Episode 1260
The abortion struggle in Poland / Zofia Malisz
Nov 12 2020
I think if we accept that we are in the Anthropocene, and the Anthropocene, it is our product, not the product of a few companies, not the product of the tech titans, but part of the evolution of our collective intelligence. We shouldn't have anxiety. We should embrace it, as I say in the book, and use it for the common good. We need a positive action instead of being the recipient of whatever these tech titans are sending us instead of being the resource that they use in order to send their product and marketing the product more and more, we should take over. We should take over and we can do it, but in order to do it, we need to accept the first step.
Loretta Napoleoni returns to discuss her new book, Technocapitalism: The Rise of the New Robber Barons and the Fight for the Common Good. "Rotten History" follows the interview.
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Michelle Buckley
Apr 17
India-Israel Worker Deal Looks like Indentured Servitude / Michelle Buckley & Paula Chakravartty
Keri Leigh Merritt
Apr 16
The US South's Elites Have Kept the Region Poor and Underdeveloped / Keri Leigh Merritt
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Oct 29 2020
Posted by Alexander Jerri
Welcome to the Moment of Truth: the thirst that is the drink.
I avoid advertisements as much as possible. I’ve avoided them like the plague, which has been good practice for the plague. I’ve missed all the commercials my friends are in because of that avoidance. When I listen to podcasts I scrub past pitches for absolutely anything. But Hulu makes you sit through the ads. I mute them, but sometimes I’m not quick enough. Thus, many’s the time I’ve heard, “At so-and-so, we believe—” Every company pulls this crap at some point, no matter how non-sensical it is. “At White Claw, we believe –” there is no “at.” You’re a beverage. And you don’t believe in anything but making money. “At Clear Blue, we believe –” What do mean, “at Clear Blue?” You’re a stick women pee on to see if they’re pregnant! You’re not a place. There’s no brick-and-mortar house of pee sticks. And what can you possibly believe? “At pee stick we believe in the pH level of urine.” You believe in selling pee sticks. You don’t have any other beliefs, because you aren’t human, regardless of what the Supreme Court has said in the past. You are an agreement to peddle pee-activated color-changing material housed in plastic for the profit of your owners and part-owners. You are a legal construction designed to be a financial instrument. That’s all you’ll ever be. Give up your stupid dreams of being a real boy, Pinocchio, it’s not going to happen.
I’ve gone off before about advertising. Commercial advertising. How it’s a waste of education dollars. Because that’s what it is, bad, poisonous education. A commercial is a 15 to 60 second lesson on acquisitiveness and shallow values. It’s school for consumers, and most of it is either outright lies, id-tapping fantasies, or dramas meant to communicate insecurity. Sometimes I’ll catch a radio ad out of the corner of my ear, and something they say, some made-up statistic, reassures me about the future, then suddenly I’ll realize what’s happened, what I’ve bought into, and out of shame at being such a gullible sucker I want to stab myself in the brain.
The amount of money spent on advertising is hard to get a grip on. There are figures that represent ad purchases, but the limits of an... read more