Intro to The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class by Guy Standing (Audio)

To start this series, I introduce the author Guy Standing and discuss a few prominent themes in his book The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class. Standing writes in the 2017 preface: “Those in the precariat have lives dominated by insecurity, uncertainty, debt and humiliation. They are denizens rather than citizens, losing cultural, civil, social, political and economic rights built upper generations. The precariat is the first class in history to labour and work at a lower level than the schooling it typically acquires.” … More Intro to The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class by Guy Standing (Audio)

Intro to The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class by Guy Standing (Video)

To start this series, I introduce the author Guy Standing and discuss a few prominent themes in his book The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class. Standing writes in the 2017 preface: “Those in the precariat have lives dominated by insecurity, uncertainty, debt and humiliation. They are denizens rather than citizens, losing cultural, civil, social, political and economic rights built upper generations. The precariat is the first class in history to labour and work at a lower level than the schooling it typically acquires.” … More Intro to The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class by Guy Standing (Video)

The Sins of the Scientists–Did They Fail Us? (Wark 6 Audio)

Thinking about Ch. 5 in McKenzie Wark’s Capital is Dead: Is This Something Worse?, I dwell on how the scientists and technologists might have been able to make the world truly better rather than more dangerous and polluted. We still look at them as our heroes and saviors. But they’ve done more harm than good, at least arguably. Who or what is responsible for their status as tools of corporate profit-seeking and national security? What light does this unorthodox view of scientists (not as our saviors but as a large part of the problem) have to say about if and how we can deal with our environmental problems. Is there any reason to think that the scientific and technical hacker class can rise to the occasion and use their latent imagination to create pathways to a better way of life? … More The Sins of the Scientists–Did They Fail Us? (Wark 6 Audio)