Writing in The Guardian, Slavoj Žižek considers the capitalist global order in a world without superpowers: The "American century" is over, and we have entered a period in which multiple centres of global capitalism have been forming. In the US, Europe, China and maybe Latin America, too, capitalist systems have developed with specific twists: the … Continue reading Žižek on post-U.S. order, Harvey on Piketty, Rushkoff’s new job and doc
Tag: rushkoff
Rushkoff on Manning verdict, Chomsky/Žižek on NSA leaks, looking for McLuhan in Afghanistan
In an op-ed for CNN, Douglas Rushkoff examines what lessons the Bradley Manning verdict offers in the digital age: We are just beginning to learn what makes a free people secure in a digital age. It really is different. The Cold War was an era of paper records, locked vaults and state secrets, for which … Continue reading Rushkoff on Manning verdict, Chomsky/Žižek on NSA leaks, looking for McLuhan in Afghanistan
The Ideology of Scarface, Community as PoMo masterpiece, Present Shock reviewed, etc.
I posted a video from the PBS Idea Channel on Baudrilliard and hyperreality a while back, and hadn’t kept up with the channel since. I recently came across a couple of their other videos and enjoyed them enough to want to share. This video assesses the TV show Community as a postmodern masterpiece: And in … Continue reading The Ideology of Scarface, Community as PoMo masterpiece, Present Shock reviewed, etc.
Next-gen gaming with Oculus Rift, McLuhan on surveillance state, Rushkoff on viral media
Brian Phillips at Grantland thinks spy movies present a fantasy of tourism: The spy is the ideal tourist because he represents an inner self perfectly contained within an outer self that is adapted to any possible location or circumstance. Travel can broaden him by the width of a new sexual conquest, but for the most … Continue reading Next-gen gaming with Oculus Rift, McLuhan on surveillance state, Rushkoff on viral media
Twenty years of Last Action Hero, Reality TV Hoaxer, whistleblower heroics and more
The film Last Action Hero opened twenty years ago today. I saw the movie in theaters and loved it as a child. Having been a fan of Terminator 2 (which came out a few years earlier) Last Action Hero elaborated on the boyhood fantasy of having your own personal Ah-nuld, just like John Connor and … Continue reading Twenty years of Last Action Hero, Reality TV Hoaxer, whistleblower heroics and more
End of 2012 mega blow-out post
"General Semantics and media theory": video of a 20-minute presentation by Thom Gencarelli from this year's IGS symposium. "Game or be gamed: Douglas Rushkoff on prototyping democracy through play" "Those levels of interactivity, for me, recapitulated the levels of participation that we as a society have had since the invention of media," Rushkoff said, referring … Continue reading End of 2012 mega blow-out post
Repost: Netflix moves to top of Internet queue
Last week WIRED reported that movie rental and streaming site Netflix accounts for 22% of U.S. broadband traffic, taking the top spot from peer-to-peer file sharing site Bit Torrent. CNN.com republished the article under the headline “Most content online is now paid for, thanks to Netflix.” The headline indicates the paradigm shift here, the real … Continue reading Repost: Netflix moves to top of Internet queue
Understanding Videodrome: Extensions of the New Flesh
"Might not our current translation of our entire lives into the spiritual form of information seem to make of the entire globe, and of the human family, a single consciousness?" - Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media Today would have been the 100th birthday of Herbert Marshall McLuhan (July 21, 1911 - December 31, 1980). McLuhan gained … Continue reading Understanding Videodrome: Extensions of the New Flesh