General Ludd to General Intellect

The Luddite Tribunal held at Oakland’s Tamarack Cafe on November 9, 2023. (l to r) Brian Merchant, Safe Street Rebel, Wendy Liu, Paris Marx, and Veena Dubal.

I’ve been called “Luddite” from time to time, though I have always refused the category of “technology” as having any particularly useful reference point. Criticizing technology, […]

The Root of All Evil

Seen on the street in San Francisco!

Almost as consistently as the Christian insistence on an unspoiled Eden from which humans have “fallen” is the notion that evil is an independent force with a will of its own. Given that common belief, it follows that there is a centuries-long project to determine where […]

Post-Pandemic Melancholia . . . Same As It Ever Was?

First days of August on the beach in Mexico, eating coconut pie, pretty far from melancholic!

Dark times will always spur retrospection, but we need to look backwards not simply to track either progress or decline but rather to open our eyes wider to the crosscurrents, contradictions, and eerie resonances of history. (p. […]