Just a note for the reader: Think about how this article/blog is presented: Frame work, a number of historically ordered examples from the US, then a present example (conflict with Iran).
1. The framework presents an organizing structure or principle.
2. The historical examples provide evidence of (1).
3. The current conflict is supposed to be seen as analogous to (2) and thus be another example of (1).
Questions or concerns we might have:
i. Are there other organizing or interpretive frameworks missing that could have been mentioned in (1)? It seems plausible there could be.
ii. Why does the analysis of some of the historical examples omit key details about just how the example fits the framework? For instance, the first example for bacon says: "Steps 1-3, clean execution. Today, 70% of bacon consumed in the United States is eaten at breakfast. The “traditional American breakfast” was invented by one man in a PR office." No articulation of steps 4 and 5, so is there reason to double this is necessarily an example of (1).
iii. What work does providing a list of historical examples to? Plausibly, the reader thinks the framework in (1) is manipulative in some manner and thus wrong to implement. So, by providing a historical examples from past to present, from consumer choices to wars, readers are presented with an amplification of emotional stakes and moral wrongness: stakes and wrongness increase from bad (breakfast choice manipulation) to worse (support for wars, killings). Moreover, the current conflict (3) presented last in the list of historical examples arguably connotes as a kind of historical inevitability (one that albeit shouldn't be one), which brings the emotional resonance and sense of wrong to crescendo.
What I've written here doesn't allow us to conclude the author is wrong. What I take it to do is give us pause to think about why it might have seemed plausible, why it might have resonated with the reader, and to ask whether its structure and mode of presentation (content selection) are doing more evidentiary work than it first appears.
> So I feel pretty confident in stating that it's either gonna be ads or payments.
I'm assuming you mean exclusive disjunction here, but in reality it's something closer to a conjunction, if not occasionally an inclusive disjunction. So many subscription services also have ads and if they don't, they eventually do.
The problem isn't that people want things for free; hell, we all pay for access to the internet already. The problem is a shit-ton of monied interests want to squeeze every possible dollar from people always. So we're slammed with ads and our behavior is manipulated and tracked and monetized and sold.
This was not how things were on the internet or the web in mid 90s. It was not the ethos then, but it became the ethos when monied interests took over.
While I agree somewhat with the descriptive aspect of your comment I think you assume a view of humans that is too atomic or individualistic as agenents. No doubt "these people" have "made" consuming a large part of their identity, but this is only half the story.
The reality in which many in the US and maybe the West generally (perhaps elsewhere too) is one in which one's life as an agent is constrained within the bounds of being a consumer. What I mean is people are habituated into expressing their agency as a consumer: Someone or thing offers you something, you "decide" to accept it or reject it. If you don't like what's being offered, you leverage your ability to consume as the means by which you exert power over the producer, i.e., "Make me an offer I like or I'll consumer elsewhere (if I can)".
So, of course people's identities are consumption centered. This is because is what reality is for peoples' everyday life, consumption choices. So people express who they are through the available consumption choices. Think about how people are marketed to, at least in the US. People are slammed with "Your choice" and "have it your way" and "be you" in advertising as if consuming a product is an expression of their respective identities.
Anyway, this is all just to say: The structure of society and the discourse that supports it plays a big role in constraining and guiding how people think and what choices people can even imagine are open to them when making decisions. So not all the responsibility or blame should be focused on individuals, but on large social structures, practices, and discourses.
Additionally to what others have said LineageOS (Android open source OS) allows you to selectively turn on/off carrier modem and radio in quick settings just like you do for wifi, bluetooth, gps etc. You can use airplane mode which will by default turn off the carrier radio and wifi, of your can manually do this selectively.
Sorry. Right now we're working on developing the lost fear of fascism and radical Protestant Nationalism (N.A.R., Seven Mountains Mandate, 'dominionism', etc). We'll work on the blood thing later.
Not a terribly substantive comment (apologies) but in place of the clunky appellation "Former Prince Andrew" I suggest "Nonce Andrew" used in its place here on out to improve style and clarity.
One strategy that I've found useful for changing my behavior: changing browsers settings to not recommend sites or fill in urls from any source be it history, favorites/bookmarks, search etc. By not having the url auto fill it makes me type urls in manually from memory and this usually involves enough purposeful cognitive effort that I can stop any automatic visiting to sites. I've also uninstalled the browser from my phone (disabled built in browser on lineage and uninstalled firefox). If there is a rare time I really, really need a browser I'll download and install it for a specific task and uninstall it right after.
A related literary work, at least depending on how you think about 'related' with regard to literature/poetry: Waiting for the Barbarians by JM Coetzee.
Not clear how you linked what I said with "corporate drone training" since the thrust of my comment was about what would make good rhetoric for fighting the authoritarianism in the U.S.
> Not all sort of countercurrent has to follow the same academic advice to create harmless, defensive and ultimately forgettable prose.
I'll point out two things: One, there's an inconsistency in your characterization of my comment. First you said it was the language of corporate drone training, now you're saying it's academic speak.
Two, I didn't advocate "defensive" prose. I suggested abandoning language that implicitly frames the the movement again authoritarianism in the U.S. as in a defensive movement and thereby in a weaker position than it actually is. I argued "resist" is an example of this defensive language that should be abandoned. If you're against defensive prose, I'd think you too would be against defensive terms as well.
> We are drowning in sterile PR speech already, sometimes an earnest “fuck the system” resonates better with the intended audience.
Yes, indeed. My whole comment was about having language that is not defensively frame, but that is playing offense. In fact "fuck the system" could be such language. Although to note "the system" is vague and so has risk rhetorically because it easily allows an audience to think what you mean by "the system" is what they, the audience likes by "the system", which leads to the audience you're trying to find common cause with to reject your movement.
To my ear "rise up" and anything with "oppression" also have the negative connotations that aren't particularly useful. Both expressions are old, associated with a generic and unsuccessful leftist movement in the US. Additionally, "oppression" has the same problems as "resist" in that it makes one sound like a victim and a complainer. That's not to say the meaning of "oppression" is bad; roughly: undue or unjust restriction on freedom. In the US it's better to use the language of liberty. So instead of talking about "oppression" one should just articulate threats to liberty and freedom, particular from the government writ large or the Federal government in particular.
A rhetorical point: I think it's best to avoid "resist" language.
1. It's antiquated and arouses imagery and iconography that IMO many have negative associations with. (I'm leaving this a bit vague intentionally.)
2. Framing oneself or a movement as "resisting" is to frame one self or a movement in a weaker, defensive position. It's better to use to language that indicates actions and offense as opposed to defense.
3. Because of 1 this opens up typical lines of attack and characterization that make one's "resistance" an easy rhetorical target. No unforced errors.
I don't have a sense of what would be a better alternative, but probably throwing things against the wall until something sticks/galvanizes people makes more sense. Something like "assert yourself", "push back"/"fight back", "take it to 'em" etc.
"only" is probably too strong here. But certainly UI/UX gets more weight in the decision making. Nevertheless, people often do things simply because other people are doing them (fad, fashion, in-group signalling) so just showing that enough people of the right stripe are doing it is often enough for a switch---I'm setting aside cases of making a switch then switching back.
Yeah similarly we can make a few distinctions here:
1) Intended signal, true
2) Unintended signal, but true
3) Unintended signal, but false
(Sure, 1' intended but false; though not really important here)
When (1) obtains we can describe this situation as one where sender and received coordinate on a message.
When (2) obtains we can say the sender acted in a way that indicative of some fact or other and the received is recognizes this; (2) can obtain when one obtains as a separate signal or when the sender hasn't intended to send a signal.
(3) obtains when the receiver attributes to the sender some expressive behavior or information that is inaccurate, say, because an interpretive schema has characterized the sender and the coding system incorrectly producing an interpretation that is false.
I've been using and loving NewPipe since 2015 or 2016--whenever it first showed up on Fdroid. Really like the ability to play songs from bandcamp too. Although there's one bug in the bandcamp workflow that I wish was fixed: If you search for an artist then tap the artist page in the results this will take you to the albums screen. Click to the album, then if you either use the back arrow or swipe back you're returned to the search results rather than the list of albums on the artist page.
1. The framework presents an organizing structure or principle. 2. The historical examples provide evidence of (1). 3. The current conflict is supposed to be seen as analogous to (2) and thus be another example of (1).
Questions or concerns we might have: i. Are there other organizing or interpretive frameworks missing that could have been mentioned in (1)? It seems plausible there could be.
ii. Why does the analysis of some of the historical examples omit key details about just how the example fits the framework? For instance, the first example for bacon says: "Steps 1-3, clean execution. Today, 70% of bacon consumed in the United States is eaten at breakfast. The “traditional American breakfast” was invented by one man in a PR office." No articulation of steps 4 and 5, so is there reason to double this is necessarily an example of (1).
iii. What work does providing a list of historical examples to? Plausibly, the reader thinks the framework in (1) is manipulative in some manner and thus wrong to implement. So, by providing a historical examples from past to present, from consumer choices to wars, readers are presented with an amplification of emotional stakes and moral wrongness: stakes and wrongness increase from bad (breakfast choice manipulation) to worse (support for wars, killings). Moreover, the current conflict (3) presented last in the list of historical examples arguably connotes as a kind of historical inevitability (one that albeit shouldn't be one), which brings the emotional resonance and sense of wrong to crescendo.
What I've written here doesn't allow us to conclude the author is wrong. What I take it to do is give us pause to think about why it might have seemed plausible, why it might have resonated with the reader, and to ask whether its structure and mode of presentation (content selection) are doing more evidentiary work than it first appears.