Anews Podcast 160 – 4.10.20

Anews Podcast 160 – 4.10.20

From Anews Podcast

Welcome to the anews podcast. This podcast is on anarchist activity, ideas, and conversations from the previous week on anarchistnews.org.

What’s New was written and read by Chisel and Greg

Thanks to Ariel and Mike for the topic of the week conversation on connections IRL and online and otherwise.

Music:
1. WaVVes – So Bored
2. Kraftwerk – Computer love

There are 10 Comments

this week, and by "good" i mean that i want to interrupt them and engage with them in the conversation, lol.
there are so many things to take into account in this topic, the main one that i think the two didn't address is the issue of age -- mike talks about people who call themselves friends before they even meet in meat space. teenagers/youth have always made connections to people based on criteria that then changes as they age, and sometimes those connections last, and sometimes they don't. that said, it's undeniable that something is different now, with relationships that happen more out of meat space than in (at least for significant portions).
this conversation was a good beginning, and there's no way that any of us know what is actually getting created right now, but i really want a 201 conversation in which people/anarchists can name the various components of the topic and move from there. unfortunately it's hard to get that from either boomers or young'uns, or maybe it's just hard in a 20-minute segment. anyway, if anyone's heard a conversation like that, link here please! :)

The best podcast, the only podcast!

And with a TOTW discussion this time, what a treat, nice!

I like the nuance in the convo and cannot fault it for not containing what was outside of its scope.

When discussing the internet, usually it’s from a user and and application perspective and the pros and cons are examined in terms of that.
The worlds that cease to exist and that are no longer possible are not considered. Opportunity cost of time spent has raised across the board because of the internet, but the opportunity cost of the internet itself and of our whole current civilization is not calculable. Such a phrasing is practically nonsensical. We don’t retroactively have a choice in changing the origins of a path dependent macro trend. We can make value judgements and say how do we like it or not.
Is there an inverse relationship between the amount of internet connected devices and biodiversity?
In the same way a meat eater finds it acceptable to farm animals to eat them, an internet user finds all the other death and suffering that enables it to function. For those against work, can internet and computers exist without work, without mining or the garbage collection and processing that’s part of the life cycle of those mass produced products. “Turn off your TV!” lasted very shortly as a slogan, anyone telling people to logoff is laughable nowadays, seen as too much too ask and unreasonable. Few jobs would require you to watch TV but now nearly all jobs require you to have internet. In many ways internet is the apotheosis of civ.
I could say more nonsense but i got tired for now.

Wow, chorus singing KT...well well, I certainly enjoy it more in that format...

"The best podcast, the only podcast!"

chisel and the dude always try to jam as much information as possible into these shows by talking really fast, and the subject matter is often people who they obviously have contempt for. And of course they make a big deal of trying to thematically/aesthetically resemble mainstream news.

i want to listen to the mainstream news in which the reporters chant their scripts together, you obviously have a special "in" somewhere, that we should all know about.
and yea, this episode seemed crankier than usual, but not every episodeis like that. maybe the contempt is in your ears?

and 11:45, high quality nonsense is the best kind!

so, since you overall seem to be so bothered by what i said that you are bringing in extra elements that are overall not seemingly relevant to my critique of the show, let me be a little more painstakingly specific:

Chisel:

"in general, i've really enjoyed reed's pieces
what i've read of him has been personal and analytical in a mix
and from a perspective that really works for me,
but this piece departs from that analysis..."

so what i like about how she starts is that she's doing this from a personal vantage point about how she feels about an essay on god's and radicals, kinda like the critique of mine you blew out of proportion. What i don't like is she isn't really saying a whole lot of specifics about the essay overall, and at one point she highlights the author's knee jerk reaction to egoists, and before that jumps around a little bit without giving me much of a clear picture of what she doesn't like about gods and radicals (the website). I would think on a news program especially there would be a better/clearer narrative about what they are informing us about.

I'm also really sick of even engaging with anarchists who unfairly judge egoists, and i don't really want this site to just be an echo-chamber of post-left thoughts, which unfortunately it has become in part because modern anarchists often seem to be these left-wing demagogues.

There's better stuff out there than JZ and the sensationalist/moralist styles of God's and Radicals, i don't like reference materials, anything that can be explained can just be said. I don't like the fact that Bellamy gets labeled a scumbag for collaborating with someone who veers to the right. I don't like it how anarchists take controlling thought expression so seriously. How can you have fun thought experiments if you fucking think like that?

"What i don't like is she isn't really saying a whole lot of specifics about the essay overall,"

Maybe because the essay referred to is on this site, and if you have interest YOU can go read it for yourself. Maybe the point of the show is to encourage you, dear listener, to go read the article. Maybe, who knows?

standard advice. So is it in your eyes wrong when i say the show could be even better?

all the hassle over a critique of someone who said that this was the best podcast. I doubt that person has listened to every podcast.

So sensitive?

I did find Emma Goldman's Living My Life on the library's shelves in Columbus, OH. It was the 90s, but I remember the book (I only found the first volume) looking as if it had been around for at least a decade. But her beautiful idea had less of an initial impact on me than the half-baked, poorly written zines I got when I finally found some others.

I just love the way he takes mainstream 'news' and regurgitates it. Jeez. Oh man. It literally is the same show every week. And his emphasising the lack of calls for a recorded show; John you used to bate people to phone because nobody called in for weeks at a time. Then if someone did call, he would cut the call short because he was desperate to back on his schedule of mainstream 'news' rehashing. Jeez.

the vast majority of anarchist media, and i only am that generous to other anarchist media because i can't even think of anything that i would say is superior.

However, the things i need in life and intellectual stimulation still seem to not be located here...the people who run the site don't have any responsibility to give me that but i guess i get a little angry when i see that some things could be better yet they aren't.

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