the collapse of online political education is upon us

Video Essays | The Paper Pilot

The Paper Pilot's digital garden of thoughts on philosophy, politics, and sociology

Kill the Internet | The Paper Pilot

The Paper Pilot's digital garden of thoughts on philosophy, politics, and sociology

Education | The Paper Pilot

The Paper Pilot's digital garden of thoughts on philosophy, politics, and sociology

Fast Capitalism | Mavs Open Press Open Access Journals | University of Texas at Arlington

Fast Capitalism is an academic journal aimed at describing the current moment of capitalism. We publish peer reviewed scholarship and essays about the impact of rapid information and communication technologies on self, society and culture in the 21st century. Our authors examine how heretofore distinct social institutions, such as work and family, education and entertainment, have blurred to the point of near identity in an accelerated, post-Fordist stage of capitalism. This makes it difficult for people to shield themselves from subordination and surveillance. The working day has expanded; there is little down time anymore. People can 'office' anywhere, using laptops and cells to stay in touch. But these invasive technologies that tether us to capital and control can also help us resist these tendencies. People use the Internet as a public sphere in which they express and enlighten themselves and organize others; information technologies afford connection, mitigate isolation, and even make way for social movements. We are convinced that the best way to study an accelerated media culture and its various political economies and existential meanings is dialectically, with nuance, avoiding sheer condemnation and ebullient celebration. We seek to shape these new technologies and social structures in democratic ways. We look at technology, Artificial Intelligence (AI), global flows, political economy, culture and cultural studies, social theory, political theory, intersectionality, and the envionrment.

Standardized Education | The Paper Pilot

The Paper Pilot's digital garden of thoughts on philosophy, politics, and sociology

The Internet is Full of Strangers | The Paper Pilot

The Paper Pilot's digital garden of thoughts on philosophy, politics, and sociology

Early Internet | The Paper Pilot

The Paper Pilot's digital garden of thoughts on philosophy, politics, and sociology

Bias, Skew, and Search Engines Are Sufficient to Explain Online Toxicity

U.S. political discourse seems to have fissioned into discrete bubbles, each reflecting its own distorted image of the world. Many blame machine-learning algorithms that purportedly maximize “engagement”—serving up content that keeps YouTube or Facebook users watching videos or scrolling through their feeds—for radicalizing users or strengthening their partisanship. Sociologist Shoshana Zuboff15 even argues that “surveillance capitalism” uses optimized algorithmic feedback for “automated behavioral modification” at scale, writing the “music” that users then “dance” to.

Bias, Skew, and Search Engines Are Sufficient to Explain Online Toxicity

U.S. political discourse seems to have fissioned into discrete bubbles, each reflecting its own distorted image of the world. Many blame machine-learning algorithms that purportedly maximize “engagement”—serving up content that keeps YouTube or Facebook users watching videos or scrolling through their feeds—for radicalizing users or strengthening their partisanship. Sociologist Shoshana Zuboff15 even argues that “surveillance capitalism” uses optimized algorithmic feedback for “automated behavioral modification” at scale, writing the “music” that users then “dance” to.

The Retweeting Class

I have often found myself confounded by the behaviour of some people who seem impervious to reality — like the people still on X today. Here, I try to understand what grounds their epistemology and its consequences, and what that means for the rest of us. Being committed to a better future is where genuine seriousness is, and that seriousness can only be approached in a spirit of embodied, determined, relentless hope.

How Social Media Tricks our Brains — and Destroys our Politics - Aaron Ross Powell's Blog

The Internet's Meaning Crisis

Parasocial media is a response to excessive irrelevance

Insults | The Paper Pilot

The Paper Pilot's digital garden of thoughts on philosophy, politics, and sociology