chobeat

joined 6 years ago
 

Last weekend I was at Transmediale in Berlin, a pathetic spectacle of a crumbling media art/media critique/techno-political conference. Nonetheless, one of the talks by Silvio Lorusso was quite good and it was investigating, among other things, the hidden labor within video calls, the affective consequences of having to be on camera within your domestic space and other consequences of "zoom culture".

This made me think that in some political spaces there's a strong sentiment against using webcams, while in others, holding similar values, there's a strong sentiment against keeping the webcam off.

I believe the first position is mainly stemming from the trauma and discomfort of remote work, where the context of the workplace and your employer extraction of labor make some demands around webcams illegitimate, or extractive. This might not apply to the political context, but the trauma or simply the habit of being hostile towards the webcam demands is still there.

Let me summarize briefly the arguments from both sides:

Against webcams:

  • webcams demand you to be presentable and make your space presentable. It's extra labor, especially for women.
  • webcams highlight differences in lifestyle and privilege among the participants
  • webcams have mild to serious impacts on people with different forms of body and gender dysphoria, alienating people even before they join the space. Also, they distract narcissists from the call.
  • for specific activities, visual cues of the reactions of participants might impact the formulation of arguments by specific people, especially if insecure or shy. With the webcam off, you might not be able to read the room but sometimes it's a good thing.

In favor of webcams:

  • they create intimacy and a stronger sense of presence. We can debate if this is a good thing at work overall, but it's obviously a good thing in political spaces. There's no collective action without this. they help you read the room and enrich communication, at least for those who are good at doing it.
  • they help us position and frame the other person. Probably this should be a "neutral" point, because it enables both positive and negative biases. It depends on your beliefs and if you think that "unbiased=good" or "unbiased=bad".

I would like to hear from you how political organizations you've been have handled this discussion, if they did. How you feel about it. Also, I would like to hear if anybody experienced specific practices around turning the webcam on or off for specific activities, which to me seems an under-explored area, both for production purposes or political purposes.

[–] chobeat@lemmy.ml 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

not a single word about crypto is present in the video

[–] chobeat@lemmy.ml 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

are you familiar with left-wing blockchain and that whole strand of research or you just talk because you have no clue about the fact that there's always been plenty of anti-capitalist and post-capitalist in the blockchain scene?

[–] chobeat@lemmy.ml 1 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Have you watched the video or just stopped at the title?

[–] chobeat@lemmy.ml 2 points 7 months ago

There's a lot of lefitsts spaces in the blockchain. While they are minoritarian, they have a distinct political agenda and set of values, separate from most of the web3 world. They either envision the usage of blockchain for local economies (an evolution of circular economy and local currencies that were popular in the 90's and 2000s), or more global scale realignment of incentives, either through socialist market economies or more planning-oriented solutions.

[–] chobeat@lemmy.ml 0 points 7 months ago

because it's in Latin (or Italian)...

[–] chobeat@lemmy.ml 8 points 7 months ago

I know people that occupied the offices. They were perfectly aware they would be fired and the people selected for the action were the least vulnerable economically, because retaliation was certain. Anything else is journalistic spin.

[–] chobeat@lemmy.ml 2 points 7 months ago

solarpunk is inherently utopian. Utopias exist to inspire and to reflect on the present. It tells us that there can be a social system in which technology is good, but then if to be optimistic or not is very subjective. Many pessimistic people like utopias exactly because they highlight the ugliness of reality.

[–] chobeat@lemmy.ml 10 points 7 months ago

That's exactly how eventually you are going to get Trump. Voting the lesser evil always, inevitably leads to the major evil. I live in a country that already elected fascists with this same logic and US is going to follow soon.

[–] chobeat@lemmy.ml 15 points 7 months ago (4 children)

everything that has happened so far has happened under a dem administration. 40+k deaths and endless displaced. Stop being delusional, dems are genocidal and you're guilty too.

[–] chobeat@lemmy.ml 12 points 7 months ago (11 children)

why? how? how do you rationalize this when the Biden administration is openly endorsing and supporting genocide? How could Trump make it worse? Write racist slurs on the bombs sent to Israel?

[–] chobeat@lemmy.ml 6 points 7 months ago

The core difference between longtermism and solarpunk is that longtermism stems from an utilitarian frame, while solarpunk rejects it. Radical utilitarianism like longtermist fashos and oligarchs gives them a way out to commit the worst crimes against humanity because of a supposed good that will materialize in a distant future. It's a moral free pass, exploiting the life of future humans (who cannot protest) to justify the oppression and exploitation of current humans (who are indeed protesting these assholes).

Solarpunk and longtermism are in no way on the same spectrum.

[–] chobeat@lemmy.ml 5 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Techno-optimism has always been used to criticize this attitude, together with techno-chauvinism. Techno-utopianism is a less loaded term that might encompass more positive visions of technology, like the attitude towards space exploration in the 60's coming from the soviet union.

"Optimism" in general is not necessarily the term we want to reclaim from the right: it's wishy-washy, boring, mediocre. "I'm not going to do much, I'll be on autopilot, because tech is good and it will sort stuff out. I don't care too much about taking a position, beyond passively trusting tech". Optimism is the happy trust of a dog on a leash going for a walk.

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