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Sep 8 • 33 tweets • 17 min read
Since @_reallifemag is closing down, we wanted to highlight some of our favorite pieces from over the years.

Here are 30 insightful, incisive, and critical writings on #technology and its interactions with society at large. Follow & hire these writers!

🧵 below:
#LuxurySurveillance

People pay a premium for tracking technologies that get imposed unwillingly on others via @hypervisible & @dgolumbia

reallifemag.com/luxury-surveil…
Friction-Free Racism

Surveillance capitalism turns a profit by making people more comfortable with discrimination via @hypervisible

reallifemag.com/friction-free-…
Fair Game

Commonly used by researchers and journalists, data scraping is an underacknowledged privacy concern via @dgolumbia

reallifemag.com/fair-game/
Syllabus for the Internet: The Magnificent Bribe

Half a century ago, Lewis Mumford developed a concept that explains why we trade autonomy for convenience via @libshipwreck

reallifemag.com/the-magnificen…
Life’s a Glitch

The non-apocalypse of Y2K obscures the lessons it has for the present via @libshipwreck

reallifemag.com/lifes-a-glitch/
False Futurism

The metaverse is just another way to “go online” via @parismarx

reallifemag.com/false-futurism/
Reconnected

Decentralizing the internet alone won’t lift it above politics or save it from corporate co-optation via @parismarx

reallifemag.com/reconnected/
More Than a Feeling

Emotion detection doesn’t work, but it will try to change your behavior anyway via @FrankPasquale

reallifemag.com/more-than-a-fe…
Odd Numbers

Algorithms alone can’t meaningfully hold other algorithms accountable via @FrankPasquale

reallifemag.com/odd-numbers/
The Easy Way Out

How the pursuit of convenience produces new forms of inconvenience via @LMSacasas

reallifemag.com/the-easy-way-o…
Personal Panopticons

A key product of ubiquitous surveillance is people who are comfortable with it via @LMSacasas

reallifemag.com/personal-panop…
The Authoritarian Trade-Off

Exchanging privacy rights for public health is a false compromise via @jathansadowski

reallifemag.com/the-authoritar…
Potemkin AI

Many instances of “artificial intelligence” are artificial displays of its power and potential via @jathansadowski

reallifemag.com/potemkin-ai/
Children of Production

Making babies is not a natural process via @allergyPhD (former #STSshorts guest)

reallifemag.com/children-of-pr…
Pajama Rich

If it’s unclear whether you’re working out, working at home, or working at all, then chances are you’re wearing athleisure via @moiragweigel

reallifemag.com/pajama-rich/
Networked Dream Worlds

Is 5G solving real, pressing problems or merely creating new ones? via @shannonmattern

reallifemag.com/networked-drea…
Same Old

What is the point of imagining new technologies without new ways of living? via @sunhahong

reallifemag.com/same-old/
Family Scanning

Parenting tech domesticates state surveillance via @HZeavin

reallifemag.com/family-scannin…
Who Can It Be Now

On social platforms, the “fluid self” is not a rejection of personal branding but another manifestation of it via @14floating

reallifemag.com/who-can-it-be-…
Re: Doctor James Kelly

The brain-injury physician achieves clinical grace via @sashachapin

reallifemag.com/famous-to-me-d…
Cozy Tech

In product design, textiles replace metals and glass for a softer, gentler intrusion into our intimate space via @k_pendergrast

reallifemag.com/cozy-tech/
Roving Eyes

Surveillance cameras on private vehicles expand a landscape of paranoia via @TracyValcourt

reallifemag.com/roving-eyes/
Emergency Breaks

Gavin Mueller’s Breaking Things at Work explores the failures and mistakes of the technophilic left via @erikmbaker

reallifemag.com/emergency-brea…
False Positivism

Why “planetary computation” and “data-driven governance” will not solve the world’s problems via @interpolack

reallifemag.com/false-positivi…
Nameless Feeling

Nothing else needs to be said or thought when you can appeal to vibes via @yeetgenstein

reallifemag.com/nameless-feeli…
Life in the Fast Lane

Micro-mobility devices like scooters and e-bikes were supposed to replace cars, but instead they merely reinforce the excesses of car culture via @AlexVuocolo

reallifemag.com/life-in-the-fa…
Play to Lose

NFTs and meme stocks are contributing to the financialization of the self via @netgal_emi

reallifemag.com/play-to-lose/
Influencer Creep

Self-documenting and self-branding are becoming basic to all forms of work via @sophiehbishop

reallifemag.com/influencer-cre…
Fidelity Angst

On the audiophile’s hopeless search for perfect sound via Grant Farred

reallifemag.com/fidelity-angst/
Never-Ending Story

The timeless fear — manifest in modern-day technophobia — of watching kids go where adults can’t follow via @mactra

reallifemag.com/never-ending-s…
@mactra Thank you so much @_reallifemag - YOU WILL BE MISSED!
@mactra @_reallifemag That's a wrap!

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More from @ESpacewalk

Eclectic Spacewalk Profile picture
Sep 6
Science and mathematics may never fully capture the physical universe.

Are there hard limits to human intelligence?

Here are ten questions to ask via David H. Wolpert from #SanteFeInstitute in @aeonmag
aeon.co/essays/ten-que…
1. On some ill-defined objective scale, are we smart or are we stupid?

2. Why does there appear to be a major chasm between the cognitive capabilities of our hominin ancestors and the cognitive capabilities of modern scientists, artists and philosophers?
3. Even aided by our extended minds, can we ever create entirely new forms of science and mathematics that could access aspects of physical reality beyond our conception, or are we forever limited to merely developing the forms we already have?
Read 12 tweets
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Mar 10
Exclusive: Inside the Military's Secret Undercover Army via @warkin in @Newsweek

newsweek.com/exclusive-insi…
@warkin @Newsweek "The largest undercover force the world has ever known is the one created by the Pentagon over the past decade. Some 60,000 people now belong to this secret army, many working under masked identities and in low profile, all part of a broad program called "signature reduction."
@warkin @Newsweek The force, more than ten times the size of the clandestine elements of the CIA, carries out domestic and foreign assignments, both in military uniforms and under civilian cover, in real life and online, sometimes hiding in private businesses and consultancies, some of them
Read 15 tweets
Eclectic Spacewalk Profile picture
Mar 9
🎞️ Our fourth #STSshorts episode is live! 🎙️

We talk with @ashleyshoo about #STS, Technology & Disability, #DisabilityStudies, #technoableism, philosophy of tech, #cripsinspace, amongst other topics.

Watch & subscribe:
Image
@ashleyshoo This is the 4th episode of #STSshorts, a new video series in which we dialogue with a researcher, lecturer, writer, and eclectic human in the #STS discipline or related fields.

~30 mins in length.

The goal is to highlight and hopefully introduce a new audience to their work.
@ashleyshoo Ashley is an assistant professor in the Department of Science, Technology, and Society at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia. (@sts_vt)

liberalarts.vt.edu/departments-an…
Read 16 tweets
Eclectic Spacewalk Profile picture
Mar 9
Warnings of ‘Civil War’ Risk Harming Efforts Against Political Violence via @anjalikdayal, @AlexMStark, @Megan_A_Stewart in @WarOnTheRocks

warontherocks.com/2022/01/warnin…
@anjalikdayal @AlexMStark @Megan_A_Stewart @WarOnTheRocks "A year on from the Jan. 6 insurrection, experts warn of catastrophic political violence, while political commentators invoke the specter of the 1860s and throw out sensationalist headlines about a second U.S. Civil War. “The unimaginable has become reality in the United States.
@anjalikdayal @AlexMStark @Megan_A_Stewart @WarOnTheRocks … [T]he basic truth is the United States might be on the brink of [a civil] war today,” read one such argument.

The emerging cottage industry of speculation and alarm specifically about a civil war in the United States worries us. The shape and content of this debate —
Read 19 tweets
Eclectic Spacewalk Profile picture
Mar 8
"Realism, taken seriously, entails a never-ending cognitive and emotional challenge. It involves a minute-by-minute struggle to understand a complex and constantly evolving world, in which we are ourselves immersed, a world that we can, to a degree, influence and change..."
but which constantly challenges our categories and the definitions of our interests. And in that struggle for realism – the never-ending task of sensibly defining interests and pursuing them as best we can – to resort to war, by any side, should be acknowledged for what it is...
It should not be normalised as the logical and obvious reaction to given circumstances, but recognised as a radical and perilous act, fraught with moral consequences. Any thinker or politician too callous or shallow to face that stark reality, should be judged accordingly."
Read 4 tweets
Eclectic Spacewalk Profile picture
Mar 8
Deus ex Technologica via @LisaMargonelli in @ISSUESinST

"Today, our collective belief in the deus ex technologica seems tragically misguided."

issues.org/deus-ex-techno…
@LisaMargonelli @ISSUESinST "Today, our collective belief in the deus ex technologica seems tragically misguided. And our experience with COVID-19 should make us reexamine other problems that we’ve framed as technological—climate change being a prime example. Global warming has long been portrayed as a
@LisaMargonelli @ISSUESinST technological and financial dilemma—if only we invented enough low-carbon energy sources and had enough money to string the wires. But if we carefully pick apart our underlying assumptions, we may find lessons for future policymaking: Could more systematically incorporating the
Read 18 tweets

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