Notices by GeofCox (geofcox@climatejustice.social)

@seachanger

A lifetime ago, as a small boy, I read about a man in America that set himself alight on the steps of the Pentagon, in protest against the Vietnam war. I vowed to remember him - and his name, Norman Morrison, has been with me ever since.

This is great: you type your zip code into the app, and you're shown a complete list of books prohibited in your area; then download the e-reader, and these books are available to download.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/18/us-teens-banned-books-schools

I wonder if the book-banners will end up making these books more widely read than they ever were in libraries?

I wonder if anyone else here has read Albert Camus' 'The Rebel' recently?

It's interesting. It is very clearly of it's time - a polemic within the debates that consumed the French left after the war, about how to react to the emerging picture of Stalinist repression - but what's interesting is just how old-fashioned it seems alongside more recent economic and cultural interpretations of Marx.

Camus critiques Marx principally for what he took from Hegel - for example the idea of a historical dialectic - rightly focusing on how teleological philosophies always contain the seeds of 'the ends justify the means' rationale for inhumanity. In taking this approach, he ignores almost entirely the economic and cultural analysis of the mature Marx, which via the Frankfurt School, Structuralism, Piketty, etc, now dominate left views of Marx. Camus spends many pages pulling apart the idea of the historic mission of the proletariat, for example, without any mention of the increasing socialisation of production - or indeed any of the economic concepts, such as alienation, commodity fetishism, even use, exchange and surplus value, that now seem central to us.

Most interestingly, perhaps, he focuses on Marx's 'prophesies' in a way that now feels outdated, not just because they constitute such a very small part of Marx's writing - but by events. Camus writes as if his own time was the end of history, which had already delivered its verdict - whereas from our perspective it has become much harder to pronounce on whether trends within capitalism identified by Marx - such as increasing accumulation by a smaller and smaller elite - were indeed mistaken. Now we tend to think: 'Hmmm... maybe he was right after all...'.

At the time I would I'm sure have been on Camus' side - like Orwell inclined more to anarchism that communism - but now perhaps Sartre's inclination not to polemic, but to reconcile existentialism and marxism, seems more considered.

#camus #existentialism #marxism #anarchism #philosophy #politicaleconomy

@goatsarah @SuneAuken

My impression is that speed and hills are the crucial factors. I thought my Hyundai Ioniq was optimistic until I went to the UK, and had to drive in relatively flat landscapes and in fog (ie. more slowly than normal) - and there it was conservative.

I haven't looked it up, but my guess is they calculate the range at less than 80kph (50mph), and not going predominantly uphill (or down).

@feditips @bookwyrm

I signed up to a BookWyrm server but found it had a short character limit (my Mastodon server allows 5,000 not 500 characters). This to me is crucial information - I'm interested in reading and writing reviews and discussion that's a bit more extensive than 500 characters.
How do I find character limit info for the servers?