A Study In Movement

[tinyowlnonsense]

[astudyinmovement]

Not too shabby San Francisco

[astudyinmovement]

Hamilton time

[thexfiles]

if a marginalized group tells you that a word or phrase is harmful/toxic towards them and they wish you’d stop using it, it’s not an opportunity for you to flex your fucking debate skills

[boneyardchamp]

Your professor will not be happy with you if he says the Stanford Prison Experiment shows human nature and you say it shows the nature of white middle class college-aged boys.

Like he will not be happy at all.

[cannon-fannon]

For real though. That experiment. Scary shit.

[hollowedskin]

This reminds me of a discussion that I read once which said Lord of the Flies would have turned out a hell of a lot differently if it was a private school of young girls (who are expected to be responsible and selfless instead), or a public school where the children weren’t all from an inherently entitled, emotionally stunted social class (studies have shown that people in lower socioeconomic classes show more compassion for others). Or that the same premise with children raised in a different culture than the toxic and opressive British Empire and it’s emphasis on social hierarchy and personal wealth and status. And that what we perceive as the unchangable truth deep inside humanity because of things like Lord of the Flies and the Stanford Prison Experiment, is just the base truths about what happens when you remove any accountabilty controlling one social group with an overwhelming sense of entitlement and an inability to feel compassion.

[lady-feral]

I will always reblog this.

[shinykari]

I just wanna say that the Lord of the Flies was explicitly written about high-class private school boys to make this exact point. Golding wrote Lord of the Flies partially to refute an earlier novel about this same subject: The Coral Island by R.M. Ballantyne. Golding thought it was absolutely absurd that a bunch of privileged little shits would set up some sort of utopia, so his book shows them NOT doing that.

[roscoerackham]

This is also generally true about most psychological experiments.

There’s an experiment called “The Ultimatum Game”. It goes something like this.

Subject A is given an amount of money (Say, $100).

Subject A must offer Subject B some percentage of that money.

If Subject B accepts Subject A’s offer, both get the agreed upon amount of money. If Subject B refuses, no one gets any money.

The most common result was believed to be that people favored 50/50 splits. Anything too low was rejected; people wanted fairness. This was believed to be universal.

And then a researcher went to Peru to do the experiment with members of the indigenous Machiguenga population, and was baffled to find that the results were totally different.

Because, to the Machiguenga, refusing any amount of free money (even an unfair amount) was considered crazy.

So the researcher took his work on the road (to 14 other ‘small scale’ societies and tribes) , and to his shock found the results varied wildly depending on where the test was done. 

In fact, the “universal” result? Was an outlier. 

And that’s the problem. 96% percent of test subjects for psychological research come from 12% of the population. Stuff that we consider to be universal facts of human nature… even things like optical illusions, just… aren’t.

 You can read an article about it here.  But the crux of it is that psychology is plagued with confirmation bias, and people are shaped more by their environment than we realize. 

[madmaudlingoes]

There’s some researchers at UBC in Vancouver who look at this kind of bias, and they use the acronym WEIRD–standing for “Western, educated, industrial, rich, democratic”–to describe how the typical research subject differs from the world on average.

[butyoudontlooklikealibrarian]

This is a really fascinating discussion and frankly something that had not occurred to me before. I do a whole segment in my information studies class on authority, with a focus not just on who has authority but whose voices are missing from the conversation, and I think I need to incorporate this somehow.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Republicans are the primary beneficiaries of gerrymandering

As the Supreme Court makes ready to rule on the blatant gerrymandering in Wisconsin, the AP has conducted a study using “a new statistical method of calculating partisan advantage” to analyze “the outcomes of all 435 U.S. House races and about 4,700 state House and Assembly seats up for election last year” and report “four times as many states with Republican-skewed state House or Assembly districts than Democratic ones.”

Both parties have engaged in gerrymandering, but in many Republican strongholds, the GOP attains majorities and supermajorities despite capturing a minority of the vote, in a way that is unmatched by Democrats in states where they dominate.

As the party pivots away from its post-Romney strategy of finding ways to appeal to Americans from all walks of life, and into an entho-nationalist party that uses white identity politics to secure massive wealth transfers to an aging, tiny block of super-rich financiers, it can only realize electoral power through fraud, because neither of those groups are, on their own, sufficiently large to take and hold political power.

https://boingboing.net/2017/06/26/demographics-vs-democracy.html

[spytap]

Duh.

[profeminist]

“…This is why those pious calls to “respect the law,” always to be heard from prominent citizens each time the ghetto explodes, are so obscene. The law is meant to be my servant and not my master, still less my torturer and my murderer. To respect the law, in the context in which the American Negro finds himself, is simply to surrender his self-respect…"

- James Baldwin in July, 1966

Source

[profeminist]

[profeminist]

Officer who shot Philandro Castile acquitted of manslaughter

Tweet source

[barefoot-hearted]

So, what can people do?*

Healthcare Edition (June 8, 2017):

We had a fun/absurd national moment watching Comey testify today, but now that’s over and as citizens there’s basically nothing we can do to affect the Russia investigation (unless you’re plotting a honeypot mission to Mar-a-Lago in which case: godspeed, heroines). But we CAN do something about (one of) the other terrible thing(s) happening, which is Mitch McConnell wrangling the ACA repeal through the Senate.

Remember when the House passed a monstrosity of a health care bill and we were all sure it was DOA in the Senate? Reports suggest not much has changed in the Senate version of that bill which, even though it doesn’t exist yet (or does and is being kept under wraps), good ol’ Mitch has taken steps to fast-track (skipping committee and going directly on the Senate Calendar for a vote).  Ben Wikler has put out the all-call; if you prefer your action on Twitter, this is the link.

–> We need another sustained public outcry against taking a health care bill to the Senate floor that bears any resemblance at all to the House bill.

HERE’S YOUR TO-DO LIST:

1. Program the Capitol switchboard # into your phone:  [phone]

2. Make as many calls as you possibly can every day. Set a phone reminder.

3. Recruit friends from these states to call. ALL reps need their phone lines tied up, but these reps could be the swing votes.

4. Ask for the Health Legislative Assistant for your senator. Here are their names!  TELL YOUR STORY.  Or your dad/grandma/sister/friend’s story. Healthcare touches us all. It’s their job to listen to this stuff specifically. 

5. Go to your local Congressional office:  demand to be seen, wait there, take photos and videos, post them online. Don’t wait to see the wave of action to be inspired–start the wave yourself. Everybody can be a hero every day in the Age of Trump.

6. Get creative! Get tambourines and a bullhorn. Make loud signs. Bedazzle your jean jacket with “Save the ACA.” Or just pick up the phone. We are all GLOBALLY EXHAUSTED, and it hasn’t even been 5 months. But we have the power to make enough noise to break through the insanity out there [& in our brains] and make sure health policy remains humane, and represents the best of America, not the worst.

*courtesy of Ben Wikler of MoveOn.org

[sashayed]

WHAT A GOOD POST, and what a good thread by Ben Wikler. 

HELLO EVERYONE!!! MY GOD WE’RE SO TIRED, BUT PUTTING IN WORK ACTUALLY HELPS US BE LESS TIRED, OR AT LEAST THE SAME TIRED IN A GOOD WAY. MITCH MCCONNELL STILL WANTS TO FAST-TRACK THE AHCA THROUGH THE SENATE WHICH WILL LITERALLY KILL MILLIONS OF PEOPLE. Inform him, his colleagues and allies that that would be a mistake.

[nevaehtyler]

This is important.

[asgardreid-deactivated20180407]

It’s not a “loophole” it’s explicit within the text of the amendment

[asgardreid-deactivated20180407]

“Loophole” lmfao like it’s a fucking accident, like it wasn’t purposefully structured to reclaim and expand a source of free labor

[stele3]

We never outlawed slavery in America. We simply transferred ownership of slaves from individual landowners to the government and large corporations.

Other fun facts about prison labor corporations:

-Federal and state-run prisons usually pay their slaves minimum wage; some states, however, like Colorado, pay $2/hour.

-Private prisons pay $.17-.50/hour. The highest paying private prison is in Tennessee, which pays $.50/hour for “highly-skilled labor.”

-You think that hasn’t affected wages in the US? You think that hasn’t removed manufacturing jobs from the economy?

-Companies that contract with private prisons for their slave labor include: IBM, Boeing, Motorola, Microsoft, AT&T, Wireless, Texas Instrument, Dell, Compaq, Honeywell, Hewlett-Packard, Nortel, Lucent Technologies, 3Com, Intel, Northern Telecom, TWA, Nordstrom’s, Revlon, Macy’s, Pierre Cardin, Target Stores. Many, many products that say “Made in USA” were made in prison.

-Private prisons often have quotas with the states, wherein the states contractually guarantee that they will provide a certain number of prisoners to fill the beds of a private prison, and if they don’t then they owe the private prison millions of dollars. I’m not making this up. It happened in Colorado after they legalized weed.

-States have a financial incentive to lock up their citizens.

-All of the above corporations have a financial incentive to see citizens get locked up.

-This is why Jeff Sessions is going after weed. The prison industrial complex needs slaves.

-To the shock of absolutely no one, private prisons have even more disparate racial demographics than federal/state prisons.

-Where do you think they send undocumented immigrants who have been rounded up? That’s right, private prisons. That’s why so many of them are in the South. So they take immigrants who are earning some kind of comparable wage and paying income tax to the government, and put them in prison where the wages are absurdly depressed and the prison pays virtually nothing in taxes.

-Oh yeah: private prisons pay virtually nothing in taxes. Because they technically manage real estate (prison as housing), they get all sorts of tax breaks and subsidies.

Tl;dr the prison industrial complex removes jobs from the economy, depresses wages, cheats the tax system, and ENSLAVES PEOPLE, usually people of color.

Sources:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-prison-industry-in-the-united-states-big-business-or-a-new-form-of-slavery/8289

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/09/private-prisons-occupancy-quota-cca-crime

http://mfgtalkradio.com/s7-e15-manufacturing-jobs-lost-prison-slave-labor/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/19/private-prison-quotas_n_3953483.html?1379606057

http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/03/13/289000532/why-for-profit-prisons-house-more-inmates-of-color

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/02/27/immi-f27.html

https://www.finance.senate.gov/ranking-members-news/wyden-introduces-bill-to-stop-private-prisons-from-exploiting-tax-incentives-for-profit

[charactersofcolour]

Pretty much just watch the 13th

[florenceandthepoutine]

And read The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander!

[nobodybetterhavethisoneoriswear]

The subversive meaning behind “job creation”.

[s-leary]

See also today’s Twitter thread from Samuel Sinyangwe about prisoners in Baton Rouge working on the capitol grounds and in the governor’s mansion:

Here’s the nola.com article he references.

[astudyinmovement]

Exceptionally important to know

[astudyinmovement]

Destroying my future obviously

[nativenews]

[quotemadness]

I will love myself despite the ease with which I lean towards the opposite.

Shane Koyczan (via quotemadness)

Needing this today

[some-people-call-it-tragic]

[nitro-nova-deactivated20180206]

Man yells, “Make America Great Again!” Before shooting 6 people dead.

Man wearing, “Make America Great Again” hat murders 2 strangers for no reason.

A Trump supporter murders 2 police officers because they told him he couldn’t wave a Confederate flag at a high school football game.

Two men beat a homeless man with a metal bar and urinate on him screaming, “Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported,” When asked for a comment about the incident Trump defends them saying, “My supporters are very passionate. They love this country and they want this country to be great again.”

Trump supporter attacks a Hispanic man and a Muslim student at a gas station while yelling, “Trump! Trump! Trump!”

Trump supporter stabs a black man unprovoked because he was holding hands with a white woman, tells police they need to release him so he can attend a Trump rally that night.

Trump supporter attacks Muslim woman at airport.

A Trump supporter punches a 70 year old protester in the face.

Trump supporter arrested for brutally beating protester.

3 Trump supporters arrested planning terrorist attack to kill Muslims.

Trump supporter confuses an Indian man for a Muslim at restaurant and says, “Things are different now, I don’t want you sand n*ggers sitting next to me.” Before attacking the man.

“We got a new President you fucking f*ggots.” Men yell as they attack gay man.

Trump supporters track down and brutally beat an artist because she made a painting of Trump with a small penis.

Trump supporter who sucker punched protester: “Next time, we might have to kill them.”

Trump is asked to comment on his supporters brutally beating a black man, he responds with, “Maybe he should have been roughed up,”

“You fucking gorillas and baby monkeys, We voted for Trump. Trump’s building a wall, beaners, and you’ll be going back to where you belong.” Man yells at black elementary school children unprovoked before he swerves his car at them attempting to hit them.

Trump supporters beat black man so badly he’s hospitalized for concussion and call him the n-word.

Trump supporter pepper sprays a 15-year-old girl point-blank in the face after another Trump supporter groped her breasts, shouting “n*gger lover” as she attempted to run away.

Trump supporter walks up to a black man in the middle of a downtown area and says, “Donald Trump will deport you.” Before punching the black man.

“Trump is going to win and if you don’t like it I’m going to beat your ass,” Trump supporter yells at random black woman outside of convenient store.

Man attacks and kicks Muslim airport employee shouting, “Trump is here now, he will get rid of all of you.”

In 8 months Trump supporters attacked protesters at 20 different rallies.

Trump supporter tracks down a local Latino Democratic political candidate and tries to run him and his elderly mother over with a car. (The Latino candidate is also a former marine.)

“This is for Donald Trump!” man yells as he runs up a Latino person and punches them in the head.

Trump supporter goes to Hillary Clinton rally to disrupt the event, ends up punching someone when asked to leave.

Trump supporter punches, chokes and slaps protesters on video during rally.

An angry mob of Trump supporters brutally beat and grab a mans genitals because he held up a, “Republicans Against Trump” sign.

A Trump supporter yells, “Get your black kids out of here. Do you even have a job? Do you know what a job is, n*gger?” Before physically attacking a black man who had come to the hospital to get help for his sick 2 week old daughter.

Local Republican Politician sexually assaults a woman by, “grabbing her pussy.” and then says he is allowed to do it because now that Trump is president he doesn’t have to be politically correct.

Canadian man who was a vocal Trump supporter both online and in person goes into a mosque and murders 6 people.

Trump supporter physically assaults Comedian on stage for making Anti-Trump Joke.

Man yells, “Trump” while beating African immigrant cab driver.

A Trump supporter is arrested for burning a Mosque down.

A Trump supporter sees a car has pro-gay bumper stickers on it and then follows the car, waiting for the 75 year old driver to get out before brutally attacking him while screaming, “My new president says we can kill all you f*ggots now.”

A Trump supporter is arrested after brutally attacking gay men outside a McDonald’s. Witnesses describe the aftermath as, “There was blood everywhere.”

A Muslim refugee gay rights activist is kidnapped and raped by two men in retaliation for, “Trump being mocked.”

A Trump supporter is arrested on terrorism charges for building bombs he was going to use to kill Muslims.

Person spray-paints a transgender veterans car with the word “Trump” then sets it on fire.

A Trump supporter attacks two Muslim women and tries to push over a stroller with a baby in it while screaming, “Get the fuck out of America”

A Trump supporter tells a random Muslim woman he sees on the street, “I’m voting for Trump because he said he would send all of you terrorists out of this country.” Before attacking her.

Man shoots out the windows of two businesses from a car while shouting, “Hail Trump.”

[zennistrad]

“Leftists are violent thugs.”

[treedance]

I Can’t Believe I’m Marching for Facts

Via New York:

Whatever the specific motivations of individual participants, the overall march was undoubtedly a unique event in the history of science and politics. As the Washington Post’s Chris Mooney explains after talking to some science historians, “While scientists and their allies have argued about and even occasionally protested on specific political topics over the years, taking to the streets in a sweeping defense of scientific truth itself and its role in policymaking seems considerably broader and, for the research world, more fundamental.”

Read through for a healthy batch of scientifically clever signs.

[spytap]

The evidence is piling up — Silicon Valley is being destroyed

Recent stories about Juicero and Theranos are embarrassing. But there's something deeper going on here.

When platform monopolies dictate the roll-out of technology, there is less and less innovation, fewer places to invest, less to invent. Eventually, the rhetoric of innovation turns into DISRUPT, a quickly canceled show on MSNBC, and Juicero, a Google-backed punchline.

This moment of stagnating innovation and productivity is happening because Silicon Valley has turned its back on its most important political friend: antitrust. Instead, it’s embraced what it should understand as the enemy of innovation: monopoly.