Reseña de Alexandre Fortes. The Second World War and the Rise of Mass Nationalism in Brazil: Class, Race and Citizenship. Londres, Palgrave Macmillan, 2024, 335 pgs.
1789-, Labor in politics. Political activity of the working class
Sommeren 1920 utførte Det norske Arbeiderparti en politisk storsatsing i form av en agitasjonsturné med motorbåt langs Nord-Norges kyst. Turnéen, ledet av Martin Tranmæl, var partiets kanskje største enkeltaksjon som et samlet, revolusjonært parti. Med denne artikkelen ønsker jeg å undersøke turnéens innhold og formål og vurdere om formålet med den ble oppnådd. Særlig aktuelle temaer var sosialiseringen av landsdelens tradisjonelle fiskenæring og Tranmæls holdninger til verdensrevolusjonen mange antok var nært forestående. For å belyse disse problemstillingene har jeg benyttet meg av samtidens lokalaviser, som gir innblikk i både det politiske innholdet i reisen og offentligheten rundt den.
Socialism. Communism. Anarchism, Economic history and conditions
Little research has explored the communication needs of autistic adults. Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) can support these communication needs, but more guidance is needed on how to design AAC systems to support this population. We conducted an online, asynchronous, text-based focus group with five autistic adults to explore their social communication and community engagement and how AAC might support them. Our analysis found 1) participants' emotional experiences impact the communication methods they use, 2) speaking autistic adults can benefit from AAC use, and 3) autistic shutdown creates dynamic communication needs. We present implications for AAC interface design: supporting communication during shutdown, indicating communication ability, and addressing the fear of using AAC. We provide themes for future autism research: exploring the impact of a late diagnosis, understanding communication needs during shutdown, and researching the social and environmental factors that impact communication. Finally, we provide guidance for future online focus groups.
This paper examines how Achille Mbembe draws upon, then iterates from, the work of Aimé Césaire to provide a rich analysis of personhood in contemporary Africa. Typically, African treatments of Mbembe’s theorization place considerable emphasis on the intellectual influence of Frantz Fanon, rightly so. And while Fanon does have a central role in Mbembe’s writing, arguably it is Césaire who prompts Mbembe to conceptually insist upon the historical malleability of racial classification, racial civic ascription, and racial subjective comprehension as these social forms are reshaped by historical development. In tracing the development of these aspects of Mbembe’s social and political thought, this paper discusses the bisections and points of departures with Césaire’s poetry and philosophy as it pertains to the notion of Blackness. Effectively the dialectical encounter with Césaire and the Caribbean situation helps give rise to Mbembe’s main conclusion that there is a severe limitation to Black Reasoning, especially when its discursive referents give preference to a sublime singularity over the mutable.
Hegemonic ideologies both frame and limit the prevailing conception of the Trinidadian present. We can see this acutely at play with the struggles surrounding identity construction of Trinidadian women in the twenty-first century. In understanding the experience of women in Trinidadian society, health can be understood as an indicator of the class-status matrix, particularly when considering the non-communicable disease epidemic in the Caribbean. By directing our attention to both the body and the conditions under which the body exists, we can examine a history of exploitation and varied responses to exploitation. Drawing upon intersectionality, feminist, materialist and decolonizing frameworks, this research paper points at locations of ongoing gendered class formations, highlighting the dialectical relationship between identity categories that influence the mode of self-understanding of women in Trinidad and Tobago, their health outcomes, and well-being. Historical and cultural factors become important in understanding the value systems created for women and reproduced by society pertaining to wellness and health behaviors.
The thesis of a capitalist road to communism (van der Veen and Van Parijs, 1986) asserts that Marx realm of freedom can be reached from within welfare capitalism, skipping socialism, by using a tax-financed unconditional basic income until it is close to disposable income per head, so that the very distinction between paid work and free time is cancelled as a result. We revisit and update this thesis for two reasons: the recent prospect of a post-labor society following the automation revolution in technology, and that welfare capitalism has become more inegalitarian and less hospitable to basic income. We use a simple economic model which incorporates an upward adjustment of basic income to labor-saving technical change and distinguishes between capital that complements labor and capital that is fully substitutable with labor. A baseline simulation of the model shows the economic feasibility of a capitalist transition to communism. Two versions of a scenario incorporating interplay between technical change and market socialist institutional reforms are set out which make the transition politically viable to some extent, depending on the social distribution of power over technology. The most promising version is one in which the productivity of labor and automation capital grow at similar rates. We show in which respects it approximates the ideal of communism. One finding is that communism does not require reaching the final stage of a post-labor society. We conclude with a reflection on the relevance of our present update for the more immediate future of unconditional basic income.
Nouran Soliman, Hyeonsu B Kang, Matthew Latzke
et al.
In communities with social hierarchies, fear of judgment can discourage communication. While anonymity may alleviate some social pressure, fully anonymous spaces enable toxic behavior and hide the social context that motivates people to participate and helps them tailor their communication. We explore a design space of meronymous communication, where people can reveal carefully chosen aspects of their identity and also leverage trusted endorsers to gain credibility. We implemented these ideas in a system for scholars to meronymously seek and receive paper recommendations on Twitter and Mastodon. A formative study with 20 scholars confirmed that scholars see benefits to participating but are deterred due to social anxiety. From a month-long public deployment, we found that with meronymity, junior scholars could comfortably ask ``newbie'' questions and get responses from senior scholars who they normally found intimidating. Responses were also tailored to the aspects about themselves that junior scholars chose to reveal.
We introduce the Ising Network Opinion Formation (INOF) model and apply it for the analysis of networks of 6 Wikipedia language editions. In the model, Ising spins are placed at network nodes/articles and the steady-state opinion polarization of spins is determined from the Monte Carlo iterations in which a given spin orientation is determined by in-going links from other spins. The main consideration is done for opinion confrontation between {\it capitalism, imperialism} (blue opinion) and {\it socialism, communism} (red opinion). These nodes have fixed spin/opinion orientation while other nodes achieve their steady-state opinions in the process of Monte Carlo iterations. We find that the global network opinion favors {\it socialism, communism} for all 6 editions. The model also determines the opinion preferences for world countries and political leaders, showing good agreement with heuristic expectations. We also present results for opinion competition between {\it Christianity} and {\it Islam}, and USA Democratic and Republican parties. We argue that the INOF approach can find numerous applications for directed complex networks.
Este trabajo analiza la experiencia de los trabajadores de la seccional marplatense de la Unión Tranviarios Automotor, el sindicato único de los conductores de ómnibus y subterráneos, en el contexto particular de la primera mitad de la década del 70, signado por la radicalización y la alta conflictividad sindical y política. En dicha seccional se cristalizaron posiciones faccionales que no sólo respondían a posicionamientos divergentes en relación al accionar sindical, sino que reflejaban líneas de fracturas en torno a una concepción política y social sobre el futuro del país. A partir de un conjunto variado de periódicos locales, sindicales y políticos, reconstruimos la dinámica y las formas del conflicto en dicho sindicato así como la consolidación de un actor propenso a la conciliación con el sector empresarial.
1789-, Labor in politics. Political activity of the working class
Este artículo explora la noción de inconsciente filosófico propuesta por Althusser a finales de los 60, en el marco de su indagación a propósito de las operaciones de explotación y de apropiación del saber llevadas a cabo por la filosofía tradicional respecto del resto de prácticas sociales. Buscando entender qué significación tiene la categoría de historicidad para Althusser, cotejaremos esta idea con otra similar, basada en el programa teórico del profesor español Juan Carlos Rodríguez, quien trabajó ciertos textos literarios a partir de la existencia de un inconsciente ideológico que definiría el alcance de la subjetividad humana en cada etapa histórica.
1789-, Labor in politics. Political activity of the working class
Community detection is a crucial task to unravel the intricate dynamics of online social networks. The emergence of these networks has dramatically increased the volume and speed of interactions among users, presenting researchers with unprecedented opportunities to explore and analyze the underlying structure of social communities. Despite a growing interest in tracking the evolution of groups of users in real-world social networks, the predominant focus of community detection efforts has been on communities within static networks. In this paper, we introduce a novel framework for tracking communities over time in a dynamic network, where a series of significant events is identified for each community. Our framework adopts a modularity-based strategy and does not require a predefined threshold, leading to a more accurate and robust tracking of dynamic communities. We validated the efficacy of our framework through extensive experiments on synthetic networks featuring embedded events. The results indicate that our framework can outperform the state-of-the-art methods. Furthermore, we utilized the proposed approach on a Twitter network comprising over 60,000 users and 5 million tweets throughout 2020, showcasing its potential in identifying dynamic communities in real-world scenarios. The proposed framework can be applied to different social networks and provides a valuable tool to gain deeper insights into the evolution of communities in dynamic social networks.
Under andre verdenskrig økte andelen utenlandske sjøfolk i den norske uteflåten fra ca. 10 til 25 %. Sjøfolkene om bord på skipene opplevde ulike utfordringer med å seile med kolleger fra ulike nasjoner og kulturer under de ekstreme påkjenningene og farene som krigen medførte. Den økte risikoen kombinert med lave lønninger for asiatiske sjøfolk sørget for de mest skarpe og synlige konfliktene. Samtidig var dette konflikter som normalt ikke gikk direkte mellom sjøfolkene om bord. Protester og streiker var primært rettet mot kapteiner, konsulater og Nortraship. Derimot var store kulturforskjeller, diskriminering og rasistiske holdninger konfliktskapende faktorer mellom sjøfolk av ulike hudfarger. Dette var ikke noe nytt, men krigen førte til at sammensetningen av nasjonaliteter endret seg betydelig, samtidig som andelen utlendinger økte kraftig. Ulike nasjonaliteter i samme båt var ikke alltid selve kilden til utfordringene som oppstod, men de kunne bidra til å forsterke skillelinjer i et mannskap. Organiseringen av mannskapene var også en faktor som kunne virke på samme måte, særlig når det var klar sammenheng mellom sjøfolks plass i skipshierarkiet og deres nasjonalitet. Samtidig var det flere kilder til samhold. Viktigst var trolig krigen selv; at sjøfolkene hadde en felles fiende og delte en felles skjebne om bord på samme skip.
Socialism. Communism. Anarchism, Economic history and conditions
In this study, we consider users' online communication rhythms (online social rhythms) as coupled oscillators in a complex social network. Users' rhythms may be entrained onto those of their friends, and macro-scale pattern of such rhythms can emerge. We investigated the entrainment in online social rhythms and long-range correlations of the rhythms using an avatar communication dataset. We indicated entrainment in online social rhythms to emerge if the strength of a new connection reaches a threshold. This entrainment spread via densely-connected clusters. Consequently, long-range correlations of online social rhythms extended to about 36% of the network, although offline social life naturally restricts online social rhythms. This research supports an understanding of human social dynamics in terms of systems of coupled oscillators.
Martín Mangiantini, Nayla Pis Diez, Sergio Friedemann
Con el objeto de profundizar los debates existentes alrededor de determinadas conceptualizaciones y nociones que hacen a los objetos de estudio pertinentes a las izquierdas, presentamos una polémica tanto conceptual como historiográfica entre Sergio Friedemann, Martín Mangiantini y Nayla Pis Diez alrededor de la utilización de la nomenclatura “nueva izquierda” como definición de determinadas expresiones políticas y militantes que emergieron en los años 60 y 70 en la Argentina. Este intercambio tiene dos antecedentes. Por un lado, sendos trabajos de reflexión de los tres autores, publicados en diversos momentos en los que, indirectamente o a través de estudios de caso particulares, se polemizó alrededor del uso de este tópico. En segundo lugar, una puesta en común de las respectivas posiciones desarrollada en el marco del seminario de doctorado Entre la “Nueva Izquierda” y los múltiples peronismos. Problemas conceptuales y categorías de análisis en los estudios sobre la radicalización política en la Argentina de los años 60 y 70 dictado en la Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata en octubre de 2020 en el que se intercambió abiertamente a la vez que se recepcionaron comentarios e inquietudes del estudiantado. La presente sección se convierte entonces en un corolario de estas instancias de discusión y, al mismo tiempo, en una sistematización y puesta en común de los matices y posicionamientos divergentes. Se parte de un convencimiento colectivo alrededor de la necesidad de establecer canales de diálogo e intercambios abiertos entre diversas miradas que permitan dar cuenta de los debates existentes de un modo franco y abierto.
1789-, Labor in politics. Political activity of the working class
The general orthodox explanation for misinformation in American politics stalls because it fails to fully appreciate history and ideology. Instead, because American modernity is characterized by contradictions between its basic social forms this creates a bind for rulers. These contradictions mean that their rule is never stable, while acknowledging the contradictions risks courting advocacy that they be addressed which also threatens their minority rule. Due to the imperative to reconcile or mystify these contradictions, social problems are treated as anomalies or otherwise externalized; they can never be features of the capitalist political economy. Misinformation is a common by-product of this externalization as the capitalist ruling class uses it to weld together pacts and alliances that preserve the social hierarchy. To illustrate this argument, I draw upon examples from Reconstruction and Red Scares to argue that the same basic phenomenon is occurring in Russisgate.
Jess Hohenstein, Dominic DiFranzo, Rene F. Kizilcec
et al.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is now widely used to facilitate social interaction, but its impact on social relationships and communication is not well understood. We study the social consequences of one of the most pervasive AI applications: algorithmic response suggestions ("smart replies"). Two randomized experiments (n = 1036) provide evidence that a commercially-deployed AI changes how people interact with and perceive one another in pro-social and anti-social ways. We find that using algorithmic responses increases communication efficiency, use of positive emotional language, and positive evaluations by communication partners. However, consistent with common assumptions about the negative implications of AI, people are evaluated more negatively if they are suspected to be using algorithmic responses. Thus, even though AI can increase communication efficiency and improve interpersonal perceptions, it risks changing users' language production and continues to be viewed negatively.
In this essay, I seek to provide an overview of André Gorz's conception of modern capitalism, considering different moments of his intellectual production. From his initial criticism of the concept of the proletariat between the 1970s and 1980s until his last theoretical work that addresses the notion of immaterial work, we found in this author an original debate with the tradition of Marx to the present reason for intense polemics, especially when we consider aspects which involve the theory of work value, and the potential of social groups to present themselves as collective subjects capable of leading human emancipation. At the same time that the core of his criticism of capitalism has been changing over more than three decades, we realize that the utopian potential has always been on the horizon of Gorz's thought and, like the tradition of critical theory, it has a strong normative content. The possibilities of human emancipation, however, need to consider transformations that have taken place in the capitalist mode of production in the last four decades.
Online social networks are used frequently by many people: Staying in contact with friends and sharing experiences with them is very important. However, users are increasingly concerned that their data will end up in the hands of strangers or that personal data may even be misused. Secure OSNs can help. These often use different types of encryption to keep the communication between the participants incomprehensible to outsiders. However, participants in such social networks cannot be sure that their data is secure. Various approaches show that even harmless-looking metadata, such as the number of contacts of users, can be evaluated to draw conclusions about the users and their communication. These attack methods are analyzed, and existing secure OSNs are examined, whether these attack methods can be utilized to violate the user's privacy. To prevent these privacy attacks, protocols for a secure centralized OSN are developed. Metadata is obscured in the presented OSM and end-to-end encryption is used for secure communication between clients. Additionally, communication channels are concealed using mix networks such that adversaries cannot determine which user is accessing which data or which user is communicating with whom even with access to the server.