In Defense of Stupid People

Posted on March 27, 2009

I was talking to a friend today and heard myself make a offhand comment about ’stupid people’, something in reference to our society  being typically shortsighted and destructive in its consumption of precious resources and production of waste.   As I said it something struck me – the problem isn’t stupid people and blaming society’s ills on ’stupid people’ is really just a cop out and a way to avoid looking at the real issues.  There are plenty of folks who just plain aren’t that bright who have enough common sense to know you shouldn’t shit where you sleep, a lesson that millions of folks who can boast at least an average IQ score still haven’t learned, as evidenced by their willingness to drive giant cars that polute the air they breathe and purchase products whose production poisons the biosphere we all depend on to survive.  People who lack intelligence aren’t our problem, smart people who refuse to put down their illusions and look at the world the way it really is are the problem.

To clarify, I don’t mean ’stupid’ like people who vote Republican because they want to be safe from terrorism or Democrat because they think doing so will result in significant concession to Labor or environmental stewardship – that sort of deliberate self-deception goes in a category all its own;  I mean folks who just plain aren’t particularly bright because they were born with any of a range of disabilities that interfere with the development of normal cognitive function but don’t make them any less human or in any way diminish their ability to feel pain from the scorn heaped on them by society .   Think about it – why is it ok to discriminate against people with less then average intelligence?  This is a serious question and it deserves serious examination.

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A few thoughts on Currency & Markets

Posted on February 22, 2009

This is the first draft of an essay I’m working on comparing different types of currency and markets.  It’s all kinds of not done, but I wanted to post it here to hopefully get some feedback.
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A few thoughts on Currency & Markets

There are three fundamentally different types of currency, there is social capital which is real and important and invisible and largely unconscious, there is also currency of convenience – gold or cacao beans or some other easily mobile product with an intrinsic value that is used as a convenience in order to make barter between multiple parties more convenient. The third form is representative currency, that is to say paper money and/or its various digital and abstract representations.

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WWJD (about the economy)

Posted on October 15, 2008

just saw this and thought it was great:

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Time Management for Anarchists

Posted on October 8, 2008

A few years ago I decided I was sick and tired of working shit jobs for shit pay.  even the cool local anarcho-friendly worker-owned cooperative wanted to pay me $16/hour to do graphic design with them and billed their clients at $72 / hour.  There was no boss to skim off the top, but rent in the bay area is insane and their office building and state of the art computers cost a lot of money, money that had to come out of the proceeds of their labor before they could afford to pay themselves.  And that’s just no fun.  So I started advertizing on craigslsit and set myself up as a graphic designer working from home.  The job is still kinda boring and I’m not thrilled about all my clients, but I get to set my own hours, work as little or as much as I feel like, and I don’t have to pay a boss to tell me what to do.    (Incidentally, it may suprise some of you that I have a job at all, but the thing about giving my music away for free / donation is that I don’t get paid for it…)

I’ve been self-employed for a bit over 2 years now and it’s good times, for the most part.  The hardest thing about making the switch – aside from taking that first leap into the unknown – has been learning to motivate myself to work and manage my own time in a way that lets me do everything I need to get done efficiently, keep my clients happy, and still leave me plenty of time for music, activism, and just plain being a human.  It’s was one thing to free myself from wage slavery (though, come to think of it, I still get paid an hourly wage.  but at least I set it myself and don’t have to give a portion of it to my boss…) and it was another thing entirely to figure out how to keep from going totally broke.  Learning to self-manage has been a long tough proccess, but is a critical one for anyone interested in smashing the tyranny of bosses and creating a self-managed society.

In that spirit I present to you the following flash movie, courtesy of No Media Kings.

They also have a text version (here) and a comic version, also available from their website.  Check ‘em out!

Why you’ll never see me wearing Gold.

Posted on August 10, 2008

An exceptionally good story from the AP wire on child labor in Africa and the international Gold trade.  Think about this next time you see some sell-out corporate pop-rapper wearing giant gold chains.

AP IMPACT: Kids working in African gold mines

TENKOTO, Senegal – A reef of gold buried beneath this vast, parched grassland arcs across some of the world’s poorest countries. Where the ore is rich, industrial mines carve it out. Where it’s not, the poor sift the earth.

In a yearlong investigation, The Associated Press visited six of these bush mines in three West African countries and interviewed more than 150 child miners. AP journalists watched as child-mined gold was bought by itinerant traders. And, through interviews and customs documents, The AP tracked gold from these mines on a 3,000-mile journey to Mali’s capital city and then on to Switzerland, where it enters the world market.

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