Category Archives: Occupy Wall Street

Naomi Klein: How science is telling us all to revolt

In December 2012, a pink-haired complex systems researcher named Brad Werner made his way through the throng of 24,000 earth and space scientists at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union, held annually in San Francisco. This year’s conference … Continue reading

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Hacking Your Education, part 2

Second part of a talk given to UNT”s Seven Circles, the Interdisciplinary Student Association. Watch part one here.

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Bernanke to Economists: More Philosophy, Please – Businessweek

Less economics and more philosophy… On Monday, Ben Bernanke wasn’t talking like a scientist. He was talking like a philosopher. “The ultimate purpose of economics, of course, is to understand and promote the enhancement of well-being,” he said. To a … Continue reading

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Occupy Impact – the 1st Annual CASRAI International Conference | CASRAI

These guys are on the right track, if you ask me! We feel the ‘occupy’ meme fits the subject well. In our case occupy is not about protest or revolution. It is about getting inside a difficult issue and tackling … Continue reading

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The Case for Breaking Up With Your Parents

While Lambert, author of “Nonstop,” admires the multitasking undergraduates Harvard attracts, he also worries about the intellectual and emotional costs of such all-consuming busyness. In a turn toward gravitas, he quotes the French film director Jean Renoir’s observation that “the … Continue reading

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Jobs Few, College Graduates Flock to Unpaid Internships

Confronting the worst job market in decades, many college graduates who expected to land paid jobs are turning to unpaid internships to try to get a foot in an employer’s door. While unpaid postcollege internships have long existed in the … Continue reading

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Academia Becomes Occupied With Occupy Movement

Academics across the country have embraced the movement since it emerged in September, organizing classes, publishing reams of commentary and issuing calls to “occupy” not just Wall Street but also sociology, anthropology, history, philosophy or the entire “academic vampire squid”itself, as … Continue reading

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Reforming Laws Governing Student Debt

“Student debt poses a large and growing threat to the stability of our economy,” Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan testified March 20 before a U.S. Senate judiciary subcommittee hearing in Washington on the looming student debt crisis. “Just as the housing … Continue reading

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What Isn’t for Sale?

In this essay for The Atlantic, Harvard political philosopher Michael Sandel (whose course on Justice is available for free online) asks a much-needed question: what are the hidden social costs of free market triumphalism? While it is certainly true that … Continue reading

Posted in Accountability, Degrowth Economics, Occupy Wall Street, Open Access, Public Philosophizing, Sustainability, Risk Management, & Long-Term Security | 1 Comment

A Call to Reform Student Debt Laws

The National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys has issued a report cautioning that the growing social strain of student loan debt could culminate in a financial crisis akin to the bursting of the mortgage debt bubble. Their primary policy recommendation … Continue reading

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The Existential Logic of Scapegoating

My longtime companion & I are reading David Hume together right now. I have so enjoyed dipping back into his viewpoint and seeing how much his work influenced my entire professional vocation as a philosopher. I think the influence has … Continue reading

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Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Ignorance

The less people know about important complex issues such as the economy, energy consumption and the environment, the more they want to avoid becoming well-informed, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association. And the more urgent the … Continue reading

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‘Fracking’ (and its risks) Goes Global

Ian Urbina at the New York Times has written another excellent piece on the character of the economic momentum behind and environmental risks of hydraulic fracturing: this time in a global context. He focuses on South Africa, but Poland, Peru, … Continue reading

Posted in Accountability, Climate Change, Degrowth Economics, Environmental policy, Gas Fracking, Occupy Wall Street, Open Access, Science and technology ramifications, Sustainability, Risk Management, & Long-Term Security, TechnoScience & Technoscientism | 3 Comments

The Successful Secede

This is something I have been talking about now for almost three years. The realization was a logical outcome of following the critiques of Serge Latouche, Michel Foucault and a few others. I am not quite sure why more academics … Continue reading

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The Global Information Network

Is this the elites’ (some call them the 1%) version of the Public Philosophy Network??? GIN is a global group of like minded highly influential, affluent, and freedom-orientated people from various business, social and economic sectors. The goal of GIN … Continue reading

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Unprecedented Chinese Uprisings

China is no stranger to popular uprisings, but current protests in Guangdong province are unlike any in recent memory.  Activists in the village of Wukan have been fighting the corrupt seizure of land for commercial development for years, but when … Continue reading

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For-Profit College Rules Scaled Back After Lobbying

If the last post didn’t convince you of the surge in corporate profiteering from publicly-funded education, here’s yet another instance of this trend: Last year, the Obama administration vowed to stop for-profit colleges from luring students with false promises. In an … Continue reading

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Online Schools Score Better on Wall Street Than in Classrooms

The financialization of “public” education is gaining steam at ever lower grade levels: By almost every educational measure, the Agora Cyber Charter School is failing. Nearly 60 percent of its students are behind grade level in math. Nearly 50 percent … Continue reading

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Philosophy of Occupy Wall Street

Evan Selinger and Thomas Seager have co-authored two articles on the Occupy movement that are well worth reading. One, in Slate, discusses an ethical shift in younger members of society. The other, in The Atlantic, discusses why the Occupy movement … Continue reading

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The Entrepreneurial Generation – NYTimes.com

The self today is an entrepreneurial self, a self that’s packaged to be sold. I think Deresiewicz has this backward, though — the self today is packaged to be sold because we are in an entrepreneurial age. And that need … Continue reading

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The African-American people and the Occupy Wall Street Movement: why are they dissonant?

Writer Stacey Patton (who has herself a past of struggles against the system) tells us a few interesting motives regarding why the African-American people are not participating (at least not en masse) in the Occupy Wall Street Movement. We could … Continue reading

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The Branding of the Occupy Movement

Kalle Lasn, the longtime editor of the anticonsumerist magazine Adbusters, did not invent the anger that has been feeding the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations across the United States. But he did brand it. Last summer, as uprisings shook the Middle East and … Continue reading

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The Unbearable Lightness of Forgiveness

Rob Johnson, a former banker and former investment partner with George Soros, now heads the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET). He endorses debt reduction because social destruction is the great uncalculated cost of doing nothing. “There are so many … Continue reading

Posted in Degrowth Economics, Occupy Wall Street, Sustainability, Risk Management, & Long-Term Security, TechnoScience & Technoscientism | 1 Comment

A visit to Zuccotti Park

It was a pleasant Sunday afternoon when I went to Zuccotti Park in New York – precisely on November 13. Finally I was in the middle of this famous protest. After all, it now has a worldwide notoriety – I … Continue reading

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Rebels Without an Ideological Cause

It is clear (although perhaps not to Fox News viewers) that we are living in a moment of historic political resistance. The “Arab Spring” is convulsing the political regimes of the Middle East and the “Occupy” movement is emerging as … Continue reading

Posted in Degrowth Economics, Occupy Wall Street, Open Access, Sustainability, Risk Management, & Long-Term Security | 2 Comments