Notices by Scott Matter (scottmatter@aus.social)

@aral

Paraphrasing from the field of research, there’s no such thing as apolitical, everyone’s got a political position whether we acknowledge it or state it explicitly or not. The opposite of politics isn’t “no politics” it’s bad politics.

@aral

Oddly reminds me of the Dylan tune, “with god on our side”

@elizabethveldon
@aral

I learned about mirror propaganda the other day and, not saying they’re planning a genocide, this approach to propaganda to implement authoritarian oppression seems a decent fit for what the hard-right and fascists are doing.

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Accusation_in_a_mirror

@elizabethveldon @aral

Authoritarian oppression, yes.

Genocide? Uh, [citation needed]

@aral

Nice.

I tend to think of the paper and the “between your ears” as parts of a larger whole. Mind, to me (and some of the philosophers whose work I read and try to extend), is different from “brain.”

Not sure if you’ve read Ursula Le Guin’s essay “Telling is Listening” but she uses this great (visual) metaphor to argue that human communication is more like amoeba having sex than like computers transferring data. The listening shapes the telling shapes the listening and so on, and participants in the conversation are reshaped through it. Same with collaborative working, imho.

@aral

Yes, with you there (though reckon this reflects how participatory practices have been co-opted by orgs that put up those walls between “inside” and “everyone else”). (This may or may not be of interest… think of it as a draft and not some final statement: https://scottmatter.org/blog/for-radical-compassion/)

What I was curious about was how, in collaborative practices, the “between your ears” part happens, and whether that might happen differently than when there’s one designer?

@aral

Do co-design next?