Re: Wash Post: Greta Thunberg weaponized shame in an era of shamelessness)

[Morlock Elloi]

The centralized censorship illustrates the heavy investment in this 
thing. Search for "#gretaisyourgod":


- 1 result on TWTR.
- 23 results on GOOG
- 7 results on duckduckgo
- 0 on MSFT (it's unconditionally converted to "great is your god")

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Re: Wash Post: Greta Thunberg weaponized shame in an era of shamelessness

[bronac ferran]

Thank you 'Morlock'

I had no idea you were so young and so witty


B

On Wed, 2 Oct 2019 at 02:45, Morlock Elloi  wrote:

> Towards "extremely careful social discourse":
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FN7r0Rr1Qyc
>
> #  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
> #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
> #  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
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> #  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
> #  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
>


-- 
Bronaċ
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Re: Wash Post: Greta Thunberg weaponized shame in an era of shamelessness

[bronac ferran]

Many thanks for clarifying Molly.

All best wishes

B

On Wed, 2 Oct 2019 at 02:15, Molly Hankwitz  wrote:

> Bronac
>
> Admittedly, my argument as you call it was not perfectly worked out before
> writing. I admit it was joyful and excited—somewhat emotional and perhaps
> too spontaneous for a nettime audience accustomed to extremely careful
> social discourse.
>
> Obviously, many, including myself, admire all of these figures — and more
> in today’s ether.
>
> It seems I really messed up regarding GTs effects upon the US in her visit
> here. I think she’s great. Obviously, she is impactful and plays a role in
> discussions elsewhere.
>
> Clearly living in a miasma of spectacle.
>
> Thank you for the Guardian link. I look forward to reading any healthy
> critique.
>
> Molly
>
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 1, 2019 at 3:31 AM bronac ferran  wrote:
>
>> I was troubled reading your last few comments Molly in this post below.
>> It seemed you were either  adopting what Suzanne Moore has called out as a
>> patriarchal critique:
>>
>> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/01/greta-thunbergs-defiance-upsets-the-patriarchy-and-its-wonderful
>> or trying to find another tone, based on a 'like' option, that seems
>> leaves an equally chilling effect.
>> One way or another it has affirmed for me the current failure of nettime
>> as Felix noted on the radio broadcast to offer any kind of counter-or
>> anti-environment to what goes down on social and mainstream media. I may
>> have misinterpreted your comment, but as Liz rightly, the thrust of your
>> argument seemed weird. I also can't recognise any real understanding of
>> performance art in your abstract adoption of the term 'no one'.
>>
>> B
>>
>> On Fri, 27 Sep 2019 at 04:42, Molly Hankwitz 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear Ted and Felix,
>>>
>>> Thank you these links. I have been following Ms. Thunberg with a mix of
>>> rapt interest, admiration, and fabulous disbelief at her courage for some
>>> time. I have picked up, now, on some of the bile that Monica Hesse bites
>>> into which is being directed at Greta by such patrons of insanity as FOX
>>> and Breitbart and their White House cohort, Mr. T.
>>>
>>> What totally fascinates, and I’d agree with Felix here about some of the
>>> reasons and the “threat” itself as it’s perceived, is this absolutely
>>> stellar decade we are living in that we should find ourselves amidst the
>>> likes of Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, and Greta Thunberg.
>>>
>>> How is it that from out of today’s heady mix of problems - perpetual
>>> war, lying government, climate change ignorance —come these public figures
>>> who have swum upstream to surface and call out the lack of truth and
>>> justice?
>>>
>>> I find this so interesting —this age of networked publics, and social
>>> media and the advance of issues into a never-before witnessed - in the same
>>> mix of feedback loop — weird -tactical-media event (to borrow Wark’s
>>> phrase) that creates a critical outside - in globalized terms - Thunberg
>>> and Assange both from other countries yet directly energy to US. Is it
>>> correct to think of these persons as similar? They are almost like
>>> performance art. Spectacular but also sincere. No one wants or likes them.
>>> They may succumb to too harsh a light.
>>>
>>> Molly
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Thu, Sep 26, 2019 at 7:49 AM tbyfield  wrote:
>>>
 [a little collaborative text-filtering]

 <

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/greta-thunberg-weaponized-shame-in-an-era-of-shamelessness/2019/09/25/66e3ec78-deea-11e9-8dc8-498eabc129a0_story.html
 >

 Greta Thunberg weaponized shame in an era of shamelessness

 By Monica Hesse
 Columnist
 September 25 at 11:24 AM

 A vocal cohort of fully grown human adults seems unable to deal with
 Greta Thunberg.

 The 16-year-old Swedish climate activist, as you might have heard, gave
 a scorching speech at the United Nations on Monday. "We are in the
 beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and
 fairy tales of eternal economic growth," she admonished a crowd of
 world
 leaders. "How dare you."

 Oh, but they hadn't even *begun* to dare.

 That evening, pundit Michael Knowles went on Fox News and referred to
 Thunberg, who has Asperger's syndrome, as "a mentally ill Swedish child
 who is being exploited by her parents and by the international left."

 On the Fox show "The Ingraham Angle," host Laura Ingraham compared
 Thunberg's physical appearance to a character from a horror movie, then
 quipped, "I can't wait for Stephen King's sequel, 'Children of the
 Climate.' "

 "I can't tell if Greta needs a spanking or a psychological
 intervention," tweeted Breitbart columnist John Nolte. And, actually,
 if
 you're in the mood to be unsettled, then I'll wait here while you
 search
 Twitter for "Thunberg" and 

Re: Wash Post: Greta Thunberg weaponized shame in an era of shamelessness

[Carsten Agger]

On 10/2/19 10:25 AM, mp wrote:
>
> Volume I:
>
> In ACT I, I disclose that Greta Thunberg, the current child prodigy and
> face of the youth movement to combat climate change, serves as special
> youth advisor and trustee to the burgeoning mainstream tech start-up, We
> Don’t Have Time. I then explore the ambitions behind the tech company We
> Don’t Have Time.
For what it's worth, Greta Thunberg has responded to this and made clear
that her affiliation with "We don't Have Time" were only ever peripheral
and is now history:

"I was briefly a youth advisor for the board of the non profit
foundation “We don’t have time”. It turns out they used my name as part
of another branch of their organisation that is a start up business.
They have admitted clearly that they did so without the knowledge of me
or my family. I no longer have any connection to “We don’t have time”.
Nor has anyone in my family. They have deeply apologised and I have
accepted their apology."

It seems this would implode the whole argument in "The manufacturing of"
etc.

Below I copy her statement in its entirety.

/Carsten

(from:
https://www.facebook.com/gretathunbergsweden/photos/a.733630957004727/767646850269804/)
Recently I’ve seen many rumors circulating about me and enormous amounts
of hate. This is no surprise to me. I know that since most people are
not aware of the full meaning of the climate crisis (which is
understandable since it has never been treated as a crisis) a school
strike for the climate would seem very strange to people in general.
So let me make some things clear about my school strike.

In may 2018 I was one of the winners in a writing competition about the
environment held by Svenska Dagbladet, a Swedish newspaper. I got my
article published and some people contacted me, among others was Bo
Thorén from Fossil Free Dalsland. He had some kind of group with people,
especially youth, who wanted to do something about the climate crisis.
I had a few phone meetings with other activists. The purpose was to come
up with ideas of new projects that would bring attention to the climate
crisis. Bo had a few ideas of things we could do. Everything from
marches to a loose idea of some kind of a school strike (that school
children would do something on the schoolyards or in the classrooms).
That idea was inspired by the Parkland Students, who had refused to go
to school after the school shootings.
I liked the idea of a school strike. So I developed that idea and tried
to get the other young people to join me, but no one was really
interested. They thought that a Swedish version of the Zero Hour march
was going to have a bigger impact. So I went on planning the school
strike all by myself and after that I didn’t participate in any more
meetings.

When I told my parents about my plans they weren’t very fond of it. They
did not support the idea of school striking and they said that if I were
to do this I would have to do it completely by myself and with no
support from them.
On the 20 of august I sat down outside the Swedish Parliament. I handed
out fliers with a long list of facts about the climate crisis and
explanations on why I was striking. The first thing I did was to post on
Twitter and Instagram what I was doing and it soon went viral. Then
journalists and newspapers started to come. A Swedish entrepreneur and
business man active in the climate movement, Ingmar Rentzhog, was among
the first to arrive. He spoke with me and took pictures that he posted
on Facebook. That was the first time I had ever met or spoken with him.
I had not communicated or encountered with him ever before.

Many people love to spread rumors saying that I have people ”behind me”
or that I’m being ”paid” or ”used” to do what I’m doing. But there is no
one ”behind” me except for myself. My parents were as far from climate
activists as possible before I made them aware of the situation.
I am not part of any organization. I sometimes support and cooperate
with several NGOs that work with the climate and environment. But I am
absolutely independent and I only represent myself. And I do what I do
completely for free, I have not received any money or any promise of
future payments in any form at all. And nor has anyone linked to me or
my family done so.
And of course it will stay this way. I have not met one single climate
activist who is fighting for the climate for money. That idea is
completely absurd.
Furthermore I only travel with permission from my school and my parents
pay for tickets and accommodations.

My family has written a book together about our family and how me and my
sister Beata have influenced my parents way of thinking and seeing the
world, especially when it comes to the climate. And about our diagnoses.
That book was due to be released in May. But since there was a major
disagreement with the book company, we ended up changing to a new
publisher and so the book was released in august instead.
Before the book was released my parents made it 

Re: Wash Post: Greta Thunberg weaponized shame in an era of shamelessness

[mp]

On 02/10/2019 03:13, Molly Hankwitz wrote:
> It seems I really messed up regarding GTs effects upon the US in her visit
> here. I think she’s great. Obviously, she is impactful and plays a role in
> discussions elsewhere.
> 
> Clearly living in a miasma of spectacle.

Here's a deep environmentalist perspective on the spectacle, in great
detail, perhaps at times a little too conspiratorial for some, but
nutrition for the discerning reader's thought can be found:

http://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2019/01/17/the-manufacturing-of-greta-thunberg-for-consent-the-political-economy-of-the-non-profit-industrial-complex/

The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg – for Consent series has been
written in two volumes.

[Volume I: ACT I • ACT II • ACT III • ACT IV • ACT V • ACT VI] [Addenda: I]

[Volume II: An Object Lesson In Spectacle • ACT I • ACT II • ACT III •
ACT IV • ACT V] [ACTS VI & VII forthcoming]

Volume I:

In ACT I, I disclose that Greta Thunberg, the current child prodigy and
face of the youth movement to combat climate change, serves as special
youth advisor and trustee to the burgeoning mainstream tech start-up, We
Don’t Have Time. I then explore the ambitions behind the tech company We
Don’t Have Time.

In ACT II, I illustrate how today’s youth are the sacrificial lambs for
the ruling elite. Also in this act I introduce the board members of and
advisors to We Don’t Have Time. I explore the leadership in the nascent
We Don’t Have Time and the partnerships between the well-established
corporate environmental entities: Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project,
350.org, Avaaz, Global Utmaning (Global Challenge), the World Bank, and
the World Economic Forum (WEF).

In ACT III, I deconstruct how Al Gore and the planet’s most powerful
capitalists are behind today’s manufactured youth movements and why. I
explore the We Don’t Have Time/Thunberg connections to Our Revolution,
the Sanders Institute, This Is Zero Hour, the Sunrise Movement and the
Green New Deal. I also touch upon Thunberg’s famous family. In
particular, Thunberg’s celebrity mother, Malena Ernman (WWF
Environmental Hero of the Year 2017) and her August 2018 book launch. I
then explore the generous media attention afforded to Thunberg in both
May and April of 2018 by SvD, one of Sweden’s largest newspapers.

In ACT IV, I examine the current campaign, now unfolding, in “leading
the public into emergency mode”. More importantly, I summarize who and
what this mode is to serve.

In ACT V, I take a closer look at the Green New Deal. I explore Data for
Progress and the targeting of female youth as a key “femographic”. I
connect the primary architect and authors of the “Green New Deal” data
to the World Resources Institute. From there, I walk you through the
interlocking Business & Sustainable Development Commission, the Global
Commission on the Economy and Climate and the New Climate Economy – a
project of the World Resources Institute. I disclose the common thread
between these groups and the assignment of money to nature, represented
by the Natural Capital Coalition and the non-profit industrial complex
as an entity. Finally, I reveal how this has culminated in the
implementation of payments for ecosystem services (the financialization
and privatization of nature, global in scale) which is “expected to be
adopted during the fifteenth meeting in Beijing in 2020.”

In the final act, ACT VI [Crescendo], I wrap up the series by divulging
that the very foundations which have financed the climate “movement”
over the past decade are the same foundations now partnered with the
Climate Finance Partnership looking to unlock 100 trillion dollars from
pension funds. I reveal the identities of individuals and groups at the
helm of this interlocking matrix, controlling both the medium and the
message. I take a step back in time to briefly demonstrate the ten years
of strategic social engineering that have brought us to this very
precipice. I look at the relationship between WWF, Stockholm Institute
and World Resources Institute as key instruments in the creation of the
financialization of nature. I also take a look at the first public
campaigns for the financialization of nature (“natural capital”) that
are slowly being brought into the public realm by WWF. I reflect upon
how mainstream NGOs are attempting to safeguard their influence and
further manipulate the populace by going underground through Extinction
Rebellion groups being organized in the US and across the world.

With the smoke now cleared, the weak and essentially non-existent
demands reminiscent of the 2009 TckTckTck “demands” can now be fully
understood.

Some of these topics, in addition to others, will be released and
discussed in further detail as addenda built on the large volume of
research. This includes stepping through the looking glass, with an
exploration of what the real “Green New Deal” under the Fourth
Industrial Revolution will look like. Also forthcoming is a look at the
power of celebrity – and 

Re: Wash Post: Greta Thunberg weaponized shame in an era of shamelessness

[Morlock Elloi]

Towards "extremely careful social discourse":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FN7r0Rr1Qyc

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#is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
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#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:

Re: Wash Post: Greta Thunberg weaponized shame in an era of shamelessness

[Molly Hankwitz]

Bronac

Admittedly, my argument as you call it was not perfectly worked out before
writing. I admit it was joyful and excited—somewhat emotional and perhaps
too spontaneous for a nettime audience accustomed to extremely careful
social discourse.

Obviously, many, including myself, admire all of these figures — and more
in today’s ether.

It seems I really messed up regarding GTs effects upon the US in her visit
here. I think she’s great. Obviously, she is impactful and plays a role in
discussions elsewhere.

Clearly living in a miasma of spectacle.

Thank you for the Guardian link. I look forward to reading any healthy
critique.

Molly



On Tue, Oct 1, 2019 at 3:31 AM bronac ferran  wrote:

> I was troubled reading your last few comments Molly in this post below. It
> seemed you were either  adopting what Suzanne Moore has called out as a
> patriarchal critique:
>
> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/01/greta-thunbergs-defiance-upsets-the-patriarchy-and-its-wonderful
> or trying to find another tone, based on a 'like' option, that seems
> leaves an equally chilling effect.
> One way or another it has affirmed for me the current failure of nettime
> as Felix noted on the radio broadcast to offer any kind of counter-or
> anti-environment to what goes down on social and mainstream media. I may
> have misinterpreted your comment, but as Liz rightly, the thrust of your
> argument seemed weird. I also can't recognise any real understanding of
> performance art in your abstract adoption of the term 'no one'.
>
> B
>
> On Fri, 27 Sep 2019 at 04:42, Molly Hankwitz 
> wrote:
>
>> Dear Ted and Felix,
>>
>> Thank you these links. I have been following Ms. Thunberg with a mix of
>> rapt interest, admiration, and fabulous disbelief at her courage for some
>> time. I have picked up, now, on some of the bile that Monica Hesse bites
>> into which is being directed at Greta by such patrons of insanity as FOX
>> and Breitbart and their White House cohort, Mr. T.
>>
>> What totally fascinates, and I’d agree with Felix here about some of the
>> reasons and the “threat” itself as it’s perceived, is this absolutely
>> stellar decade we are living in that we should find ourselves amidst the
>> likes of Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, and Greta Thunberg.
>>
>> How is it that from out of today’s heady mix of problems - perpetual war,
>> lying government, climate change ignorance —come these public figures who
>> have swum upstream to surface and call out the lack of truth and justice?
>>
>> I find this so interesting —this age of networked publics, and social
>> media and the advance of issues into a never-before witnessed - in the same
>> mix of feedback loop — weird -tactical-media event (to borrow Wark’s
>> phrase) that creates a critical outside - in globalized terms - Thunberg
>> and Assange both from other countries yet directly energy to US. Is it
>> correct to think of these persons as similar? They are almost like
>> performance art. Spectacular but also sincere. No one wants or likes them.
>> They may succumb to too harsh a light.
>>
>> Molly
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Sep 26, 2019 at 7:49 AM tbyfield  wrote:
>>
>>> [a little collaborative text-filtering]
>>>
>>> <
>>>
>>> https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/greta-thunberg-weaponized-shame-in-an-era-of-shamelessness/2019/09/25/66e3ec78-deea-11e9-8dc8-498eabc129a0_story.html
>>> >
>>>
>>> Greta Thunberg weaponized shame in an era of shamelessness
>>>
>>> By Monica Hesse
>>> Columnist
>>> September 25 at 11:24 AM
>>>
>>> A vocal cohort of fully grown human adults seems unable to deal with
>>> Greta Thunberg.
>>>
>>> The 16-year-old Swedish climate activist, as you might have heard, gave
>>> a scorching speech at the United Nations on Monday. "We are in the
>>> beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and
>>> fairy tales of eternal economic growth," she admonished a crowd of world
>>> leaders. "How dare you."
>>>
>>> Oh, but they hadn't even *begun* to dare.
>>>
>>> That evening, pundit Michael Knowles went on Fox News and referred to
>>> Thunberg, who has Asperger's syndrome, as "a mentally ill Swedish child
>>> who is being exploited by her parents and by the international left."
>>>
>>> On the Fox show "The Ingraham Angle," host Laura Ingraham compared
>>> Thunberg's physical appearance to a character from a horror movie, then
>>> quipped, "I can't wait for Stephen King's sequel, 'Children of the
>>> Climate.' "
>>>
>>> "I can't tell if Greta needs a spanking or a psychological
>>> intervention," tweeted Breitbart columnist John Nolte. And, actually, if
>>> you're in the mood to be unsettled, then I'll wait here while you search
>>> Twitter for "Thunberg" and "spanking" and see how many middle-aged men
>>> are eager to corporally punish a teenage girl.
>>>
>>> Finally, as Monday evening drew to a close, the president of the United
>>> States sarcastically rang in: "A very happy young girl looking forward
>>> to a bright 

Re: Wash Post: Greta Thunberg weaponized shame in an era of shamelessness

[bronac ferran]

I was troubled reading your last few comments Molly in this post below. It
seemed you were either  adopting what Suzanne Moore has called out as a
patriarchal critique:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/01/greta-thunbergs-defiance-upsets-the-patriarchy-and-its-wonderful
or trying to find another tone, based on a 'like' option, that seems leaves
an equally chilling effect.
One way or another it has affirmed for me the current failure of nettime as
Felix noted on the radio broadcast to offer any kind of counter-or
anti-environment to what goes down on social and mainstream media. I may
have misinterpreted your comment, but as Liz rightly, the thrust of your
argument seemed weird. I also can't recognise any real understanding of
performance art in your abstract adoption of the term 'no one'.

B

On Fri, 27 Sep 2019 at 04:42, Molly Hankwitz 
wrote:

> Dear Ted and Felix,
>
> Thank you these links. I have been following Ms. Thunberg with a mix of
> rapt interest, admiration, and fabulous disbelief at her courage for some
> time. I have picked up, now, on some of the bile that Monica Hesse bites
> into which is being directed at Greta by such patrons of insanity as FOX
> and Breitbart and their White House cohort, Mr. T.
>
> What totally fascinates, and I’d agree with Felix here about some of the
> reasons and the “threat” itself as it’s perceived, is this absolutely
> stellar decade we are living in that we should find ourselves amidst the
> likes of Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, and Greta Thunberg.
>
> How is it that from out of today’s heady mix of problems - perpetual war,
> lying government, climate change ignorance —come these public figures who
> have swum upstream to surface and call out the lack of truth and justice?
>
> I find this so interesting —this age of networked publics, and social
> media and the advance of issues into a never-before witnessed - in the same
> mix of feedback loop — weird -tactical-media event (to borrow Wark’s
> phrase) that creates a critical outside - in globalized terms - Thunberg
> and Assange both from other countries yet directly energy to US. Is it
> correct to think of these persons as similar? They are almost like
> performance art. Spectacular but also sincere. No one wants or likes them.
> They may succumb to too harsh a light.
>
> Molly
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Sep 26, 2019 at 7:49 AM tbyfield  wrote:
>
>> [a little collaborative text-filtering]
>>
>> <
>>
>> https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/greta-thunberg-weaponized-shame-in-an-era-of-shamelessness/2019/09/25/66e3ec78-deea-11e9-8dc8-498eabc129a0_story.html
>> >
>>
>> Greta Thunberg weaponized shame in an era of shamelessness
>>
>> By Monica Hesse
>> Columnist
>> September 25 at 11:24 AM
>>
>> A vocal cohort of fully grown human adults seems unable to deal with
>> Greta Thunberg.
>>
>> The 16-year-old Swedish climate activist, as you might have heard, gave
>> a scorching speech at the United Nations on Monday. "We are in the
>> beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and
>> fairy tales of eternal economic growth," she admonished a crowd of world
>> leaders. "How dare you."
>>
>> Oh, but they hadn't even *begun* to dare.
>>
>> That evening, pundit Michael Knowles went on Fox News and referred to
>> Thunberg, who has Asperger's syndrome, as "a mentally ill Swedish child
>> who is being exploited by her parents and by the international left."
>>
>> On the Fox show "The Ingraham Angle," host Laura Ingraham compared
>> Thunberg's physical appearance to a character from a horror movie, then
>> quipped, "I can't wait for Stephen King's sequel, 'Children of the
>> Climate.' "
>>
>> "I can't tell if Greta needs a spanking or a psychological
>> intervention," tweeted Breitbart columnist John Nolte. And, actually, if
>> you're in the mood to be unsettled, then I'll wait here while you search
>> Twitter for "Thunberg" and "spanking" and see how many middle-aged men
>> are eager to corporally punish a teenage girl.
>>
>> Finally, as Monday evening drew to a close, the president of the United
>> States sarcastically rang in: "A very happy young girl looking forward
>> to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!"
>>
>> By Tuesday morning, as a cheeky rejoinder, Thunberg had changed her
>> Twitter bio to President Trump's description.
>>
>> Thunberg does not keep to the model of how we expect fresh-faced child
>> activists to behave. She is not interested in delivering a message of
>> hope or in standing behind a bill-signing politician in a chorus of
>> beaming youths. She is not interested in offering incremental solutions
>> for individual households, in urging consumers to switch to reusable
>> grocery bags or buy stainless-steel drinking straws.
>>
>> She also does not seem particularly interested in using her activism to
>> make you like her. At one point in her U.N. speech, the audience
>> interrupted to applaud. Thunberg looked mildly irritated by the
>> 

Re: Wash Post: Greta Thunberg weaponized shame in an era of shamelessness

[Geoffrey Goodell]

Hi lizvlx

Responding to your third paragraph ('less intellectualizing and more personal
action')

The sad truth is that most reasonable adults (with a few exceptions, such as
the comfortable, the contented, and the activists) would not opt to sacrifice
the privileges you describe.  This is for two reasons.  First, the Tragedy of
the Commons: Although the marginal cost to the individual who makes such a
decision is huge, the marginal benefit to society is small and usually cannot
be realised by the actor.  Second, these sacrifices are not borne evenly within
the population.  Quick trips and cheap foodstuffs are even more important for
the poor than they are for the rich.  Time and money beget more time and money,
and sacrificing it is not for the downtrodden, either as individuals or at
scale.

To be plainer still: Just as some Brexiters would gladly sacrifice 20% of their
net worth if they could be promised that wealthy Londoners would lose 80% of
theirs, people would quite understandably not give up a competitive advantage.
Maybe people can be convinced to give up sugary beverages without government
nudging (it's debatable).  But this is a bridge too far.

Best wishes

Geoff

On Fri, Sep 27, 2019 at 05:52:59PM +0200, lizvlx wrote:
> Hi
> 
> I hardly ever post - but I need to say that I find it a bit weird to call 
> Greta Thurnberg a work of art - she is a regular human being and just doing 
> what she needs to do. Neither do I see any similarity between Assange and 
> her. Also I dont see why Greta is doing anything directly to the US (but 
> maybe I didn???t quite get what you were wanting to say there).
> 
> Btw, as a fellow Aspie - I can tell you that it is customary all over the 
> world to call autistic ppl mentally ill (which is not a derogatory term by 
> itself but in this context a terrible misnomer) - what you are hearing being 
> directed at her, I can hear all the time directed at me and my daughter. So I 
> am not surprised.
> 
> Also I do not find the whole movement interesting at all, what I would find 
> interesting, if somebody amongst the adults would mind to sell their car, 
> stop buying preprocessed foods, eat less meat and go organic, stop using air 
> travel when trains are available etc etc, whoa, that would be super 
> interesting.
> So maybe less intellectualizing and more personal action.
> 
> I say this from the perspective of somebody who used to be an autistic 
> teenager who was usually called a radical eco-communist - because I used to 
> really traumatize ppl because I would recycle our family???s trash, refuse to 
> ride in the car and pick up trash in the park. I understand that these my 
> actions were very hard on other ppl???s feelings - I just didn???t know at 
> the time that ppl are such fragile beings that break when confronted with a 
> liveable truth.
> 
> lizvlx
> 
> 
> > On 27. Sep 2019, at 05:41, Molly Hankwitz  wrote:
> > 
> > Dear Ted and Felix, 
> > 
> > Thank you these links. I have been following Ms. Thunberg with a mix of 
> > rapt interest, admiration, and fabulous disbelief at her courage for some 
> > time. I have picked up, now, on some of the bile that Monica Hesse bites 
> > into which is being directed at Greta by such patrons of insanity as FOX 
> > and Breitbart and their White House cohort, Mr. T. 
> > 
> > What totally fascinates, and I???d agree with Felix here about some of the 
> > reasons and the ???threat??? itself as it???s perceived, is this absolutely 
> > stellar decade we are living in that we should find ourselves amidst the 
> > likes of Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, and Greta Thunberg. 
> > 
> > How is it that from out of today???s heady mix of problems - perpetual war, 
> > lying government, climate change ignorance ???come these public figures who 
> > have swum upstream to surface and call out the lack of truth and justice? 
> > 
> > I find this so interesting ???this age of networked publics, and social 
> > media and the advance of issues into a never-before witnessed - in the same 
> > mix of feedback loop ??? weird -tactical-media event (to borrow Wark???s 
> > phrase) that creates a critical outside - in globalized terms - Thunberg 
> > and Assange both from other countries yet directly energy to US. Is it 
> > correct to think of these persons as similar? They are almost like 
> > performance art. Spectacular but also sincere. No one wants or likes them. 
> > They may succumb to too harsh a light. 
> > 
> > Molly
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > On Thu, Sep 26, 2019 at 7:49 AM tbyfield  > > wrote:
> > [a little collaborative text-filtering]
> > 
> > < 
> > https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/greta-thunberg-weaponized-shame-in-an-era-of-shamelessness/2019/09/25/66e3ec78-deea-11e9-8dc8-498eabc129a0_story.html
> >  
> > >
> > 

Re: Wash Post: Greta Thunberg weaponized shame in an era of shamelessness

[lizvlx]

Hi

I hardly ever post - but I need to say that I find it a bit weird to call Greta 
Thurnberg a work of art - she is a regular human being and just doing what she 
needs to do. Neither do I see any similarity between Assange and her. Also I 
dont see why Greta is doing anything directly to the US (but maybe I didn’t 
quite get what you were wanting to say there).

Btw, as a fellow Aspie - I can tell you that it is customary all over the world 
to call autistic ppl mentally ill (which is not a derogatory term by itself but 
in this context a terrible misnomer) - what you are hearing being directed at 
her, I can hear all the time directed at me and my daughter. So I am not 
surprised.

Also I do not find the whole movement interesting at all, what I would find 
interesting, if somebody amongst the adults would mind to sell their car, stop 
buying preprocessed foods, eat less meat and go organic, stop using air travel 
when trains are available etc etc, whoa, that would be super interesting.
So maybe less intellectualizing and more personal action.

I say this from the perspective of somebody who used to be an autistic teenager 
who was usually called a radical eco-communist - because I used to really 
traumatize ppl because I would recycle our family’s trash, refuse to ride in 
the car and pick up trash in the park. I understand that these my actions were 
very hard on other ppl’s feelings - I just didn’t know at the time that ppl are 
such fragile beings that break when confronted with a liveable truth.

lizvlx


> On 27. Sep 2019, at 05:41, Molly Hankwitz  wrote:
> 
> Dear Ted and Felix, 
> 
> Thank you these links. I have been following Ms. Thunberg with a mix of rapt 
> interest, admiration, and fabulous disbelief at her courage for some time. I 
> have picked up, now, on some of the bile that Monica Hesse bites into which 
> is being directed at Greta by such patrons of insanity as FOX and Breitbart 
> and their White House cohort, Mr. T. 
> 
> What totally fascinates, and I’d agree with Felix here about some of the 
> reasons and the “threat” itself as it’s perceived, is this absolutely stellar 
> decade we are living in that we should find ourselves amidst the likes of 
> Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, and Greta Thunberg. 
> 
> How is it that from out of today’s heady mix of problems - perpetual war, 
> lying government, climate change ignorance —come these public figures who 
> have swum upstream to surface and call out the lack of truth and justice? 
> 
> I find this so interesting —this age of networked publics, and social media 
> and the advance of issues into a never-before witnessed - in the same mix of 
> feedback loop — weird -tactical-media event (to borrow Wark’s phrase) that 
> creates a critical outside - in globalized terms - Thunberg and Assange both 
> from other countries yet directly energy to US. Is it correct to think of 
> these persons as similar? They are almost like performance art. Spectacular 
> but also sincere. No one wants or likes them. They may succumb to too harsh a 
> light. 
> 
> Molly
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, Sep 26, 2019 at 7:49 AM tbyfield  > wrote:
> [a little collaborative text-filtering]
> 
> < 
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/greta-thunberg-weaponized-shame-in-an-era-of-shamelessness/2019/09/25/66e3ec78-deea-11e9-8dc8-498eabc129a0_story.html
>  
> >
> 
> Greta Thunberg weaponized shame in an era of shamelessness
> 
> By Monica Hesse
> Columnist
> September 25 at 11:24 AM
> 
> A vocal cohort of fully grown human adults seems unable to deal with 
> Greta Thunberg.
> 
> The 16-year-old Swedish climate activist, as you might have heard, gave 
> a scorching speech at the United Nations on Monday. "We are in the 
> beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and 
> fairy tales of eternal economic growth," she admonished a crowd of world 
> leaders. "How dare you."
> 
> Oh, but they hadn't even *begun* to dare.
> 
> That evening, pundit Michael Knowles went on Fox News and referred to 
> Thunberg, who has Asperger's syndrome, as "a mentally ill Swedish child 
> who is being exploited by her parents and by the international left."
> 
> On the Fox show "The Ingraham Angle," host Laura Ingraham compared 
> Thunberg's physical appearance to a character from a horror movie, then 
> quipped, "I can't wait for Stephen King's sequel, 'Children of the 
> Climate.' "
> 
> "I can't tell if Greta needs a spanking or a psychological 
> intervention," tweeted Breitbart columnist John Nolte. And, actually, if 
> you're in the mood to be unsettled, then I'll wait here while you search 
> Twitter for "Thunberg" and "spanking" and see how many middle-aged men 
> are eager to corporally punish a teenage girl.
> 
> Finally, as Monday evening drew to a 

Re: Wash Post: Greta Thunberg weaponized shame in an era of shamelessness

[Freddy Spierenburg]

Hi Felix,

On Thu, Sep 26, 2019 at 07:52:39PM +0200, Felix Stalder wrote:
> I can assure you that there is a lot of hate towards GT in Europe as
> well, so this cannot be a problem attributable to the "American brain".

Could it be you're judging "my" url by its name? This could
indeed lead you to the false assumption that I address this as an
American problem. Not at all!

This blog is part of a bigger serie called 'The Story of Us'. In
Chapter 4: The Enlightenment Kids, the auther writes:

This part of the series, and some other parts later on, are
super U.S.-centric. The reason is that I’m American and I’m
currently immersed in U.S. society—so I have a way better
understanding of the U.S. than I do of any other country.

But I bet that even in the U.S.-specific sections of the
series, most of the ideas correspond pretty well to wherever
you’re living.

And I think the author is right about this, just as much as you
are that this hate is of course not an American thing. It's way
bigger!

Back to the rest of your response and the reason I responded to
this thread in the first place. The blog called "American brain"
does explains in great detail why the center left and center
right are not willing to do anything substantial about it. Most
probably not yet that is! The blog explains that too. Please read
it, it's really interesting stuf!


PS: I'm not at all affiliated to Wait but Why in any kind. I'm
only a big fan!


-- 
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Re: Wash Post: Greta Thunberg weaponized shame in an era of shamelessness

[Molly Hankwitz]

Dear Ted and Felix,

Thank you these links. I have been following Ms. Thunberg with a mix of
rapt interest, admiration, and fabulous disbelief at her courage for some
time. I have picked up, now, on some of the bile that Monica Hesse bites
into which is being directed at Greta by such patrons of insanity as FOX
and Breitbart and their White House cohort, Mr. T.

What totally fascinates, and I’d agree with Felix here about some of the
reasons and the “threat” itself as it’s perceived, is this absolutely
stellar decade we are living in that we should find ourselves amidst the
likes of Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, and Greta Thunberg.

How is it that from out of today’s heady mix of problems - perpetual war,
lying government, climate change ignorance —come these public figures who
have swum upstream to surface and call out the lack of truth and justice?

I find this so interesting —this age of networked publics, and social media
and the advance of issues into a never-before witnessed - in the same mix
of feedback loop — weird -tactical-media event (to borrow Wark’s phrase)
that creates a critical outside - in globalized terms - Thunberg and
Assange both from other countries yet directly energy to US. Is it correct
to think of these persons as similar? They are almost like performance art.
Spectacular but also sincere. No one wants or likes them. They may succumb
to too harsh a light.

Molly




On Thu, Sep 26, 2019 at 7:49 AM tbyfield  wrote:

> [a little collaborative text-filtering]
>
> <
>
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/greta-thunberg-weaponized-shame-in-an-era-of-shamelessness/2019/09/25/66e3ec78-deea-11e9-8dc8-498eabc129a0_story.html
> >
>
> Greta Thunberg weaponized shame in an era of shamelessness
>
> By Monica Hesse
> Columnist
> September 25 at 11:24 AM
>
> A vocal cohort of fully grown human adults seems unable to deal with
> Greta Thunberg.
>
> The 16-year-old Swedish climate activist, as you might have heard, gave
> a scorching speech at the United Nations on Monday. "We are in the
> beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and
> fairy tales of eternal economic growth," she admonished a crowd of world
> leaders. "How dare you."
>
> Oh, but they hadn't even *begun* to dare.
>
> That evening, pundit Michael Knowles went on Fox News and referred to
> Thunberg, who has Asperger's syndrome, as "a mentally ill Swedish child
> who is being exploited by her parents and by the international left."
>
> On the Fox show "The Ingraham Angle," host Laura Ingraham compared
> Thunberg's physical appearance to a character from a horror movie, then
> quipped, "I can't wait for Stephen King's sequel, 'Children of the
> Climate.' "
>
> "I can't tell if Greta needs a spanking or a psychological
> intervention," tweeted Breitbart columnist John Nolte. And, actually, if
> you're in the mood to be unsettled, then I'll wait here while you search
> Twitter for "Thunberg" and "spanking" and see how many middle-aged men
> are eager to corporally punish a teenage girl.
>
> Finally, as Monday evening drew to a close, the president of the United
> States sarcastically rang in: "A very happy young girl looking forward
> to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!"
>
> By Tuesday morning, as a cheeky rejoinder, Thunberg had changed her
> Twitter bio to President Trump's description.
>
> Thunberg does not keep to the model of how we expect fresh-faced child
> activists to behave. She is not interested in delivering a message of
> hope or in standing behind a bill-signing politician in a chorus of
> beaming youths. She is not interested in offering incremental solutions
> for individual households, in urging consumers to switch to reusable
> grocery bags or buy stainless-steel drinking straws.
>
> She also does not seem particularly interested in using her activism to
> make you like her. At one point in her U.N. speech, the audience
> interrupted to applaud. Thunberg looked mildly irritated by the
> interruption; she just wanted to get on with it.
>
> What was she getting on with? With ruthlessly explaining just how badly
> older generations have ruined things for her own. With castigating
> politicians for focusing more on keeping power than heeding science.
> With calling out liberals, too, like Sen. Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.), who
> benevolently told her at an event last week that young people would soon
> have the chance to run for office themselves.
>
> "We don't want to become politicians, we don't want to run for office,"
> she responded. "We want you to unite behind the science."
>
> At every turn, in every appearance, what she's interested in is making
> her listeners feel shame.
>
> We live in an era that has become impervious to shame. An era defined by
> a president who views it as a weakness. Shame has become an antiquated
> emotion and a useless one. It's advantageous, we've learned, to respond
> to charges of indecency with more indecency: attacks, misdirection, 

Re: Wash Post: Greta Thunberg weaponized shame in an era of shamelessness

[Felix Stalder]

Hi Freddy,

I can assure you that there is a lot of hate towards GT in Europe as
well, so this cannot be a problem attributable to the "American brain".

I think it's an issue of how to deal with the climate crisis.

I see basically three different approaches.

The center left and center right (the old political mainstream) do
acknowledge the problem, but are not willing to do anything substantial
about it. This is, in a way, the paradox of reasonable realism which,
rightly, acknowledges the problem but also difficulty of fundamentally
transforming society. Both things are real, but they add-up to a
terrible political message: we are dying and we will do anything about
it. No wonder the center is evaporating everywhere.

The populist-right is basically rejecting reason and realism, simply
rejecting all evidence, from daily experience and from science. Given
the strength of that experience, and the fact that it is getting
stronger, means that the populist right has reject normal discourse
(which would force them to accept facts) and go for crazy and crazier.
Trump is the perfect example. He did not even accept obvious,
photographic proof that there were fewer people at his inauguration that
at Obama. Why? Because this, not matter how ludicrous, allowed him to
avoid any consequences that would have followed from accept this fact.
GT stands for an attempt to bring facts, science, back into the
political discussion and to demand that consequences are being drawn
from these facts. Shouting at the girl is a way of avoiding entering
into this type of discussion.

Then are two movements that fully acknowledge the the climate crisis AND
are willing to take radical steps.

There is a left-wing movement around the notion the Green New Deal,
which connects the response to the climate crisis with other social
crises, particular that of inequality.

And then there is eco-fascism which connects the climate crisis with
what they perceive as crises of white, patriarchal identity.


I think centrist realism is defeating itself and I wonder how much
craziness people are willing to accept in order to be able to ignore the
obvious. Clearly, quite a lot! But I doubt the climate crisis as reality
can be ignored forever. Which will leave only the last two options on
the table.

Felix




On 26.09.19 17:04, Freddy Spierenburg wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 26, 2019 at 10:48:02AM -0400, tbyfield wrote:
>> Anyone who listens to all of that and immediately wants to
>> punish or attack Thunberg -- they're not having that reaction
>> because they think she's wrong, but rather because, deep down,
>> they fear she is right.
> 
> Does the author truly believe so or hopefully believe so? I
> personally don't know if people are angry because they fear she
> is right. I've more got a feeling that this lengthy 'Wait but
> Why' post explains what is really going on:
> 
>   https://waitbutwhy.com/2019/09/american-brain.html
> 
> 
> 
> #  distributed via : no commercial use without permission
> #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
> #  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
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Re: Wash Post: Greta Thunberg weaponized shame in an era of shamelessness

[Freddy Spierenburg]

On Thu, Sep 26, 2019 at 10:48:02AM -0400, tbyfield wrote:
> Anyone who listens to all of that and immediately wants to
> punish or attack Thunberg -- they're not having that reaction
> because they think she's wrong, but rather because, deep down,
> they fear she is right.

Does the author truly believe so or hopefully believe so? I
personally don't know if people are angry because they fear she
is right. I've more got a feeling that this lengthy 'Wait but
Why' post explains what is really going on:

https://waitbutwhy.com/2019/09/american-brain.html


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Wash Post: Greta Thunberg weaponized shame in an era of shamelessness

[tbyfield]

[a little collaborative text-filtering]

< 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/greta-thunberg-weaponized-shame-in-an-era-of-shamelessness/2019/09/25/66e3ec78-deea-11e9-8dc8-498eabc129a0_story.html>


Greta Thunberg weaponized shame in an era of shamelessness

By Monica Hesse
Columnist
September 25 at 11:24 AM

A vocal cohort of fully grown human adults seems unable to deal with 
Greta Thunberg.


The 16-year-old Swedish climate activist, as you might have heard, gave 
a scorching speech at the United Nations on Monday. "We are in the 
beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and 
fairy tales of eternal economic growth," she admonished a crowd of world 
leaders. "How dare you."


Oh, but they hadn't even *begun* to dare.

That evening, pundit Michael Knowles went on Fox News and referred to 
Thunberg, who has Asperger's syndrome, as "a mentally ill Swedish child 
who is being exploited by her parents and by the international left."


On the Fox show "The Ingraham Angle," host Laura Ingraham compared 
Thunberg's physical appearance to a character from a horror movie, then 
quipped, "I can't wait for Stephen King's sequel, 'Children of the 
Climate.' "


"I can't tell if Greta needs a spanking or a psychological 
intervention," tweeted Breitbart columnist John Nolte. And, actually, if 
you're in the mood to be unsettled, then I'll wait here while you search 
Twitter for "Thunberg" and "spanking" and see how many middle-aged men 
are eager to corporally punish a teenage girl.


Finally, as Monday evening drew to a close, the president of the United 
States sarcastically rang in: "A very happy young girl looking forward 
to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!"


By Tuesday morning, as a cheeky rejoinder, Thunberg had changed her 
Twitter bio to President Trump's description.


Thunberg does not keep to the model of how we expect fresh-faced child 
activists to behave. She is not interested in delivering a message of 
hope or in standing behind a bill-signing politician in a chorus of 
beaming youths. She is not interested in offering incremental solutions 
for individual households, in urging consumers to switch to reusable 
grocery bags or buy stainless-steel drinking straws.


She also does not seem particularly interested in using her activism to 
make you like her. At one point in her U.N. speech, the audience 
interrupted to applaud. Thunberg looked mildly irritated by the 
interruption; she just wanted to get on with it.


What was she getting on with? With ruthlessly explaining just how badly 
older generations have ruined things for her own. With castigating 
politicians for focusing more on keeping power than heeding science. 
With calling out liberals, too, like Sen. Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.), who 
benevolently told her at an event last week that young people would soon 
have the chance to run for office themselves.


"We don't want to become politicians, we don't want to run for office," 
she responded. "We want you to unite behind the science."


At every turn, in every appearance, what she's interested in is making 
her listeners feel shame.


We live in an era that has become impervious to shame. An era defined by 
a president who views it as a weakness. Shame has become an antiquated 
emotion and a useless one. It's advantageous, we've learned, to respond 
to charges of indecency with more indecency: attacks, misdirection, faux 
victimhood.


When Thunberg's noxious treatment began to get attention -- Fox News 
apologized for Knowles's statement, calling it "disgraceful" -- some of 
her defenders suggested that she drew so much scorn because she was 
female. I'm sure that's part of it. The past few years have produced a 
rash of books explaining how women's anger is historically belittled 
while men's is seen as worthy of empathy. We have "effectively severed 
anger from 'good womanhood,'" wrote Soraya Chemaly in "Rage Becomes 
Her."


But I don't think that explains all of the reactions. Thunberg hasn't 
been treated any more appallingly than Parkland student David Hogg, who, 
in the course of lobbying for gun control, was labeled a shill and a 
"crisis actor." He received death threats.


What Thunberg and Hogg have in common, along with others like Hogg's 
classmate Emma González, is their utter lack of regard for our 
feelings. They do not care if they make us feel bad; their entire point 
is to make us feel bad. They don't need our votes; they're not elected 
officials. They don't need our money; many of them live at home with 
their parents.


With every public appearance, they are saying: This is what it would 
look like, to be free to do the right thing. This is what you would say, 
too, if you weren't beholden to donors or viewers, if you didn't have to 
muster the right sound bites for your next reelection campaign, if you 
weren't afraid of sacrificing some of your personal comfort for the 
greater good.


Thunberg is saying: *Aren't