Nothing was your own Always the eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, working or eating, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or in bed—no escape. Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull. George Orwell, 1984 surveillanceownership
Behold! I have an opinion. An EXCLUSIVE opinion. An Article by Heather Burns webdevlaw.uk Part of the joy of working in digital policy in the UK is that many of your days start like this: I, a Tory politician, have a brilliant plan / erudite commentary / a policy announcement on tech policy strategy. Click here to read it in this EXCLUSIVE Elite Broadsheet Newspaper piece. We all know full well that this is how the game of politics works. These brilliant plans, erudite commentaries, and policy announcements aren’t made for you plebs. They’re made for the machine to feed the beast inside it. politicssurveillance
Makers and Making An Article by Alan Jacobs blog.ayjay.org The [Silmarils] are good; their making was at least potentially innocent; but afterward arose a lust for owning and controlling that led to great tragedy… The aspect of humanity which the elves represent most fully – both for good and ill – is the creative one.” And this is why “making” in and of itself is not the answer to our decadent moment. “Love of things, especially artificial things, could be seen as the besetting sin of modern civilisation, and in a way a new one, not quite Avarice and not quite Pride, but somehow attached to both” – and this is the Fëanor Temptation. It is in light of this temptation that I advocate repair, which is a mode of caring for what we have not made, but rather what we have inherited. We will not be saved by the making of artifacts — or from the repair of them, either; but the imperative of repair has these salutary effects: it reminds us of our debt to those who came before us and of the fragility of human constructs. The SilmarillionRethinking Repair repairmakingcreativityhumanity