Re: <nettime> Foundations for "Anthropocene Socialist" Movement

[Oliver Ressler <oliver@ressler.at>]

I think this discussion on the Foundations for "Anthropocene Socialist" Movement and the quality of contributions is really amazing.

I have been involved and followed the climate justice movement for several years and carried out a few artistic works on it. (This cycle of films is the most recent one: http://www.ressler.at/everythings_coming_together/)

For a new project, "Barricading the Ice Sheets", I plan (among others) to convene a meeting of highly informed, internationally respected climate movement protagonists working between art and activism. Five or six artist-activists will be brought together to discuss the movements' methods, purposes, past and future in a small group setting. This group meeting will provide an occasion for collective thinking and unscripted interaction, that will result in a film and public event. The first-hand testimony and informed insights that result should stand in direct contrast to the documentary format whereby one person is interviewed in isolation after another. The format also reflects the ongoing importance of collective deliberation and speech within the movements, which actively contributes to form the yet unknown “coming community” that exceeds the current form of democracy, as we know it.

While I have already several ideas of whom to include from Europe and North America, I am still looking for people from the Global South and/or people from indigenous background who can be regarded of climate movement organizers and are working between art and activism.

Do people on this list have any recommendations for possible participants?

Best, Oliver

Am 31.12.18 um 11:04 schrieb nettime-l-request@mail.kein.org:

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Today's Topics:

   1. Re: Foundations for "Anthropocene Socialist" Movement
      (Morlock Elloi)
   2. Re: Foundations for "Anthropocene Socialist" Movement
      (Patrice Riemens)
   3. Re: Foundations for "Anthropocene Socialist" Movement (tbyfield)
   4. Re: Foundations for "Anthropocene Socialist" Movement
      (Morlock Elloi)
   5. Re: Foundations for "Anthropocene Socialist" Movement
      (Morlock Elloi)
   6. Re: Foundations for "Anthropocene Socialist" Movement
      (Felix Stalder)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2018 09:09:20 -0800
From: Morlock Elloi <morlockelloi@gmail.com>
To: nettime-l@mail.kein.org
Subject: Re: <nettime> Foundations for "Anthropocene Socialist"
	Movement
Message-ID: <5C28FBC0.3050209@gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

The problem is that this doesn't scale. Or at least the scaling model 
has not been discovered. At the same time, the opposition scales pretty 
well.

For this scaling to involve machines (computers, programs, networks and 
such, and I cannot imagine competitive scaling not involving machines - 
anyone?) another problem has to be solved, as the current crop of the 
available computing machinery is heavily biased towards individualistic 
outcomes. The redesign would be a major effort, as it definitely does 
not consist of another 'app'. It involves interventions at the 
infrastructure level, and there are $ trillions already invested in the 
current one, so it's hard.

How do you motivate open door crappers to lay own fiber, grow own 
silicon and use only P2P protocols with source routing? It's hard to 
even imagine this.


On 12/30/18, 04:53, Keith Hart wrote:

When I grew up in Manchester after the war, solidarity was a powerful
weapon against privacy, the cult of being exclusive. We could not close
our house doors since neighbors should be free to come and go as they
please. When the men took their morning crap in the outside loos, they
left the door open to converse across the low backyard walls. After
sanitation was modernized, you could still  accidentally run into a old
lady in the bathroom who couldn't bring herself to close the door. All
bedroom doors were left open. The corner pub was our living room. When
the gas company started work with their machines outside too early, half
a dozen women would assail them on behalf of   "our street". They shut
down the machines.

------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2018 18:45:56 +0100
From: Patrice Riemens <patrice@xs4all.nl>
To: Morlock Elloi <morlockelloi@gmail.com>
Cc: nettime-l@mail.kein.org
Subject: Re: <nettime> Foundations for "Anthropocene Socialist"
	Movement
Message-ID: <e421aab68c417193ebf557f181521b71@xs4all.nl>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed


Gr?zi Mittenand,

"You do one thing" was an admonition I often heard when I lived in 
India. My 'thing' I'd advise you (all?) to 'do' would be : (re)read 
Bolo'bolo! (*) It's of course not _the_ (only) solution, but as a 
'realistoc utopia' it does give a number of possible lines of thought & 
action.

'Gute Rutsch' to All! May 2019 be as enjoyable as it will be 
interesting!
p+7D!

(*) https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/p-m-bolo-bolo



On 2018-12-30 18:09, Morlock Elloi wrote:

The problem is that this doesn't scale. Or at least the scaling model
has not been discovered. At the same time, the opposition scales
pretty well.

For this scaling to involve machines (computers, programs, networks
and such, and I cannot imagine competitive scaling not involving
machines - anyone?) another problem has to be solved, as the current
crop of the available computing machinery is heavily biased towards
individualistic outcomes. The redesign would be a major effort, as it
definitely does not consist of another 'app'. It involves
interventions at the infrastructure level, and there are $ trillions
already invested in the current one, so it's hard.

How do you motivate open door crappers to lay own fiber, grow own
silicon and use only P2P protocols with source routing? It's hard to
even imagine this.


On 12/30/18, 04:53, Keith Hart wrote:

When I grew up in Manchester after the war, solidarity was a powerful
weapon against privacy, the cult of being exclusive. We could not 
close
our house doors since neighbors should be free to come and go as they
please. When the men took their morning crap in the outside loos, they
left the door open to converse across the low backyard walls. After
sanitation was modernized, you could still  accidentally run into a 
old
lady in the bathroom who couldn't bring herself to close the door. All
bedroom doors were left open. The corner pub was our living room. When
the gas company started work with their machines outside too early, 
half
a dozen women would assail them on behalf of   "our street". They shut
down the machines.

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------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2018 13:27:30 -0500
From: tbyfield <tbyfield@panix.com>
To: Nettime <nettime-l@kein.org>
Cc: Morlock Elloi <morlockelloi@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Foundations for "Anthropocene Socialist"
	Movement
Message-ID: <C00C79F0-CCAE-4EE1-9B0A-05D98EBFD649@panix.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed

'Scaling' is a strange idea. It can be used to describe mom-and-pop 
efforts to grow some product line or whatever, but it has a more 
important usage that's much more ideological ? as in VC efforts to 
identify potential unicorns. In that sense, it's invoked as though its 
meaning is self-evident and its force is inevitable, like a sort of 
abstract manifest destiny ? which, of course, is exactly what it is. 
It doesn't have a Wikipedia entry, FWIW, just a disambiguation page that 
points to a bunch of detailed uses. When you unpack it a bit, it amounts 
to something a bit less sexy-sounding, like: 'deliberately designed to 
maximally exploit arbitrary resources as quickly as possible without 
regard for the consequences.' So, on a certain level, it's kissing 
cousins with the idea of conspiracy, mostly distinguished from that by 
its technocratic garb and avoidance of morality. I think that's worth 
noting, because instead of casting scaling as an intrinsic quality of 
some *thing*, the capacity to scale, it shifts our attention to the 
environment in which that scaling is said to take place. So, basically, 
it's the capacity to monopolize.

It's more complicated than that, of course. I've pieced together parts 
of a history of the idea, and it's pretty interesting. If the idea 
sounds heroic and inevitable, that's mostly compensation: it arose from 
conflict and it aims to stave off chaos. It's a very Apollonian idea, 
you could say. That's why it's so bad at beginnings ('deliberately 
designed to') and ends ('without regard for the consequences').

Cheers,
Ted

On 30 Dec 2018, at 12:09, Morlock Elloi wrote:

The problem is that this doesn't scale. Or at least the scaling model 
has not been discovered. At the same time, the opposition scales 
pretty well.

For this scaling to involve machines (computers, programs, networks 
and such, and I cannot imagine competitive scaling not involving 
machines - anyone?) another problem has to be solved, as the current 
crop of the available computing machinery is heavily biased towards 
individualistic outcomes. The redesign would be a major effort, as it 
definitely does not consist of another 'app'. It involves 
interventions at the infrastructure level, and there are $ trillions 
already invested in the current one, so it's hard.

How do you motivate open door crappers to lay own fiber, grow own 
silicon and use only P2P protocols with source routing? It's hard to 
even imagine this.

------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2018 11:42:33 -0800
From: Morlock Elloi <morlockelloi@gmail.com>
Cc: nettime-l@mail.kein.org
Subject: Re: <nettime> Foundations for "Anthropocene Socialist"
	Movement
Message-ID: <5C291FA9.3070504@gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

The issue is not implied morality of scaling, whether it's good or bad 
(and I agree on the current modality of scaling for value extraction by 
few from the many.)

The issue is that the opposition bent on atomizing the society does 
scale, and has no moral issues with it. The concentrated capital 
invested a lot in it, and has laid its hyphae, from server farms via 
enormous infrastructure (of fiber and terminating devices,) directly 
into brains of the rabble, supplanting social impulses with simulacrum, 
cutting lateral ties with others and routing everything through the 
modulating center.

I don't see how isolated colonies (of open door crappers) can prevail or 
even thrive, when faced with the planet-sized fungal organism. They will 
be eaten and digested. Which is exactly what is happening today. If they 
do not scale (and in your words, roughly, become their own enemy) what 
can they do but die? Because you can't take knife to a gun fight. This 
battle is lost. Look around. Knives do not work. There is no better 
knife, which seems to be the sole focus of the so-called 'progressive 
community'. They are like stamp collectors - benign.

Can open door crappers scale and not become their enemy? Is the hatred 
of guns so great that death is better? This is starting to look as a 
psychiatric problem.

m.



On 12/30/18, 10:27, tbyfield wrote:

I think that's worth noting, because instead of casting scaling as an
intrinsic quality of some *thing*, the capacity to scale, it shifts our
attention to the environment in which that scaling is said to take
place. So, basically, it's the capacity to monopolize.

------------------------------

Message: 5
Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2018 12:25:41 -0800
From: Morlock Elloi <morlockelloi@gmail.com>
Cc: nettime-l@mail.kein.org
Subject: Re: <nettime> Foundations for "Anthropocene Socialist"
	Movement
Message-ID: <5C2929C5.6040201@gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

Maybe it's just me, but when I recently re-watched Easy Rider, I kept 
rooting for someone to off the f*cking hippies. The same film now has 
happy ending. It's funny how death as exit strategy lost its appeal.

On 12/30/18, 09:45, Patrice Riemens wrote:

"You do one thing" was an admonition I often heard when I lived in
India. My 'thing' I'd advise you (all?) to 'do' would be : (re)read
Bolo'bolo! (*) It's of course not _the_ (only) solution, but as a
'realistoc utopia' it does give a number of possible lines of thought &
action.

------------------------------

Message: 6
Date: Mon, 31 Dec 2018 11:02:38 +0100
From: Felix Stalder <felix@openflows.com>
To: nettime-l@mail.kein.org
Subject: Re: <nettime> Foundations for "Anthropocene Socialist"
	Movement
Message-ID: <f927a4ff-736c-6d44-b789-807727b7a004@openflows.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"



On 30.12.18 13:53, Keith Hart wrote:

But -- there has to be a but -- I believe that there is one crippling
intellectual impediment above all others that undermines political
initiatives generated in this network. It is the belief that more
solidarity can fix excessive individualism.

When I grew up in Manchester after the war, solidarity was a powerful
weapon against privacy, the cult of being exclusive.

That was, I hope, not my point, and whatever element of collectivity
informs a humane reaction to climate change, will have to look every
different from the collectivity that was produced by the experience of
industrial work. We live in an "information society" hence each element,
including each human being, can be (and often is) defined more
extensively, and more varied ways than in an industrial context.

Hence, while identity politics, in practice, often create dead ends,
producing multually exclusive niches, very well-served by social media
that specialize in niche-marketing, the answer cannot be, in my view, a
return of simple collective. Rather, is has to lie in finding ways of
create resonance across the different niches, to articulate ways to
create an understanding of a shared fate on some levels while continuing
to articulate multiplicity on others.

I also don't want to revive the old individual-vs-society debate that
haunted 20th century sociology, rather I think we have moved beyond this
and can now start from a relatively well-establised ecological
perspective that highlights how agent(s) and environment(s) are
co-producing each other.

But, for now, this all remains too abstract, not tied into a idea of
collective agency. But it is not unthinkeable to combine a socially
liberal idea of the self with a strong collective idea of public
investment into the transformation of the energy sources of society.

This can be done on all levels, local, regional, national. And it
actully happens in bits and pieces in a lot of places and contexts. What
is lacking in the imaginery that ties together differnet elements, that
produces clear flautlines to isolate and combate those who fight this
transformation.

This, I think, is eminently doable, but opens up a new rift. In the same
way that neo-liberalism opened a conflict between economic globalization
and the global justice movement, this could open the rift between
authoritarian geoingeering and democratic green economy. We are not
their yet, not by far.

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