"the pay-offs of public performativity of yr craft technique" -- i.e. these are self-evidently mainly negative hence our response in this thread
transparency is good not bad but also bad not good to put it in ddd-speak
― mark s, Thursday, 6 October 2022 11:18 (one year ago) link
"the old far-left nostrum that revolutionaries should read the financial times and ignore the guardian"
Bastani repeats this frequently.
― the pinefox, Thursday, 6 October 2022 11:22 (one year ago) link
worth noting those same "far lefties" are *absolutely banjaxed* by the arrival of the internet and now subsist as tiny grumpy ageing sects
― mark s, Thursday, 6 October 2022 11:26 (one year ago) link
not that the nostrum directly entails this outcome BUT
the pitiless panopticon of soc-med has actually made tactics and strategy much harder in all political quarters (left AND right), a point that's going to be historically very interesting if we can live thru to a point where histories get written
always hard to predict the future but imho the current situation w.r.t. social media makes it harder, coz as far as I can see "social media will be dead within 5 years and the likes of Zuckerberg, Musk etc will be recognised as pernicious more widely" and "social media will continue to burgeon and be developed technically so we all* have (non?)invasive direct brain-to-site interfaces"** are pretty much equally likely outcomes.
* prolly actually not all** and if you think things are bad now, that's when the sh*t really hits the fan!
― Grandpont Genie, Thursday, 6 October 2022 11:59 (one year ago) link
"Predictions are a fool's errand" -- Dr Aaron Bastani
― the pinefox, Thursday, 6 October 2022 12:02 (one year ago) link
"It'll go higher"
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 6 October 2022 12:17 (one year ago) link
my prediction
this:
Everything happens so much— Horse ebooks (@Horse_ebooks) June 28, 2012
but more of it
― mark s, Thursday, 6 October 2022 12:18 (one year ago) link
I've often heard left people say you should read The Economist or the FT because you get into The Capitalist mindset. Well done Bastani for regurgitating this stuff, he'll probably get to work in his beloved media if the world doesn't burn first.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 6 October 2022 12:24 (one year ago) link
when we are mining asteroids so 15 billion people can take a crap on a 24 carat gold toilet and during adverse El Nino seasons there are no famines because ppl can make synthetic steaks on a 3d printer, then people won't be laughing at him then
― calzino, Thursday, 6 October 2022 12:30 (one year ago) link
If Bastani haggled ppl to read Trotsky I'd respect the trolling.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 6 October 2022 13:16 (one year ago) link
I get put off by the dissonance between their modern presentation (i.e. pretty good website and slick youtubing) and old fashioned content (not much changed since Tribune of the 80s, ie. on-point but poorly sourced and edited). That said the sweep of reporting on the site was surprisingly broad to me - I had written them off based on Bastani et al’s obnoxious screen presences and the gloomy sense that they’re all en route to being future Parsons and O’Neills
― Chuck_Tatum, Thursday, 6 October 2022 14:37 (one year ago) link
"the gloomy sense that they’re all en route to being future Parsons and O’Neills"
What is the cause of this sense?
― the pinefox, Thursday, 6 October 2022 14:55 (one year ago) link
yeah I could imagine Bastani going totally Brendan in later middle age.
― calzino, Thursday, 6 October 2022 14:56 (one year ago) link
not sure precisely what i wanted to prove with this but i went off and checked their relative ages: parsons b.1953o'neill wikipedia doesn't say but since he wrote for living marxism my guess is not later than 1980; probably somewhat earlier (he edited spiked! from 2007) bastani b.83/84 (unsure why wikipedia is unsure lol) sarkar 92
butler doesn't have a wikipedia entry at all but i think he's much the same age as bastani
my half-baked point is that by now the novara kids are all some way older and set in their ways than TP and BoN were when they became entirely unreadable (i suspect BoN was always entirely unreadable)
― mark s, Thursday, 6 October 2022 14:58 (one year ago) link
i guess sarkar still has time to do a tony parsons but this seems quite unlikely
― mark s, Thursday, 6 October 2022 15:00 (one year ago) link
I think that gets closer to the problem, they're just not all that interesting. Why would you watch one of their videos? What would you learn from it?
And it shows in their view counts. Their videos on Ukraine are averaging around 30K views. This is terrible for a channel with 250K subscribers. Similar sized channels are getting 10x, 20x, 50x that, and don't have the advantage of free marketing from the BBC or Sky. High(ish) subscriber count and low view count tells its own story
They're not really adding anything, what is the reason to watch them? Who is watching them? They need to be more interesting, get better guests, show some insight. Having the 'correct' opinion on anything is irrelevant if people aren't watching
― anvil, Thursday, 6 October 2022 15:11 (one year ago) link
Don't really agree with that. I think if they were exploring communism, or what would make for a better world, in an interesting way I might tune in.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 6 October 2022 15:27 (one year ago) link
I think Sarkar shouting "I am a communist" at Piers Morgan is v good. If they, as a collective, explored some aspects of this, it could be better, whatever the viewing figures.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 6 October 2022 15:30 (one year ago) link
Right, and there are other channels where you can watch that, you don't need Novara for that. And there are other channels that do other things better than Novara, so we don't need Novara for that either
Which then leads to the question, who needs Novara, and for what?And I think this is what their view counts are showing
― anvil, Thursday, 6 October 2022 15:34 (one year ago) link
Sakar was decent when talking about the German communists on the bbc Hitler program, it was a refreshing change to hear a perspective from someone who isn't Applebum. But then they dropped her for the chess clown Kasparov in S2, because the USSR were as bad as the Nazis etc...
― calzino, Thursday, 6 October 2022 15:38 (one year ago) link
"Right, and there are other channels where you can watch that, you don't need Novara for that."
Even if there are, they could do it. Instead we Luxury communism, which a dead on arrival concept.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 6 October 2022 15:45 (one year ago) link
i know we all had fun with the meme but did anyone actually read the book? (i did not)
― mark s, Thursday, 6 October 2022 15:48 (one year ago) link
As I've mentioned before on old UKpol threads, I don't really understand the ILX downer on Novara. Tysky Sour is really good, has excellent and informed guests on everything from Brazilian politics to macroeconomics to Covid policy - I don't think there is anything similar broadcasting regularly on UK current events. Especially during lockdown it felt quite vital?
The Downstream slot has had outstanding extended interviews with people like Andreas Malm, China Mieville, Kojo Koram etc. And now they have some funding they are actually doing useful investigative journalism - see Polly Smythe as the new union/labour movement correspondent, and apparently more to follow?
― Piedie Gimbel, Thursday, 6 October 2022 15:49 (one year ago) link
I really enjoyed China Mieville's October book
― calzino, Thursday, 6 October 2022 15:51 (one year ago) link
I think he is a v bad writer but Ash's Novara interview with him was outstanding!
― Piedie Gimbel, Thursday, 6 October 2022 15:53 (one year ago) link
I don't know what Luxury Communism is, but why does it matter whether Novara create this type of content or not when other channels are already creating it?
― anvil, Thursday, 6 October 2022 15:54 (one year ago) link
Lol I did hear good things about that interview! xp
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 6 October 2022 15:55 (one year ago) link
well I am now tempted to watch that interview now
― calzino, Thursday, 6 October 2022 15:57 (one year ago) link
He’s awful, and has somehow not been visited by the MeToo fairy.
― put a VONC on it (suzy), Thursday, 6 October 2022 16:46 (one year ago) link
mieville or bastani?
― mark s, Thursday, 6 October 2022 16:48 (one year ago) link
always bet on the bad one being the baldy!
― calzino, Thursday, 6 October 2022 16:50 (one year ago) link
Mieville.
― put a VONC on it (suzy), Thursday, 6 October 2022 16:54 (one year ago) link
I never heard this before about CM, but it is never surprising.
― calzino, Thursday, 6 October 2022 16:56 (one year ago) link
one of the things I like about Ash is she's not afraid to ask "what does senescence mean?" because I sure as hell didn't know either!
― calzino, Thursday, 6 October 2022 18:28 (one year ago) link
I think one of the elements about class identity that writers and commentators are bad at understanding is that it isn't totally a conscious or intellectual stance, it's something ... erm different, borne out of decades of being shat on from a great height and never seeing things getting better. I'm not saying that criticism applies here, there was some good stuff about the latte sipping/mushy peas false dichotomy
― calzino, Thursday, 6 October 2022 18:46 (one year ago) link
senescence is my lived experience!
― mark s, Thursday, 6 October 2022 18:47 (one year ago) link
I'm definitely feeling the deterioration and loss of power
― calzino, Thursday, 6 October 2022 18:53 (one year ago) link
I agree with ILX poster Piedie Gimbel.
― the pinefox, Thursday, 6 October 2022 20:23 (one year ago) link
"As I've mentioned before on old UKpol threads, I don't really understand the ILX downer on Novara."
Surely it isn't hard to understand. Bastani, Walker don't sound v good on twitter. Their political positions are poor, so it's not like I want to engage with Novara's offering. Same with Owen Jones.
Butler has some nice interests in lit and I like what he says on that. I engage with him in a different way, and it's cool he found a niche in the LRB but even then how does he square his politics with the piece they published on Grenfell?
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 6 October 2022 20:34 (one year ago) link
As councillors and MPs are removed, not through deselection but by undemocratic & bureaucratic measures, it’s no surprise that the New Statesman publishes a plea by a has-been broadcast journalist to become an MP. Brought to you by BT/Uber & God knows who. pic.twitter.com/J6lK8BmFun— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) October 6, 2022
― the pinefox, Thursday, 6 October 2022 22:42 (one year ago) link
nobody is really taking Mason seriously though. His half a million + twitter followers are obviously fake as well. Even the people who PM wants to take him seriously have realised he's a moron and publicly said as much. it's not exactly Big Game Hunting!
― calzino, Thursday, 6 October 2022 23:13 (one year ago) link
Tom Watson going to the Lords after the Carl Beech saga is absolutely extraordinary. If you think the Labour party is anything other than a vehicle for patronage for some of the most useless people in public life I've got news for you. These people will never introduce PR. https://t.co/zUmOPpyvuT— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) October 6, 2022
― the pinefox, Friday, 7 October 2022 07:52 (one year ago) link
"nobody is really taking Mason seriously though."
Bastani has done for longer than he should have.
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 7 October 2022 08:15 (one year ago) link
He'll criticise Lab every day but come election time I will even give Bastani a follow, revive this thread and link to his tweets telling you all to vote the Tories out because they are "evil".
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 7 October 2022 08:26 (one year ago) link
how does he square his politics with the piece they published on Grenfell?
Frankly all UK media does evil shit and LRB publishes more leftist thinking than anything else within that sphere, don't really think the fact that that they also publish tons of right wing guff should be a dealbreaker for ppl looking for writing gigs. It's not a situation like Novara where it advertises itself as leftist, no one picks the LRB up thinking they'll get the Socialist Take on Things.
― Daniel_Rf, Friday, 7 October 2022 10:53 (one year ago) link
I do.
They publish 20-page essays by Perry Anderson.
― the pinefox, Friday, 7 October 2022 11:21 (one year ago) link
Yes but they also publish retired US generals explaining why Hiroshima was no biggie. I'm not saying there's NO socialist takes in the LRB, I'm saying the LRB is not a socialist publication.
― Daniel_Rf, Friday, 7 October 2022 11:28 (one year ago) link
Who are these generals?
You don't mean Edward Luttwak? He is truly right-wing, I believe. But rarely appears now.
It would be misleading to imply that the LRB has a 'balance' of right and left. The truth is that it is a liberal-left publication and, within that term, much more 'left' than most comparable 'liberal' publications.
― the pinefox, Friday, 7 October 2022 11:32 (one year ago) link
That still makes it quantifiably different from a explicitly leftist project like Novara, which was the point.
― Daniel_Rf, Friday, 7 October 2022 11:34 (one year ago) link
How can you know it is wildly popular when there is no electoral oversight, and a strongman leader who is getting rid of judges, doing away with the constitution. Making himself the only power.
― vodkaitamin effrtvescent (calzino), Tuesday, 6 February 2024 10:45 (one month ago) link
Not entirely clear which ‘liberal left’ this is meant to be a challenge for, tbh. Is the expectation that external condemnation from people who can’t make a dent in their own political processes would have a meaningful impact on El Salvador’s? Is the ‘liberal left’ here meant to mean Biden and Trudeau, who have sort of ineffectually condemned bits of it? Is the idea that because it’s popular in a country that had a murder rate 100x that of the UK’s the same could potentially apply here?
― ShariVari, Tuesday, 6 February 2024 10:51 (one month ago) link
lol, I took it as meaning himself. I read that the Biden administration sanctioned them for bribing crime gangs to cut down on the homicide, lads.
― vodkaitamin effrtvescent (calzino), Tuesday, 6 February 2024 10:55 (one month ago) link
Yep, basically they had a deal with the gangs to allow them to operate / have a degree of protection from extradition to the US in order to keep violence to a minimum - which hit a barrier, iirc because they were getting pressure to extradite one of the leaders, which led to the gangs murdering a bunch of people. After that, Bukele pretty much mandated arresting anyone who was loosely suspected of gang affiliation, including 1000+ children.
Whether the murder rate declining indicates that organised crime has decreased or if it has just been monopolised by the state / state-affiliated gangs who don’t need to murder their rivals if they’re all locked up is not completely clear.
― ShariVari, Tuesday, 6 February 2024 12:27 (one month ago) link
"Bukele has shown that if you brute force it, lock up enough people, get around the problem of what happens when you let them out by just not letting them out, then you can significantly reduce crime this way."
Starmer fans are logging on.
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 6 February 2024 13:06 (one month ago) link
Amazing if you can't see the problems with this.
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 6 February 2024 13:07 (one month ago) link
now let's have a grown up discussion about the merits of imprisoning thousands of children without charge or trial, says I the self-proclaimed liberal lefty from Novara Media.
― vodkaitamin effrtvescent (calzino), Tuesday, 6 February 2024 13:35 (one month ago) link
Many people mouthing off how bad things are now good without thinking through repercussions is a huge problem for the left. They must play catch up.
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 6 February 2024 13:50 (one month ago) link
I think Bastani was going on about how deporting refugees who commit crimes is not necessarily good but definitely understandable and popular last week too.
― ShariVari, Tuesday, 6 February 2024 13:57 (one month ago) link
I did manage to miss that..
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 6 February 2024 14:15 (one month ago) link
I listened a Bastani interview with a total dickhead, a godawful ex-macroeconomist (whatever the fuck one of them is) podcaster with nothing insightful to say about anything. His schtick was "we used to live in unipolar world but since the collapse of the USSR it's a multipolar world" - wow, mind blown. It was just two horrible men talking over each other. Somehow I lasted an hour, but I was busy cooking and it was on in the background.
― vodkaitamin effrtvescent (calzino), Tuesday, 6 February 2024 14:52 (one month ago) link
Guys is the quashing of human rights a bad thing if it gets the trains to run on time, I’m a “liberal leftist”
― Roman Anthony gets on his horse (gyac), Tuesday, 6 February 2024 15:04 (one month ago) link
From late last year but found this interesting on Bukele and El Salvador, which filled me in a bit more on something I wasn't too familiar with
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEI6gDJBCZ0
― anvil, Tuesday, 6 February 2024 15:24 (one month ago) link
Its a bit more focused on what might happen next and likely directions than anything else, at least with 2 of the 3 guests. Probably old news but instructive for me at least
― anvil, Tuesday, 6 February 2024 15:48 (one month ago) link
y'know, the word Strasserite is overused (by me) but
― wang mang band (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 6 February 2024 16:36 (one month ago) link
An interesting development
I’m a Christian. I think killing unarmed civilians is bad. That’s why I think Israel should be isolated like never before by the entire international community. What they did was daft, yes. I said that and I believe it.— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) February 15, 2024
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 15 February 2024 17:49 (one month ago) link