The pandemic, the war against the coronavirus, and the hygiene panic may be evolving with tools and methods that would have seemed inconceivable just a short time ago, but this …
Distance learning
The technology exists and is used to the fullest. For money: university-level distance education had been welcomed as a liberation of access to prestigious institutions for people from remote parts …
A handful more observations
It is likely to be disconcerting that a story presented as a “mass public-health problem” (like covid-19) is in practice far more and far more significant… And that, consequently, the …
Capitalism, the state and epidemics: Event 201
The Event 201 simulates the outbreak of a new coronavirus of animal origin that is transmitted from bats to swine and eventually manages to be transmitted from human to human, …
Fear is the best medicine (of the system)
Hygiene phobias (of all scales and intensities) are a direct expression of fears related to ablebodiedness, youth and death. For a (measured!) century now, (eternal) youth and immortality have been …
Education at the threshold of the 4th industrial revolution
The education system as we know it is only about 200 years old. Before that, formal education was mostly reserved for the elite. But as industrialization changed the way we …
Cold Fusion
For some, it represents the ultimate energy solution: a cheap energy source without environmental implications. The final (and, above all, practical) form of such a nuclear process does not appear …
Cage (safety)
In 2016, the well-known Amazon patented what is shown in the photo: a narrow cage on wheels, controlled from inside, equipped with a robotic arm. Amazon has not yet implemented …
gig economy
(or searching for work models for the 4th industrial revolution) A vast space, somewhat like a prison, with scattered security gates that monitor your movements as you enter and exit …
what are data and who do they belong to;
Data (and the generalized, universal data-ification) is the new “gold”, the new endless raw material of bio-informational capitalism. The 4th industrial revolution relies everywhere on data: on their collection, management …
Closed stores
Retail stores are closing as if they’ve been struck by an epidemic. In the USA, the world’s largest retail chain, Sears, announced it will shut more than 70 stores in …
about paradigm shift… again
Saying that capitalist relations of production and consumption are dominant, essentially across the entire planet by now, constitutes a truism. This is an obvious observation, at least for those who …