Jaron Lanier on Edge.org, “DIGITAL MAOISM: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism”:

In other words, clever individuals, the heroes of the marketplace, ask the questions which are answered by collective behavior. They put the jellybeans in the jar.

I had strong disagreements with this piece until this part – he spends much of it downplaying the power of crowds and algorithms, but I think at this moment, he moves from criticism to nuance, and gives the whole piece a lot more power. Long, but very fascinating.

dana boyd in Apophenia, “where ‘nothing to hide’ fails as logic”:

Sadly, I’m getting to experience this right now as Massachusetts refuses to believe that I moved to New York mid-last-year. It’s mindblowing how hard it is to summon up the paperwork that “proves” to them that I”m telling the truth. When it was discovered that Verizon (and presumably other carriers) was giving metadata to government officials, my first thought was: wouldn’t it be nice if the government would use that metadata to actually confirm that I was in NYC not Massachusetts. But that’s the funny thing about how data is used by our current government. It’s used to create suspicion, not to confirm innocence.

The “nothing to hide” argument is fairly pervasive in response to the type of NSA surveillance that was recently revealed. There are really two decent arguments against it:

1. Anyone can go from being boring “regular Joe” to activist if they’re spurred on by outside events to become more political, and when that happens, suddenly the amount of surveillance done can be far more sinister and destructive to achieving any kind of political changes.

   This argument is often unconvincing, mostly because this can still be dismissed as “well, I’ll never get political, no matter what happens”[1. Which, quite frankly, is a little sad, but still persuasive to some people.].

2. Even law-abiding citizens can have their data constructed in such a way as to make them appear guilty.

This is the method that should scare people, and Dana’s example of the tax audit should remind you that even if you’re not cheating on your taxes, the process of appearing 100% legit can still be taxing (pun intended).

Eric Linton in the IBTimes, “House Passes Ban On Abortion After 20 Weeks”:

The Republican-controlled House passed legislation Tuesday that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, offering social conservatives a symbolic gift even as the bill has zero chance of becoming law.

It’s so great the Republicans have nothing better to do than work on laws that have no chance of becoming law. You know they’ve passed Obamacare repeal 37 TIMES?! It’s not like we have real problems to solve or anything…

Nathan Jurgenson in Cyborgology, “Silicon Valley’s Anti-Capitalism-Capitalism”:

This may be an example of a larger trend towards a capitalism that doesn’t exist in spite of, doesn’t merely appropriate, but exists and even thrives precisely because of its anti-capitalist base. This isn’t exactly like how, say, punk so quickly got sold back to us by capitalists, or how capitalists have slapped Che’s face on t-shirts sold at Urban Outfitters, but instead a type of capitalism that is predicated, knowingly or unknowingly, on the idea of anti-capitalism. It’s not a capitalist logic that can co-opt anti-capitalism, but capitalism where anti-capitalism is an inherent part of its logic. Said differently, Silicon Valley’s habit of acting outside or above capitalism as an essential part of their business model is the essence of anti-capitalism-capitalism.

Another interesting response to that Sam Biddle piece I previously engaged with here. Nathan takes a look at it from a different angle, focusing on how Silicon Valley’s ethos fits into the larger economic structure of capitalism.

Kentaro Toyama in The Atlantic, “Dear Silicon Valley: Meritocracy Is an Ideology Too”:

That’s because the central political value that animates Silicon Valley is neither libertarianism nor progressivism. It’s meritocracy. Meritocracy can appear to be socially liberal, because it doesn’t discriminate on the basis of race, religion, politics, socio-economic background, sexual orientation, or nation of origin. And, meritocracy can look libertarian because it abhors anything – be it government, social convention, or four years of college – obstructing talent’s rise to the top. And where do these forces intersect? In immigration reform, where the meritocratic impulse is to crush both nationalist and unionist opposition to importing high-end skill.

But while meritocracy is a vast improvement over discrimination by traditional prejudices, it still privileges some people over others. And in Silicon Valley, privilege is heaped upon individualistic entrepreneurial capacity.

A good quick overview of the ideology of meritocracy and why it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

Nicholas Lemann in The New Republic, “How Michelle Rhee Misled Education Reform”:

Rhee actually does know what life is like in a public school, but she either openly or implicitly removes from the discussion of improving schools any issue that cannot be addressed by twisting the dial of educational labor-management relations in the direction of management. She gives us little or no discussion of pedagogical technique, a hot research topic these days, or of curriculum, another hot topic owing to the advent of the Common Core standards, or of funding levels, or class size, or teacher training, or surrounding schools with social services (which is the secret sauce of Geoffrey Canada’s Harlem Children’s Zone), or of the burden placed on the system by the expensive growth of special-education programs.

This is probably the most telling part about the focus of Rhee (and edreform in general). They don’t get into the intricacies of how teaching actually works, instead trying to make schools better through broad strokes and sheer force of will.

Barton Gellman and Laura Poitras in the Washington Post, “U.S. intelligence mining data from nine U.S. Internet companies in broad secret program”:

The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to track a person’s movements and contacts over time.

The highly classified program, code-named PRISM, has not been disclosed publicly before. Its establishment in 2007 and six years of exponential growth took place beneath the surface of a roiling debate over the boundaries of surveillance and privacy. Even late last year, when critics of the foreign intelligence statute argued for changes, the only members of Congress who know about PRISM were bound by oaths of office to hold their tongues.

This is insane.