Brainifactorer – … Supplement

There are so many checks … , and though it is often talked about ‘checks and balances’, there is not much done about the latter. Perhaps, as incentives matter, it should be made easier to think more about balances by pitching them to business, talking about cheques and balances?
Anyway, looking at mails I get, things people say or expect, things that are done, promises that are made … it may be a good idea to think more thoroughly about inventing a
think-check
— I consider it as a ‘smart’ [without seeing it as smart it would already be lost] merger of spell-check, brain-scan, lie-detector and something more … I guess, at the end of the day it could be called common sense. But if we would just use exactly that, life would be easier and …, well, actually, we would not need such a ‘think-check’ and could instead think about ways to chase those people away that cause so much hassle and actually frequently hinder us by inflicting parts of their hedonism and all such gadgets as the mentioned ‘checks’ on others.

‘Swabian Housewife’ – and what not only Angela Merkel missed

A presentation at CSUFT/BCC in ChangSha, PRC is available here – approaching a more profound system of national accounts – something every REAL ‘Swabian Housewife’ can understand immediately, but where Angela Merkel’s austerity poster girl obviously missed the lessons in economics, thus being hailed for the wrong reasons.

A bit more difficult stuff (see for more info already here) can be found here, in German language – more soon to be added – and more will be added over time in this space and also here.

magna moralia pericula

an idea at last to dialectically overcome the minima moralia – didn’t critical theory claim that it needs to be critical against itself, thus suggesting that it has to oppose itself ?

Anyway, there is one of such moral hazards that comes to my mind, and it is about a blank that Niklas Luhmann did not just leave as unfilled space, but that he actually ‘created’ when he talked about the different subsystems and their reflexivity, in need of finding solutions to their own limitations: problems of the legal system can only be solved by legal provisions, problems of the monetary systems can only be sorted out by monetary mechanisms, not to say by money, problems of love can only be addressed by love, problems of science and the academia require solutions dealing with truth …

But where does this leave us in a world that is full of lies?

Reduktion oder Steigerung von Komplexität?

Oh ja, auch die deutsche Sprache kann Innovationen vertragen, es geht nicht nur um Braini-facturer und Gainification in der Englischen Sprache, sondern es bietet sich auch der Begriff der Ver-Indirektlichung als Wortschöpfung im Deutschen an. Der Grund ist eine zunehmende Diskussion von Prozessen der ‚Externalisierung’ vor allem auch in der deutschen Sozialwissenschaft: die Auslagerung von Kosten und Lasten und Belastungen, die erneute Umschichtung zwischen und Schaffung neuer Zentren und Peripherien etc. [siehe etwa Lessenich, Brand/Wissen und ebenso verschiedene meiner eigenen Arbeiten, allerdings letztere in Englischer Sprache] und zugleich eine meinerseits wachsende Unzufriedenheit mit einem solchen allgemeinen Begriff, dessen Verwendung hier nicht verworfen werden soll, wohl aber für eine Differenzierung Platz haben sollte. Kandidat ist eben die Ver-Indirektlichung. In mancher Hinsicht mag dies an Mechanismen erinnern, die von den Finanzmaerkten bekannt sind – vor allem die Derivate, aber selbst schon einfache Versicherungs- und Fonds-Verfahren sind ja im Grund nichts anderes als die Etablierung von funktionalen Ketten, die allerdings nicht ‚physisch’ oder in irgendeiner anderen Form real sind, sondern auf vagen, vermuteten, indirekten Zusammenhängen bestehen. Offensichtlich wächst einerseits mit der Anzahl der ‚Zwischenschritte’ das Risiko des Scheiterns; andererseits verringert sich die Wahrscheinlichkeit zugleich durch die mit einem solchen Prozess verbundene Streuung des Risikos. Mit Verindirektlichung ist folglich im Unterschied zu Externalisierung ein Prozess gemeint, bei dem die Abhängigkeitsverhältnisse weitgehend ungeklärt bleiben und die Verbindung auch nicht durch klar zu benennende ‚intermediäre Instanzen erfolgt. In diesem Sinne haben wir es auch mit einer Art von Intermediarität zu tun, die aber doch zugleich auch dadurch modifiziert ist, dass die Beziehung eben nicht als direkter und intendierter Kauslitätsmechanismus indiziert ist.

gym for the specials …

Gyms …. perhaps I am …, well not naive, but simply lacking knowledge, and so it may well be that such thing does exist already – it is so simple, so obvious a source of ‘wealth’ that it really has to exist – aren’t we living in a society characterised by gainification [yes, it moves on]);-)

The gym for the ‘special ones’ ….

I guess only – as I lack experience of such torture chambers: everything can basically remain unchanged. The small but decisive innovation is coming from some forms of add-ons and apps.

Structure:
1) The gym — traditional ‘mass event’ in the collective torture hall
2) Three-D-Glasses – the means to illusionise [yes, I know: a new word, not spell-check approved] the view
3) Integrated or not: ear- or headphones
4) jet nebuliser
5) programme/software with different features: beach, forrest, …
6) control stick/button, allowing to choose and personalise the days exercise … – you may want to start your run in the estate, move along the busy street and turn …. . finally you arrive at the beach …, the smell of fresh air, seagulls …
7) the timer … sixty minutes are over, or also personalisable:  you can choose the ambulant of time you want to purchase ..
to continue, insert a new chip ….
As free sample, I suggest the following feature: jogging through Brooklyn, Soho, Calcutta, Beijing, Johannesburg  … rush hour …., , the first first glimpses of a park, the river side  … just when there is a dense cloud, released from an old bus, truck or a dirty smell from the gutters ….
… to continue, insert a new chip ….

Gainification …

Gainification …. Karl Polanyi stated on page 30 in his book on the great transformation:
‘Nineteenth century civilization alone was economic in a different and distinctive sense, for it chose to base itself on a motive only rarely acknowledged as valid in the history of human societies, and certainly never before raised to the level of a justification of action and behavior in everyday life, namely, gain. The self-regulating market system was uniquely derived from this principle.’
But should not computer spell checks acknowledge this historical fact – or to be more concise: Should not English language be sufficiently wise to accept the term of
Gainification
?
Sure, there is the warning – but should we allow Shakespeare’s Timon allow to prevail?

Who seeks for better of thee, sauce his palate
With thy most operant poison! What is here?
Gold? yellow, glittering, precious gold? No, gods,
I am no idle votarist: roots, you clear heavens!
Thus much of this will make black white, foul fair, Wrong right, base noble, old young, coward valiant. Ha, you gods! why this? what this, you gods? Why, this Will lug your priests and servants from your sides, Pluck stout men’s pillows from below their heads:
This yellow slave
Will knit and break religions, bless the accursed, Make the hoar leprosy adored, place thieves
And give them title, knee and approbation
With senators on the bench: this is it
That makes the wappen’d widow wed again;
She, whom the spital-house and ulcerous sores Would cast the gorge at, this embalms and spices
To the April day again. Come, damned earth,
Thou common whore of mankind, that put’st odds Among the route of nations, I will make thee
Do thy right nature.

Are such statements sufficient reason for standing in the way of innovating language, innovated and then allowing  us to find the right name for the wrong thing?
——
 Polanyi, Karl, 1944: The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time; Boston: Beacon Press, 1957

At least somewhat ‘strange’ or: occupying the occupied

At least somewhat ‘strange’ – or at least remarkable: the fact of being occupied by social spaces and occupying social spaces, namely cities.

It is several years ago that I visited Vienna the first time, and I returned a couple of times. The first time was somewhat unpleasant – unpleasant in terms of disliking the place as exhibiting imperial power. Indeed, having known Budapest already, I joined in the popular saying: Budapest is the ‘nicer Vienna’. The nicer Vienna because it was seen as the city where people, real people, would live. One could surely move towards issues like the ‘Hungarian soul’: a bit of permanent resistance and suffering going hand in hand – Leiden, dass dann führt zu Leidenschaft und Leidenschaft, die Leiden schafft.

Vienna … a space that presented itself to me as occupying, remaining unapproachable, remote … . Anyway, what did it matter? It had been another business trip amongst many. Not so on one later occasion. Actually it may be that I went there for business but in the meantime a friend of mine, Viennese whom I knew for many years from Brussels, lived in Vienna again and I remember that I stayed in his apartment. Another district, in short: Working class Vienna. Much could be said … In a nutshell it was the experience that allowed me to occupy space. Sure, local knowledge helped – the ‘local guide’ who showed me also those places next to the ‘imperial exhibits’: the people’s park, one or the other coffeehouse: and as much as Vienna is shaped by the gallant Cafe Centrale, Vienna is characterised by those Kaffeehäuser that are a bit dingy, humming along with the croaking sound of the violin, the waiters apparently competing in ignoring the guests, the Volksbuhne and those spaces that are occupied the peculiar charm of bohemian, intellectual, critical debates …

Anyway, I returned later on different occasions, stayed in different quarters, though mostly in district VII and VIII. The city gained space, I gave it space in my life even if only for the short times of my stays, always remaining visitor even barely coming as tourist – it had been about short business trips to the government, to conferences, or as the last time for teaching … and of course unforgettable: one year the visit with my students and my friend Joe.

The city gained space, I gave it space in my life …. – even visiting the imperial places as the museum of history of arts – a specifically lost ground which, by the way, hosts also a beautiful collection of Pieter Bruegel’s the older works –, the Albertina and its private collection, the state opera, the Burgtheater and yes, the Cafe Centrale, I visited as well the people’s park, the People’s opera, and the several small galleries and theaters, local stages, the Kaffeehäuser and restaurants … Mixing, merging … becoming a place where the different circles of debates, culture, ordinariness are emerging as a new normal, merging as living space, lived space for some time – not necessarily to be agreed with, but to a large part challenging, demanding to be … occupied again and again.

*****

And Budapest? – Yes, it is still, with its own eccentricities, the beloved place, also the place to meet a good friend …, and yes, there is the shadow of de-occupation: the city loosing its very specific charm which I learned to love, I tried to capture a little bit in the Diary from a Journey into another World: Diaries against nationalism, inspired by trying to overcome personal resentments.

Lectionis et Seminario – De sociali et politica in Europea

European Integration – a failed political and social union?

2017 S. BA-Course at the University of Vienna, Department of Political Science.

A series of fifteen sessions delivered at the University of Vienna, Department of Political Science. The series is looking at the process of European integration – a wide topic looked at under the guiding question if EUrope failed to deliver the ambitious perspective of establishing a political and social union. The answer is by the present author given in somewhat negative terms: we cannot really say that the EU-institutions failed to reach the target of a political and social union … – it is worse: such targets never existed. So, we have to be clear in our critique. This means not least that we are challenged – and may gain sufficient insight – to develop the EU to something meaningful – meaningful not for the people but a reflection by the people – men make their own history, but it is not only the nightmare of the past, it is also a matter of the conditions of the still present hegemons who employ gatekeepers of different kind – even if the princes today wear the clothes of normal people, it is very much about behind the veils of the most expensive princely garments.

The various sessions, of which the recordings [German language] are available, present the historical development, some key issues and relevant theories in a more or less narrative way.

challenges – attempts to move forward

05/05/17

Attributed to Johann Caspar Lavater, the words

Those who do not strive to move forward, are not taking themselves seriously

are at the House of Science in Bremen. It is the venue of yesterday’s symposium to honour Rudolf Hickel.

The symposium is aiming on addressing the

Herausforderungen für Politik und ökonomische Wissenschaft im 21. Jahrhundert/ Challenges for politics and scientific economic disciplines in the 21st century.

The event was organised by the University of Bremen, its Institute for Labour and Economy and the Arbeiterkammer Bremen.

In particular André Heinemann put a huge effort into compiling an interesting programme. – And actually he brought me back to Bremen, to the university, from which I obtained my doctorate. A long way if you want as André and myself actually met on occasion of the Shanghai Forum.

 

Importantly, the sessions and the overall event aimed on creating some space for really reflecting on some of the issues, allowing for more than presentations and Q&As only, and furthermore crossing borders. This did not (only) mean to look at wider issues of political economy but also emphasising the need of developing questions. The evening before we had been actually sitting together, mocking about parts of the current mainstream:

It is not really so important to have a question. Relevant is having data – and then you can define a question from calculating the data in some way that allows you to arrive at some interesting result.

Of course, some answers had been given during the event; and many questions had been raised. For my part, I was continuing [here and here frequently updated information the work] to ventilate the issue of precarity, in this case in close connection with the challenges posed by ‘Industry 4.0’. Soon an update will follow – linking to a text with some background considerations on the topic, titled

Beklagen von Prekarität oder Forderung nach neuen Sicherheiten/Sicherungsstrukturen – Herausforderungen durch Industrie 4.0

the audio recording of the presentation of during the symposium is available and another, more extensive presentation, to be given in early next week in Changsha will follow.

First, back to my students in Vienna … – teaching European integration at times of increasingly disintegrating pressures an interesting topic.

manufacture adé …?

Language – keep it alive … a matter not only of talking as otherwise they will be forgotten as much as the dead are forgotten and the forgotten are dying …, starving to death one may say. And keeping it alive means, allowing the privilege of permanent ‘rebirth’ –  REnewing and reNEWing, the offspring never being ‘just the same’ as the parents ….. the genitori as we say in Italian – some form of generating I suppose.

I often just do it, invent, use ‘new words’ … and may forget them, or not.

Here is now a suggested language innovation I have been thinking about for some days, ventilating the pros and cons and meaning and possible misunderstandings of

the brainifacturer

though not only misunderstandings but also better-unferstandings: the brainworker as somebody who works by immediately transforming brain-activity into what we usually call product.

This issue was discussed – in different ways – for a long time, as for instance by suggesting science becoming immediate productive force. And it was questioned too, as such ‘ideas based products’ are hardly products as long as they are not materialised into something, taking the form of something tangible.

Innovation of language? Or is it more about innovation of thinking and social science: Re-thinking products, values, valuation … production … – what if is about and can be about.