Tag: civil society
The Despots of Silicon Valley
If you had to capture Silicon Valley’s dominant ideology in a single anecdote, you might look first to Mark Zuckerberg, sitting in the blue glow of his computer some 20 years ago, chatting with a friend about how his new website, TheFacebook, had given him access to reams of personal information about his fellow students:
Zuckerberg: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuckerberg: Just ask.
Zuckerberg: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
Friend:
How Octavia Butler Told the Future
Somehow she knew this time would come. The smoke-choked air from fire gone wild, the cresting rivers and rising seas, the sweltering heat and receding lakes, the melting away of civil society and political stability, the light-year leaps in artificial intelligence—Octavia Butler foresaw them all.
Butler was not a climate scientist, a political pundit, or a Silicon Valley technologist. The author of imaginative and often disturbing speculative fiction such as Parable of the Sower (1993), she was a
12 Readers on What the Rest of the World Does Better Than the U.S.
This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Later, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.
Last week I asked, “If you could change one thing about the culture of your country by adopting a practice or attitude or folkway from another country, what would you change and why?”
Meg recommends “the Japanese practice of bowing,
Hong Kong’s Colonial Nostalgia – The Atlantic
The crowd gathered in a wood-paneled London hall struggled to contain their enthusiasm: Like music fans catching a glimpse of their favorite act peering out from backstage, people excitedly clapped and chattered when Chris Patten, the last governor of Hong Kong, entered to take his seat. They later rose to their feet in raucous applause as he delivered his speech, a lament about the diminishing freedoms in Hong Kong under Chinese rule. Hours earlier, in Hong Kong, Chinese President Xi
Hong Kong’s Democratic Turncoats – The Atlantic
A core member of Hong Kong’s prodemocracy camp stood on the balcony of the city’s legislature a quarter century ago, his fist raised in the air, and promised to continue to fight for universal suffrage. Today, he promotes the destruction of what limited voting freedoms Hong Kong has.
Among the loudest present-day advocates for the national-security law imposed by Beijing on Hong Kong last year is a high-profile lawyer who took up politics explicitly to fight against such legislation.
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