn't liberal by quoting a bit of his 2013 State of the Union Address; and Travis Kalanick dismissing with extreme prejudice his own complicity in bankrupting others.

Musically, I play: two from Visciera——first "Grinder", and then "Coming Back"; KMFDM opens with Socialist Mayor of Burlington, Vermont Bernie Sanders pointing out the silly of television; and I close with Julie and Rolf and the Campfire Gang doing "Over the Rainbow".

4 comments:

  1. Good episode of Useful Idiots. Gets into Cambridge Analytics and how ineffective Facebook really is at targeting and what they can really do. https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdst.fm/e/traffic.megaphone.fm/STONE6406758601.mp3

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    1. Hey, FF,

      Any chance you could give me the guest of the episode, so I can search it directly from the source page? I can't download from the link, only listen.

      (One day I really must do a show about how out-of-date my hardware is and will continue to be.)

      —Jim

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  2. ^ This is the original. Guest is Antonio García Martínez, who wrote a book "Chaos Monkeys" about his time working for the various Great Satans of Silicon Valley.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dct3tHbJb-s

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    1. Thanks, Kevin! Recording now for future listening.

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