DREAD
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“Significant advances in three-dimensional (3D) printing capabilities, availability of free digital 3D printer files for firearms components, and difficulty regulating file sharing may present public safety risks from unqualified gun seekers who obtain or manufacture 3D printed guns. Limiting access may be impossible.” -
“Thus the drone was born and was used in the Balkan wars to gather information on refugee flows and Serbian air defenses. It was not until the 1999 NATO Kosovo campaign, however, that someone came up with the idea of equipping these planes with missiles, transforming them from spy planes into killer drones.” — Drone Warfare, Medea Benjamin, page 15 -
Man killed in deadly terror attack in London street, video of alleged suspect covered in blood addressing camera.
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“On the May 21 edition of The Alex Jones Show, a caller asked Jones whether he was planning to cover how government technology may be behind a recent spate of sinkholes. After laying out how insurance companies use weather modification to avoid having to pay ski resorts for lack of snow, Jones said that “of course there’s weather weapon stuff going on — we had floods in Texas like fifteen years ago, killed thirty-something people in one night. Turned out it was the Air Force.” -
“(…) in possibility everything is possible, and he who truly was brought up by possibility has comprehended the dreadful as well as the smiling. When such a person, therefore, goes out from the school of possibility, and knows more thoroughly than a child knows the alphabet that he can demand of life absolutely nothing, and that terror, perdition, annihilation, dwell next door to every man, and has learned the profitable lesson that every dread which alarms may the next instant become a fact, he will then interpret reality differently, he will extol reality, and even when it rests upon him heavily he will remember that after all it is far, far lighter than the possibility was.” — Søren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Dread, page 140. -
John Hendrix for the NYT.
A punch to the gut.
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“People tend to fear dread risks, that is, low-probability, high-consequence events, such as the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. If Americans avoided the dread risk of flying after the attack and instead drove some of the unflown miles, one would expect an increase in traffic fatalities. This hypothesis was tested by analyzing data from the U.S. Department of Transportation for the 3 months following September 11. The analysis suggests that the number of Americans who lost their lives on the road by avoiding the risk of flying was higher than the total number of passengers killed on the four fatal flights. I conclude that informing the public about psychological research concerning dread risks could possibly save lives.” —Dread Risk, September 11, and Fatal Traffic Accidents, Gerd Gigerenzer
Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germanyhttp://www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/volltexte/institut/dok/full/gg/GG_Dread_2004.pdf
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Estonia
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“There is something about the notion of being piloted by absence that is tremendously dread engendering.” — China Miéville on drones in the forthcoming Dread book. -
Deep State (Mirza & Butler’s new film, scripted by science fiction author China Mieville and commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella) takes its title from the Turkish term “Derin Devlet”, meaning a “state within the state”. Though impossible to verify, the deep state allegedly manipulates political and economic policy to ensure its interests within seemingly democratic frameworks. This film tells a story about the representation of political struggle, moments of crisis, solidarity, schisms and oppression. Archive footage slices through a science fiction inflected narrative which is propelled by the relationships between those drawn together in the struggle against the deep state. The deep state is imaged as an amorphous, submerged totality which makes itself present through uncanny bleeds of colour. Its opposition is a time travelling rioter who passes through holes in conventional history created by the irruptive power of riots; these grainy portals evade the panopticon-like gaze of the deep state.
Deep State began following Mirza and Butler’s stay in Cairo on a residency at the Townhouse Gallery and also intersects with a larger body of work by Mirza and Butler entitled The Museum of Non Participation. Being in Cairo prior to the occupation of Tahrir Square, during the period in which it seemed impossible to speak about resistance, guided their interest in making a film about how to shift political language. As the figure of the language teacher tells us, this pedagogy is both a physical and verbal move away from fossilised conceptions of resistance into new, unimagined possibilities.
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“If I am right in my intuition about humanity being an ecstatic animal, there is this surplus point where fear tips into dread, and that’s where you start to get the ecstasy of nihilism.” — English writer China Miéville in conversation with Juha van ‘t Zelfde for the upcoming Dread book, which will be published this September by Valiz as part of its Antennae series. The book will be designed by Metahaven, and consists of contributions by amongst others Superflux, Adam Greenfield, James Bridle, Timo Arnall and Xander Karskens. -
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Thomas Hirschhorn, It’s Burning Everywhere (2009)
“It’s a work that wants to give form to the idea that the world is not split in conflict zones - which are always conflict zones where the other is living, not myself - but to try to give a form to the way to understand the world and the world where I am as whole as a conflict zone. Even myself, I am the conflict, I am a part of the conflict zone. Even the conflict is in myself. That is why the title It’s Burning Everywhere, it’s burning also in myself, I am a part of the fire in a way.”
- Thomas Hirschhorn
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Facebook Kills Social Roulette, The App With A 1/6 Chance Of Deleting Your Facebook Account
If you want a digital detox, you’re going to have to pull the trigger yourself. Social Roulette is an app that would delete one in six users’ Facebook account data, but its founder confirms it’s been blocked by Facebook so it no longer functions. While there’s no specific policy prohibiting apps from deleting your data, Social Roulette is clearly counter to Facebook’s mission and business model.
Social Roulette launched on Saturday as an online version of Russian Roulette, the lethal real-life game where a player places one bullet in a six-chamber revolver pistol, spins the cylinder, and fires the gun at their head. You die, you lose. But on Social Roulette, it’s implied that having your Facebook account deleted means you won. If you’re hit that one in six chance, the site explains “we can completely remove all your posts, friends, apps, likes, photos, and games before completely deactivating it.” Otherwise, it just posts to Facebook saying you survived the game, and encouraging your friends to risk their digital lives.
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Escalating the climate of fear
Whatever else is true, this DOJ behavior will escalate the already intense climate of fear that prevails for journalists and their sources
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 13, 2013
