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Caddie Alford

@caddiealford.bsky.social

Associate Prof of Rhetoric at VCU // critical AI, platform and media studies + rhetorical theory + writing pedagogies // Co-Lead of AI Futures Hub // 📕 = Entitled Opinions: Doxa After Digitality // 1st Gen // #TeamRhetoric https://caddiealford.com

539 Posts4059 Follower4173 Folgt
Shannon Mattern@shannonmattern.bsky.social · last wk.

Repair Day is coming up in Oct; I was asked to review my various Places articles on the subject over the past decade. It's nice when an accidental series emerges over time, when a single thread slowly braids itself with others — and you can continually reflect and revise your thinking.

Over the past decade I’ve written an accidental series of pieces for Places about repair: my “Maintenance and Care” (2018), which has been republished and translated widely, examined repair thinking across scales: from software and gadgets to interiors, architectures, and regional infrastructures. My “Step by Step” (2024) then explored the history of the repair manual, and asked if its utility might extend to social and ecological realms. Yet as I’ve grappled the fragility and irreparability of the human body through “Purity and Security” (2020), which addressed pandemic-era plexiglass as security theater, and “Concealment and Compassion” (2021), on the design of spaces for memory care — and as we’ve faced the inevitability of climate collapse and witnessed the cowardice of institutional leadership in the face of fascism — I’ve embraced the insufficiency of “repair” in addressing the profundity of dysfunction across sites and systems. I return to the article that initiated the whole series: “Community Plumbing” (2018) commemorated the sale of my family’s hardware store and explored the history of the site as a vital social infrastructure. It reminds me that we have the tools to reimagine and build anew; we have to teach one another how to use them.
ali alkhatib@ali-alkhatib.com · last wk.

reminder: our last discussion of Techno-Negative will be today at 6p GMT (in ~3 hours; earlier than usual) today we'll get to speak with @thomas-dekeyser.bsky.social as well. i've got lots of reflections, thoughts, questions, etc; if you'd like to drop in and join us for the hour, please do!

[AI Skeptics] Techno-Negative conclusive reflections

Hey there. In 3 hours at 6pm GMT, we're going to get together and wrap up our discussions about Techno-Negative by Thomas Dekeyser ... with Thomas Dekeyser....

buttondown.com

Kai Bosworth@kaibosworth.bsky.social · 2w ago

new from me on the Verso blog: what happened to the U.S. climate movement? what can we learn from it's dissipation? and in a time of quietude, what can be gleaned from contrasts with the data center rebellion? www.versobooks.com/blogs/news/w...

Where is the U.S. climate movement?

In the United States, there is a pervasive sense that the once-ascendent climate movement is in disarray or has even disappeared. The prior decade saw the actions and ambitions of climate activism bec...

versobooks.com

Caddie Alford@caddiealford.bsky.social · 4w ago

Last semester I wrote a hybrid criticism piece (part personal essay + part film review, w/ philosophical implications + political stakes). Any ideas on where to submit it for publication? Most of the usual shoot-for-the-moon spots (LARB, n+1, Rumpus) never got back/rejected…

Caddie Alford@caddiealford.bsky.social · 4w ago

Last semester I wrote a hybrid criticism piece (part personal essay + part film review, w/ philosophical implications + political stakes). Any ideas on where to submit it for publication? Most of the usual shoot-for-the-moon spots (LARB, n+1, Rumpus) never got back/rejected…

Reed Van Schenck@reedvanschenck.bsky.social · last mo.

Just published in "Information, Communication & Society" about how hate sites stay online when they get kicked off the internet. If you've ever heard of Kiwi Farms before, it'll be an interesting read, and if you have not, I'm jealous. Grab a free copy here: www.tandfonline.com/eprint/6G987...

Replatformization and the expansion of the alt-tech ecosystem on kiwi farms

This paper develops ‘replatformization’ to evaluate the re-constitutive practices of alternative platforms. Alt-tech platforms that cater to ‘deplatformed’ reactionary users characterize themselves...

tandfonline.com

Caddie Alford@caddiealford.bsky.social · last mo.

YES + as I always say, once you have more CONTEXT, you'll have decisions to make about what company you want to keep....when the worst of the worst have alway been excited about "AI" re: Epstein's 2002 "AI" symposium, where "superintelligence" comes from, Thiel's asides to Altman....

Tressie McMillan Cottom@tressiemcphd.bsky.social · last mo.

You can read almost any book about AI and get the broad strokes: corruption, monopoly, networked nationalism, and warfare. These readings are one way to get the context — not a “best of” list.

Tressie McMillan Cottom@tressiemcphd.bsky.social · last mo.

I selected readings that together build a public vocabulary for what AI means. The tech doesn’t have to work as promised for the tech to rework everything that matters. That is a more powerful analysis than what is Musk saying on X or debating water cooling science with sealions.

Kai Bosworth@kaibosworth.bsky.social · last mo.

Now available for pre-order: "Unsettling Land: Relational Practice for Contemporary Politics" edited by Preeti Sampat & Andrés León Araya. My chapter is "Settler Pipeline Struggles in the Context of Indigenous Resurgence in the US Great Plains."

Cover image of book "Unsettling land: Relational Practice for Contemporary Politics. " pre-order at upcolorado.com and use promo code SARA26 to get 40% off
Nathalie Maréchal, PhD@nathaliemarechal.net · last mo.

The Venn diagram of political project of AI, MAGA authoritarianism, and global white Christian nationalism is basically a circle. Political leaders and policy experts ignore these connections at our peril

Musk constantly talks about a technological future of dazzling plenty that will extend to all: In the Economist interview, he predicted that by 2036 we'll see such "amazing abundance" that money will become meaningless. But his own rhetoric suggests he envisions something more like techno-utopia only for a select interplanetary elite —after the dust settles from racial apocalypse on Earth. And as he himself has cryptically intimated on occasion, he's gearing up his SpaceX rockets for exactly that future.
Greg Sargent@gregsargent.bsky.social · last mo.

When Elon Musk says "zero" children died in Africa from his DOGE cuts, he really means zero children died who are *worthy of any concern.* It's vile coded signaling to his global fascist audience. From me and @polphilpod.bsky.social, a deep dive into Musk's fascism: newrepublic.com/article/2135...

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · last mo.

FWIW, Meta was fully aware of how these glasses would primarily be used. The glasses were designed to erase consent, and that is why they exist. Anything that they do that suggests they want to ameliorate this use is an attempt to win the PR battle and manipulate public opinion.

Meta Desperately Trying to Ban Creeps Misusing Its AI "Pervert Glasses"

Meta is vowing to crack down on creeps misusing its Ray Ban smart glasses. Whether it will be enough to regain trust remains to be seen.

futurism.com

Jeff Kessler@jckessler.bsky.social · last mo.

"We might do better to recall our ancestral intelligence: the unparalleled joy of a random home run, the idiosyncratic recipe cobbled together from texts to your family’s group chat, the reading group where hours are spent bumbling through philosophical obscurities."

Kendall Gerdes 📚🦕@kendalljoy.bsky.social · last mo.

If you want to call @ncte.org, here is their customer service number: (877) 369-6283. Their team has not been briefed but has been told to take names and numbers. I asked that the intensity of my shock be conveyed, and to please note that I will not renew my membership without the CCCC.