tingilinde

on populism

Isaac Chotiner of The New Yorker talks with Jan-Werner Müller of Princeton

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Given the ways the world has changed over the past five years, has your conception of populism changed as well?

My understanding of populism has always deviated somewhat from the inherited American understanding of that term, which goes back to the late nineteenth century, and the sense that it is about Main Street versus Wall Street. Partly against the background of a European understanding of politics, I essentially want to argue that populism is really not just about criticizing élites or being somehow against the establishment. In fact, any old civics textbook would have told us up until recently that being critical of the powerful is actually a civic virtue, and now there’s much more of a sense that, well, this could actually somehow be dangerous for democracy.

So it isn’t as simple as that. It’s true that, when in opposition, populist politicians and parties criticize sitting governments and other parties, but for me what’s crucial is that they tend to allege that they and only they represent what they often call the “real people” or, also very typically, the “silent majority.” That might not sound so bad, that might not sound immediately like racism or fanatical hatred of the European Union or anything of that sort.

It doesn’t sound great.

No, it doesn’t sound great, but it’s not immediately obvious where the danger is. But it indeed does have two detrimental consequences for democracy. The obvious one is that populists are going to claim that all other contenders for power are fundamentally illegitimate. This is never just a disagreement about policies or even about values, which after all in a democracy is completely normal, ideally maybe even somewhat productive. No, populists always immediately make it personal and they make it entirely moral. This tendency to simply dismiss everybody else from the get-go as corrupt, as not working for the people, that’s always the pattern.

Then, second, and less obviously, populists will also suggest that anybody who doesn’t agree with their conception of the real people, and therefore also tends not to support them politically—that with all these citizens you can basically call into question whether they truly belong to the people in the first place. We’ve seen this with plenty of other politicians who are going to suggest that already vulnerable minorities, for instance, don’t truly belong to the people.

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the bc heatwave

Oragnaisms that can't more or seek protection from heat outside the safe range die.

The fittest humans in the shade but otherwise unprotected from 35° wet bulb temperatures can't survive more than six hours.  People less fit expire at much lower temperatures.  We're getting in those ranges in some parts of the world.

 

audio's uncanny olympic valley

An hour into the first of last year's AVP beach volleyball tournaments a warning clickthrough page appeared on the event's Amazon Prime Video page. Amazon' had been covering the AVP tournaments since 2018, but the pandemic forced a strict spectator-less bubble.  During the previous two years they hadn't spared any expense. Now they had to keep viewers engaged.  Rather than using sampled crowd audio and cutout spectators, they they focused on highlighting the event's audio.  A sports audio specialist was brought in and dozens of microphones were installed on the main court, players chairs, coaches, referees,  along with a number of moving microphones.   The first match immediately was sprinkled with some rather colorful language - enough to trigger Amazon's warning clickthrough.  

 

Watching the matches was something of a revelation. Sounds of the game ranging from sound normally masked by crowd noise to coaches discussing tactics with players during timeouts.  The announcers had been coached to work around the new sound field. By the end of the first tournament the viewer experience was excellent.  Similar things happened in other sports that took the "honest" route. Viewership often increased, while many of the major sports saw drops.  Now NBC and other large networks around the world have to deal with an Olympics with empty stadiums.  How will they react?  A miscalculation could damage viewer engagement.  It's a very interesting social technology experiment.

 

It turns out a lot of work has been done over the past sixty years.  Sports like football (not the American variety), tennis, rowing, past Olympic games, and online games have driven innovation.  Seven years ago 99% Invisible aired a radio documentary produced by Peregrine Andrews on the sound of sports.  It's fascinating and worth the hour.  Listen with stereo headphones or earbuds.  

Roman Mars · 99% Invisible-127- The Sound Of Sports

There's another fascinating question.  How do athletes react to empty stadiums? That experiment has been underway for a year now.  It's not simple.

 

on the direction of the internet

a tip of the hat to Bjarne

will tonight be good for stargazing?

Sky and Telescope looks at a few apps.

 

climate and chicago

The changing climate impacts more bodies of water than the oceans.

 

communicating with the moon...

Fifty years ago - another fine post on the history of technology by Ken Shirriff

Fascinating if traveling wave tubes or Collins Radio means anything to you  .. otherwise perhaps not so much

 

 

covid and the brain

You really don't want this.

On the other hand it's been suggested this is how Republicans could recruit new members.

 

honing the capacity to destroy humanity

pro publica on the boogaloo bois

They're probably worse and more dangers than you think.

snip

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“These groups want to be instigators, the frontline of the civil war that is going to happen in this country,” said John Bennett, who was the special agent in charge of the FBI’s San Francisco Division at the time of Carrillo’s arrest.

“The scary thing,” he added, “is a lot of people in these groups that we’re seeing now are your neighbors.”

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