The periodic round up:
- Henry Farrell – On post-democracy – “Post-democracy is strangling the old parties of the left. They have run out of options. Perhaps all that traditional social democracy can do, to adapt a grim joke made by Crouch in a different context, is to serve as a pall-bearer at its own funeral.” The dilemma facing centre-left parties the world over is one of irrelevance. This poses a problem for democracy in general, as meaningful social democracy withers. While the Australian Labor Party is not mentioned here, it is recognisable in the description …
- The Calm Before the Solar Storm – For some time we have been given the impression that domestic solar power generation has been A Good Thing. But in a system designed for power flowing in only one direction, in an industry populated by business models that don’t fit with widespread independent power generation, there is a collision pending.
- The Great Disconnect – As Warren Buffet commented: “there IS a class war going on, and the rich are winning”. Buoyancy in financial markets is increasingly disconnected with real well-being, a situation that is politically unsustainable. The widening gap between the very rich and everyone else is the stuff of revolution …
- Steve Mann: My “Augmediated” Life – “Until recently, most people tended to regard me and my work with mild curiosity and bemusement.” Steve Mann’s wearable computing gear has come a long way in 20 years. Google Glass now has people taking his work a lot more seriously (although Google hasn’t caught up to him yet). Life, augmented and mediated …
- What the NSA Sees in Our Gmail – MIT runs a little exercise in metadata gathering from your GMail traffic … a sobering reflection on our loss of privacy which by now should even be worrying those of us with “nothing to hide” from the NSA