It is here that I find the genesis of a potential theory of consent. I believe that there are two varieties – at least – of consent that we refer to by the same name, despite being distinct from one another. I have decided to call these “opt-out” and “opt-in” consent until better terminology presents itself.
Read MoreRecently, I’ve been looking at processes of consensus decision-making, and I’ve grown more and more skeptical of the idea of unanimity. It seems to me that, when everyone is in perfect agreement, there isn’t actually that much thought going on, and that the decisions reached are actually some of the lazier, less-interesting approaches.
Read MoreI call this “the social zamboni.” It is something that smooths out the rough edges and fields of intensity. I do not think that this particular social formation is one that was designed – such thinking would be conspiracism – but one that has gradually emerged to make the environment in which it occurs more stable.
Read MoreThe policies in question aren’t ignored per se, but there’s wiggle room. There always is. What a policy like a workplace rule or a statement in a syllabus is, is actually a limit. This is the line that you can get in trouble after crossing. You won’t necessarily, every single time, and under ideal conditions it will apply every time, but if you’re taking part in this enterprise, what you’re agreeing to is the fiction that this line matters.
Read MoreThe mirror of terraforming is “xenoforming” — think here of the “red weed” mentioned in H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds, making the Earth alien-like, or of the strangeness from the Southern Reach Trilogy. Gentrification is like xenoforming. It isn’t some extraterrestrial force though, no little green men are showing up to pry off the old house numbers and put up the addresses rendered in metal Neutraface, the official font of gentrification.
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