://relvokcor.xyz/~cat

Changes since 2019-09-19T02:08:19

2019-09-19T02:08:19Z

Reading Eve (Or, Killing Eve is Over) 2019-06-28

I’m less optimistic about the future of Killing Eve these days. But not, maybe, for the same reasons as a lot of other people.Killing Eve

I’m less optimistic about the future of Killing Eve these days. But not, maybe, for the same reasons as a lot of other people.

Just prior to the UK premiere of season two, Sandra Oh gave an interview to Gay Times which many people understood to deny any sort of sexual dynamic between Eve and Villanelle. I’m not sure we should draw that drastic of a conclusion, but the fact of the interview does mean it’s less likely that season three will contain a “romance” between the two main characters (whatever form that might have taken).an interview to Gay TimesGay Times

The reason I’m leery of season three, though, is that I don’t think there should be another season at all. The 16 existing episodes of Killing Eve constitute a complete narrative, which would be weakened by adding more plot.Killing Eve

My immediate reaction to the end of season two was that Eve’s rejection of Villanelle undid the narrative work of the entire season. We were back at the start again; next year would see them separated and slowly coming together, just as before. Setting aside predictions for season three, the season two finale feels like dÃ©jÃ vu because the first two seasons do in fact have the same basic structure.dÃ©jÃ vu

Eve and Villanelle spend the first half of both seasons circling around each other, always just out of range. The first half of each season ends as they come within sight of the other. Season one, episode four ends with Eve seeing Villanelle properly for the first time, as the assassin chases down Frank Haleton (they saw each other briefly in the first episode, but didn’t realize who the other was). Season two, episode four ends, by contrast, with Villanelle expecting to see Eve and seeing Jess instead, when Carolyn sends the latter to investigate Villanelle’s Amsterdam job. Villanelle’s failure to see Eve, where and when she expects to, is her character’s first major crisis.

Episode five of each season is when they meet. In season 1 Eve dresses up “for” Villanelle, trying on the clothes Villanelle bought for and sent to her. Villanelle then invades her home, and they have their first real interaction. On this occasion Villanelle has all the power: Eve is taken by surprise, Villanelle holds a knife to her throat, and Eve begs her not to hurt her husband Niko.

In episode five of season two, they meet again in Eve’s house, but the power dynamics (appear to) have shifted. This time it is Villanelle who dresses for Eve, and Eve who summons Villanelle to her. (Even Villanelle removing her shoes at Eve’s request parallels season one, when Eve removes the shoes given to her by Villanelle.)

v rings the door bell instead of breaking in this time. she's more tentative, less sure of where she stands so can't confidently burst in and say heyy. she puts up a front with the ridiculous outfit but she easily falters and gives up control immediately in taking her shoes off

v rings the door bell instead of breaking in this time. she's more tentative, less sure of where she stands so can't confidently burst in and say heyy. she puts up a front with the ridiculous outfit but she easily falters and gives up control immediately in taking her shoes off— blablabla (@debbieswilder) May 4, 2019

May 4, 2019

Instead of being threatened, in season two Eve willingly swallows the “poison” Villanelle gives her. It isn’t actually poison; Villanelle’s prank, convincing Eve that it is, and sending her retching to the sink, is what finally allows Villanelle to regain some control of their interaction. She then (once again), holds a knife to Eve’s throat, but Eve is no longer afraid.

The second half of each season sees Eve and Villanelle becoming increasingly close (both geographically and emotionally), and Eve becoming increasingly self-destructive in order to secure that closeness. In the sixth episode of each season, Eve has a fight with Niko that damages their relationship: in the first she reacts violently when he claims (correctly) that she places her job and Villanelle over him; in the second she follows Niko to Gemma’s house (the co-worker with whom he is staying), begins to trash her bedroom, and effectively destroys any chance of salvaging the marriage.

The finale of each season is when Eve faces up to what she’s doing. At the end of the first season, she ignores Carolyn’s orders to return to London and instead follows a lead to Villanelle’s apartment in Paris. After trashing the place (a common theme!), Villanelle returns and they acknowledge their mutual obsession. Eve makes as if she is succumbing to Villanelle’s seduction, then stabs her. At this point Villanelle’s crimes still overshadow Eve’s desire; in particular the murder of Eve’s colleague Bill in episode three.

Since Eve has clearly never stabbed someone before and panics, Villanelle is able to escape, and the first season ends.

In the second finale, Eve only realizes how far she’s gone when it’s too late. Once again she ignores Carolyn’s orders to return with her to London, in favor of remaining with Villanelle. This time, though, it’s clear Carolyn is finished with her. Moreover, in the last episode of season one Eve could barely stab Villanelle, let alone kill her; this time, however, she murders Villanelle’s handler Raymond with an axe. Not only that – she kills to protect Villanelle, who Raymond is choking to death. Bill has been forgotten.protect

Villanelle has been controlling Eve’s life for a long time, but here the metaphorical control becomes literal. Eve lets Villanelle teach her how to kill. Then she allows Villanelle to guide them from the hotel, to an underground passage and out of Rome. Villanelle asks Eve what she wants for dinner, and Eve answers mechanically, fully under the spell. Then Villanelle takes out her tiny gun.

It’s not clear if Villanelle intentionally reveals to Eve that she has had a gun the whole time. She draws the weapon in response to birds suddenly taking flight, and it’s not like her to be spooked by something like that. More likely Villanelle wants to confirm that her control on Eve is total, that even if Eve realizes that Villanelle was never in danger from Raymond, to know that Eve doesn’t regret killing for her sake.intentionally

Unfortunately for Villanelle, though, this is what breaks the spell. In that moment Eve understands that Villanelle doesn’t love her, and more than likely can’t love her. At no point has Villanelle been truly honest with Eve; at no point has Eve truly understood her. Now, finally, Eve is able to see past Villanelle’s towering charisma, and the fantasy they’ve (together) built around it, and recognizes that she has thrown away every other thing in her life in exchange for a violent psychopath who is playing with her like a toy.can’t

And instead of continuing to play Villanelle’s game, instead of trying to stab her again or trick her, Eve just walks away.

So Villanelle shoots her. Because when she realizes that Eve is no longer hers to control, no longer “special”, Eve’s power over Villanelle dissipates as well. We thought we saw Eve’s influence over Villanelle grow over the course of the season, along with Eve’s self-possession and professional success. She tracked down the Ghost, brought Villanelle into the fold, felt more and more wide awake.wide awake

But as real as it seemed, it was a dream.

In the initial discourse around Oh’s interview, I was talking to a friend who read the show as glorifying the cruelty of Villanelle. They asked what the show is ultimately about, and my answer was obsession.obsession

Eve begins the show bored, both personally and professionally. She spends her time researching female assassins, who seem to live lives of danger and excitement entirely unlike her own. So when Villanelle arrives, gorgeous, deadly, and equally fixated on Eve, it’s her dearest fantasy in the flesh.

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with fantasies involving situations that would be impractical or unsafe in real life. Imagining ourselves in dangerous, bizarre, or traumatic scenarios can help to process our emotions and desires. Eve’s fantasy is entirely unremarkable (you only need to browse the fan fiction to see how many identify with it).browse the fan fiction

I won’t deny my own obsession either. I desperately wanted the sexual tension between Eve and Villanelle to manifest in something more than the queerbaiting we usually get from network television. The magnetism that Villanelle uses to deceive Eve worked on me as well, and so the finale and its aftermath felt like a fever breaking. Only with a bit of distance did I recognize how unrealistic, even within the frame of the show, it would be for the women to “get together” in any capacity. Eve begins to succumb to antisocial impulses, encouraged by Villanelle (who uses phrases such as “people like us” to normalize her behavior), but her sociopathy (and ours, hopefully) is not at the level of Villanelle’s. Eve imagines pushing a rude tube passenger onto the rails in episode five of season two, but ultimately, of course, she doesn’t do it. Likewise, she won’t stay with Villanelle once she realizes how she’s been manipulated. This isn’t a smutty romance where sheer sexual attraction can override everything else in a person. At bottom, Eve is not like Villanelle. But in her obsession she lets herself believe otherwise, until far too late.

Now there’s something I want to make clear. Eve is not a psychopath like Villanelle, but they are both gay, no matter what Sandra Oh says. She lets Villanelle dress her, she chooses Villanelle over her husband, she listens to her voice when she fucks Hugo (I’m using “gay” in a broad sense – Eve is attracted to men as well). When Jess brings up how kids these days want to bang Dr Who characters, Eve immediately names a female character as her choice. But with that said, if the story ends here, at the end of season two, is there not an element of queerbaiting? According to this reading, the slow-burn romance between Eve and Villanelle was a fantasy, snuffed out by the events of the finale.

In other words, what is the purpose of queerness in the narrative? Is Villanelle anything more than another instance of the yandere lesbian trope?yandere

In other words, what is the purpose of queerness in the narrative? Is Villanelle anything more than another instance of the yandere lesbian trope?

I think there are a few ways in which it is more than that. One one level, it’s simply an extension of how the show subverts spy tropes generally. Villanelle is an inversion of the Bond girl, but instead of the cool, hyper-competent male spy we have Eve, a woman and also someone with a much more realistic set of capabilities.subverts spy tropes generally

There’s also the established history of women in particular being intrigued by serial killers, but the dynamic between a female analyst and a male psychopath would, apart from being generally uncomfortable, would result in a much more obvious power differential. That would make it hard, if not impossible, for the second season to present Eve as gaining the upper hand over Villanelle.

Lastly, what might be an overly ambitious take:

A common criticism of popular media with queer characters is that those characters are used to claim that the piece of media itself is thereby progressive or even radical. Sometimes this turns on a verbal dispute over whether something can be “queer” without being more broadly subversive, but it’s certainly true that queer characters do not, by their very presence, make a work revolutionary. A story about women in love can still uphold the structures that oppress us. But of course this criticism only exists because the presence of queer characters does often give us an impression of (for lack of a better word) “wokeness”. Given how reactionary most popular culture is, even the least amount of queer coding is enough to gain (not earn) a following.A story about women in love can still uphold the structures that oppress us

This might point to a way we can look at the queerness in Killing Eve. Eve’s obsession with Villanelle is partly fueled by dissatisfaction with her dull, conventional life. The fact that the object of her new fascination is a woman gives Eve’s self-destruction a feeling of being liberatory, both to her and to us, in a way that it would not be with a man. But despite her attraction being entirely genuine, Eve is not any sort of progressive heroine. She is an agent of an imperialist security state who recruits a serial murderer to torture a woman for information about a competing intelligence agency (Aaron Peele’s thinly disguised Facebook equivalent).Killing Eve

With that sort of perspective, cheering for a relationship between Eve and Villanelle because of their queerness starts to feel like the same behavior we criticize when it comes to other media. The fact that they would be two women in a relationship should not let us forget that they are both cruel, manipulative people, and this is not a story that was ever going to have a happily-ever-after. But I think some of us (myself, certainly), were willing to forget this.because of their queerness

Should that, then, be read as the purpose of their sexualities? Is the queerness of Killing Eve just another element that the narrative uses to let Eve convince herself (and us, ourselves) that things are other than they are; that Eve, as well as Villanelle, are other than what we allow ourselves to believe them to be? And if so, isn’t that still queerbaiting, even if on a meta level?purpose

At this point I’m not entirely sure myself. But I think that however we read the queerness in Killing Eve, we shouldn’t look to the forthcoming third season for answers. The two seasons we have can and should be read as complete. Partly for the reasons sketched above; there’s clearly no future for a “relationship” between the women. At best they will collide again and break apart with even more force. But another iteration of that pattern, which we’ve already seen twice, is entirely unnecessary.

Episode eight of season two already closes out the narrative in several ways. The brutal yet mundane ending is a counterpoint to the slow, dramatic way that Eve’s and our fantasy was built up throughout the show. The wake-up is jarring, like the slap to the face that brings Eve back to herself after witnessing the murder of Peele.

The structure of the two seasons also takes on new meaning. The way the seasons iterate – the basic structure repeating, with the details changing – reinforces that Eve is trying to live out a pre-written narrative. Rather than recognize Villanelle for what she is, Eve projects a fantasy onto her. So when things don’t go as planned, we try again, to get it right the next time. But Eve becomes increasingly detached from reality as her imagined relationship with Villanelle is fleshed out and takes on life. When Eve gets her feet back on the ground, so to speak, and sees Villanelle clearly, there’s no going back to that scripted world. We’re left in the real, unsentimental one, where there’s nothing stopping Villanelle from killing Eve.

Anime is for Jerks Betsy Ross Museum

Changes since 2016-12-23T17:54:09

2016-12-23T17:54:09Z

A Serious Piece About Why Noozhawk Shouldn't Be Taken Seriously

A Serious Piece About Why Noozhawk Shouldn't Be Taken Seriously 2013-07-11

I had a little spat with Noozhawk publisher Bill Macfadyen over a piece I wrote for Santa Barbara Bullshit, poking fun at local columnist Paul Burri. Macfadyen said I was just making “personal attacks” and told me to come back when I was willing to “write about [the] issues.”Noozhawk

Fine. Let’s be serious for a few minutes.

Background: there are some terrible people in Santa Barbara

The issue I brought up with Macfadyen on Twitter was Paul Burri’s inspired proposal that Santa Barbara require homeless individuals to perform manual labor before forcing them to leave the city:inspired proposal

The issue I brought up with Macfadyen on Twitter was Paul Burri’s inspired proposal that Santa Barbara require homeless individuals to perform manual labor before forcing them to leave the city:

First, confiscate their beloved shopping carts and return them to their rightful owners—the supermarkets. Then assign them to roadkill or freeway cleanup, beach patrol of dog litter or hazardous waste sorting. Feed them lunches of baloney sandwiches on stale white bread, like Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona does, accompanied with nutritious broccoli, celery and spinach smoothies.

When their time is served, provide them with mandatory one-way transportation to Oxnard.

The fact that Burri apparently idolizes one of the most openly racist public figures in the United States should be enough to show that he’s not someone worth listening to, but his own pathetic, hateful, and unconstitutional proposal clearly has no place in civilized discourse concerning the welfare of the homeless population of our city.most openly racist public figures in the United States

Unfortunately, Bill Macfadyen thinks otherwise. Paul Burri has his own column on Noozhawk.his own column

Unfortunately, Bill Macfadyen thinks otherwise. Paul Burri has his own column on Noozhawk.Noozhawk

Unfortunately, Bill Macfadyen thinks otherwise. Paul Burri has his own column on Noozhawk.

Considering the state of news media in Santa Barbara, however, this is less surprising than it should be. Most opinion pieces track the mindset of the privileged, and are correspondingly racist, sexist, and classist. The racism is less open than it used to be, taking now the form of support for gang injunctions and closed borders or else targeted at the most invisible members of society. The sexism is mostly benevolent, but class-based hatred directed at the homeless remains not only condoned but encouraged.closed borders

It often seems that the sole purpose of the Santa Barbara View in particular, taglined with the NIMBY-ism “Keep Santa Barbara Santa Barbara”, is to stoke anger at the marginalized and powerless among us. They devote a rather alarming amount of space to discussion of “solutions” to the homeless “problem” and, after a recent incident at the local skate park, ran a poll titled “Is it time to close Skater’s Point in Santa Barbara?”. As of the evening of 10 July, almost two-thirds of respondents expressed their desire that the city bulldoze $830,000 dollars of construction because of some water balloons.Santa Barbara View

Bill Macfadyen did not look upon these privileged tears with the contempt they deserve. Instead he sided with the bulldozer crowd, suggesting that the city “just dump sand in the damn thing.”just dump sand in the damn thing

Bill Macfadyen did not look upon these privileged tears with the contempt they deserve. Instead he sided with the bulldozer crowd, suggesting that the city “just dump sand in the damn thing.”

So there’s a fair amount of convergence between Noozhawk and the Santa Barbara View (and Edhat commenters) when it comes to vilifying the oppressed. But while the View is more openly hostile to the young and homeless, they’ve never given a platform for someone to suggest that a local government not only arrest and detain people without charges, but compel them to perform manual labor before forcibly removing them from their place of current residence.Noozhawk

So I called Macfadyen out on Twitter.

But so what? People have a right to their opinions, don’t they?

@Noozhawk

@Noozhawk Your @BroxPaul called for people he doesnâ€™t like to be forced into labor gangs then kicked out of SB: http://t.co/Ekcko9QpDK Ummmm@BroxPaul

@Noozhawk Your @BroxPaul called for people he doesnâ€™t like to be forced into labor gangs then kicked out of SB: http://t.co/Ekcko9QpDK Ummmmhttp://t.co/Ekcko9QpDK

@Noozhawk Your @BroxPaul called for people he doesnâ€™t like to be forced into labor gangs then kicked out of SB: http://t.co/Ekcko9QpDK Ummmm

@Noozhawk Your @BroxPaul called for people he doesnâ€™t like to be forced into labor gangs then kicked out of SB: http://t.co/Ekcko9QpDK Ummmm— A Cat (@dunndunndunn) July 9, 2013

July 9, 2013

(I made a typo in that tweet: Paul Burri’s Twitter name is BronxPaul.)BronxPaul

(I made a typo in that tweet: Paul Burri’s Twitter name is BronxPaul.)

His reply:@dunndunndunn

@dunndunndunn That's the thing about opinion columns. They contain opinions. #nooztalk #nooztalk

@dunndunndunn That's the thing about opinion columns. They contain opinions. #nooztalk— Bill Macfadyen (@Noozhawk) July 9, 2013

July 9, 2013

Silly me! I had no idea!

Now, whatever Macfadyen says about free speech and whatever it says in Noozhawk’s disclaimer that opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by the organization, there are surely things that the website would not publish. I would be very surprised if, for example, a piece comparing supporters of Trayvon Martin to the KKK, which appeared in Taki’s Magazine, would be accepted by the Noozhawk editors. It would not be allowed because, even if the publisher and editors of Noozhawk explicitly stated that they disagreed with a piece in the strongest terms, their printing it would send the message that it’s a valid opinion to have. It would legitimize the idea that black people are the real racists, even if there is no actual endorsement. The Noozhawk editors, I think, understand this. (The editors of Taki’s probably do too, but they’re even more racist than Joe Arpaio.)free speech

The fact that there almost certainly are limits to what Noozhawk will publish is why I was so troubled by Paul Burri’s column. Its being posted signals that Noozhawk thinks that the rightness of rounding up undesirable citizens into work gangs is something that reasonable people can disagree about.are

It’s not. It’s not a position that should be rationally discussed anywhere. The only appropriate attitude to take toward Paul Burri’s Noozhawk column is scorn. And that’s why I won’t be accepting Macfadyen’s offer to write a rebuttal. Some things aren’t up for debate.Noozhawk

But we can still laugh at them

“Oh! shocking!” cried Miss Bingley. “I never heard any thing so abominable. How shall we punish him for such a speech?”

*“Nothing so easy, if you have but the inclination,” said Elizabeth. “We can all plague and punish one another. Teaze him—laugh at him.—Intimate as you are, you must know how it is to be done.”*laugh at him.

Mr. Darcy might not leave himself open for ridicule, but Mr. Burri does, and I have tried, successfully or not, to take advantage of that. What Macfadyen calls “personal attacks” are attempts by me to represent Paul Burri for what he is—an ignorant old man who looks up to other ignorant old men and who should not be listened to. No matter how much of his views concerning the homeless is the result of thoughtlessness as opposed to actual malice, they are dangerous when treated as legitimate by supposedly respectable news outlets. They normalize the idea that homeless individuals are parasites who do not deserve the same rights that others enjoy.to take advantage of that

Paul Burri should not be listened to, and his opinions should not be respected. By giving him a platform, Noozhawk is actively undermining support for the welfare of other people and contributing to the narrative that those who find themselves without a home aren’t quite as valuable as the rest of us.not

So instead of talking with them, I’m laughing at Paul Burri and other members of our community who aren’t willing to acknowledge the homeless as equals. By making them look ridiculous, their potentially deadly opinions might carry less weight with those who read what I write at SBBS. And maybe, eventually, we’ll stop caring about what they think altogether.SBBS

Changes since 2016-12-01T01:59:45

2016-12-01T01:59:45Z

Leading a Horse

Leading a Horse 2013-09-24

I don’t really know why all of a sudden I’m so cut up about @Horse_ebooks not being real. (Yes, in this context a spambot algorithm is real while a person isn’t.) When I first read Dan Sinker’s “Eulogy for a horse” I thought it was a bit over-dramatic, but then I started talking about the whole affair with other people and their grief seeped into me or something and now I’m actually pretty upset about a spambot account on Twitter turning out to be something other than a spambot.not being real

Of course there are plenty of people who don’t care; either they claim to have known it wasn’t real since 2011 (granted, the evidence was there) or just don’t think it’s a big deal.the evidence was there

Of course there are plenty of people who don’t care; either they claim to have known it wasn’t real since 2011 (granted, the evidence was there) or just don’t think it’s a big deal.

It’s not a big deal, really. A great twitter account turned out to be fake, and our faith in others shook a little.shook a little

It’s not a big deal, really. A great twitter account turned out to be fake, and our faith in others shook a little.

But it’s still a shame.

What’s wrong with finding two men in a horse suit

I went back to Dan Sinker’s piece and this struck me as important (as important as any piece of commentary on something that’s not a big deal can be):Dan Sinker’s piece

I went back to Dan Sinker’s piece and this struck me as important (as important as any piece of commentary on something that’s not a big deal can be):

Why is it that everything wonderful ends up turning to shit and why canâ€™t unicorns be real and fuck absolutely everything I hate it all.

OK, maybe that last one wasn’t a question.

But still. If this is art, art is about context. And I don’t know that I have enough context to know entirely how to feel.

Because I feel shitty.

And I feel confused about feeling shitty.

Buzzfeed being attached to this—even tangentially—I think plays deeply into that feeling, because that site is first-and-foremost about manipulating the science of clicks and likes, and if this is all @Horse was, then god help us all. But also “Performance art” feels like a cop-out, and the actual performance today—based on descriptions—reinforces that. You can’t just put a placard on a wall and call it art. I mean, I went to art school and so I know that you can, but you’d better back that up with the mother of all context. I don’t have that context yet, so I guess I’m skeptical, and I don’t want to be.can

Because while @jitka’s right that the publicity from this will benefit BuzzFeed, a company that’s increasingly throwing in its lot with the radical right, what I’m sad about right now is that the New Yorker’s announcement this morning took away the context that made @Horse_ebooks special. Most of @Horse_ebooks’ most popular tweets are still funny, but the composition wasn’t any better than a lot of funny Twitter accounts, and a lot worse than some. What made @Horse_ebooks tweets so wonderful was the belief that a crummy algorithm designed to churn out text in order to evade Twitter’s spam filters could create such pretty nonsense.@jitka’s right

And we lost that belief.

Which is why, even though @Horse_ebooks "got funnier" in September of 2011, earlier tweets from when it was still a real spambot suddenly seem preferable, actually better, because they’re real."got funnier"

Which is why, even though @Horse_ebooks "got funnier" in September of 2011, earlier tweets from when it was still a real spambot suddenly seem preferable, actually better, because they’re real.

Nothing: I am not taught to make any thing

Nothing: I am not taught to make any thing— Horse ebooks (@Horse_ebooks) March 21, 2011

March 21, 2011

Changes since 2016-09-13T17:55:04

2016-09-13T17:55:04Z

Not a Cat

ðŸ±â˜”

A blog, now?

Letâ€™s Define â€œBlogâ€

Letâ€™s Define â€œBlogâ€ 2016-09-10

Once again weâ€™ve all been exhorted to blog. I heeded the call this time partly because itâ€™s been at least a year since I got to make a little lo-fi site like this. In deciding where to blog, the obvious choice for me was my old webshare on relvokcor.xyz, an experiment in nostalgic computing by Paul Ford (who heeded the call during the last cycle).exhorted to blog

If I wanted to just make a website, though, Iâ€™d just make a website, but I also havenâ€™t been writing much recently, and thatâ€™s a shame. Unfortunately, when you try to â€œget back into bloggingâ€ (Iâ€™ve had a number of blogs, but they were usually ~thematic~ and ended when I ran out of ideas or changed careers), youâ€™re naturally out of practice so instead of something quietly interesting you inevitably go big and write something long and self-indulgent which would be a thinkpiece if published somewhere reputable.ran out of ideas

Iâ€™m going to articulate a revisionist definition of â€œblogâ€.

Sally Haslanger suggests that there are at least three different ways one can go about defining a word. The first way is descriptive â€“ going out and looking at how people actually use a word and recording those uses. This is why â€œliterallyâ€ has two contrary meanings according to Merriam-Webster.suggests

The second way is conceptual â€“ trying to tease out the central concept blog from the word â€œblogâ€. Probably this is what Paul Ford was doing when he characterized blogging as â€œamateur prose written quickly and with neither guiding stricture nor sober editingâ€.conceptual

The third way is what Haslanger calls analytical and I call revisionist: here we take a somewhat vague word from common language and sharpen it for a purpose. Haslanger proposes a revisionist definition of â€œwomanâ€ wherein to be a woman is by definition to be oppressed, because her purpose is to abolish gender.analytical

My purpose is to encourage resistance to centralized, corporate-controlled social networks. (lol)

Anil Dash has a long discussion (published, ironically, on Medium) about the infrastructure thatâ€™s been lost in the move towards centralized networks. He touches on one problem with corporate centralization, namely â€œthe mass surveillance of user behaviors by both the giant companies as well as governmental agenciesâ€. Beyond surveillance there is also the loss of control over oneâ€™s content: tweets, posts, and entire blogs can be deleted at the discretion of the owner, which is not actually you.long discussion

Of course Paul Ford could delete this blog if he wanted to, but Iâ€™m pretty sure he wonâ€™t. If I wanted more control over my content, though, I could install WordPress on a VM somewhere (like AWS) and blog there.

Of course Amazon could theoretically meddle with or delete my virtual server on AWS, or close my account for whatever reason. Digital Ocean and Linode are probably more trustworthy than Amazon, but thatâ€™s still ceding some control over my content to a private company. So I should probably set up a server in my closet and run the blog from there, right?

No, because thatâ€™s silly. And even then my domain could get shut down, or my ISP could block traffic to the blog, or who knows what else.

The point here is that absolute control over oneâ€™s content isnâ€™t really possible; at some point you have to trust a third party.

(Thereâ€™s a second point to be made: each step taken here to ensure greater control over your content requires more technical skill. Itâ€™s not fair or reasonable that anyone who just wants to blog freely should administer their own servers. Even attempts to streamline the process of, for example, setting up a secure WordPress blog, require familiarity with a UNIX-like command-line, SSH, the difference between Linux distributions, and so on. So itâ€™s hardly surprising that most users prefer the proprietary, centralized networks that are easy and sometimes even pleasant to use. Tragically, it remains surprising to certain leaders in the Free Software movement, who view â€œconvenienceâ€ as an unnecessary luxury rather than a prerequisite for almost everyone.)setting up a secure WordPress blog

So, taking the vague term â€œblogâ€ with its history of decentralization, and with the above considerations, our revisionary definition of â€œblogâ€ is this:

Blog

A source of digital content which is and can reasonably be expected to remain under control of its author(s).

What does this rule out? Any accounts on

Blogger

Facebook

Medium

Tumblr

Twitter

Etc. On the contrary, while Amazon, Digital Ocean, et al. could take control of your stuff, they probably wonâ€™t.could

Etc. On the contrary, while Amazon, Digital Ocean, et al. could take control of your stuff, they probably wonâ€™t.

So we should blog more! And by â€œblogâ€ I mean publish content to a Blog as defined above, and by â€œshouldâ€ I mean â€œSHOULDâ€ as defined in RFC 2119 and by â€œcontentâ€ I mean ðŸ’©.should

An interesting â€“ and seemingly unwelcome â€“ consequence of this definition is that itâ€™s not a blog if it includes hate speech on a platform where hate speech is banned. Platforms should ban hate speech, so why is our revisionist definition of â€œblogâ€ incompatible with such a ban?should

The short answer is that just because Iâ€™m setting forth a definition of â€œblogâ€ with a political aim in mind, that doesnâ€™t mean that everything thatâ€™s a blog is good and everything not a blog is bad.

In fact, most blogs are bad.

Changes since 2015-01-27T03:15:42

2015-01-27T03:15:42Z