Category Archives: New Utopia

By Vejas Liulevicius, Ph.D., University of Tennessee, KnoxvilleThe Genius of Karl Marx

Karl Marx, was of average height and powerful build, with his fiery eyes with which one could tell at the first glance that, he was a man of genius and energy. His intellectual superiority exercised an irresistible force on his surroundings. Marx was a cynical, disorderly, often idle, but capable of great bursts of sustained work. The outsized personality of Marx would win people over.

Along with his close comrade, Friedrich Engels, in one of the most famous intellectual partnerships in history, Marx brought different skills to bear on a project, very much grounded in its time and place, the development of the ideas of those men, and how they responded to and synthesized many contemporary concerns, including progress, science, evolution, materialism, and history.

Learn more about the most influential economic thinkers in history.

The context, out of which communism arose as a system of ideas, involved three different elements; French political revolution, British industrial revolution, and German philosophical evolution.

From 1789, the French Revolution ushered in a new age in politics, the era of ideological mass politics. That revolution, its radicalism radiating from Paris, haunted socialist and communist thinkers afterward because they were headed in the right direction and then went wrong. It was a model for how to make a revolution and a cautionary tale. Its legacies were the quest for political utopia and political mass murder, then, turning into a dictatorship.

The French Revolution got steadily more radical after it erupted in Paris in 1789. First, revolutionaries broke with feudal privileges, to enshrine liberty, equality, and fraternity. Then radicals deposed the king, executed him, and suspecting treason against the revolution, they identified socalled enemies of the people and sent them to their deaths, in the Reign of Terror, from 17931794.

Learn more about why Marx never envisioned communism taking root in an agrarian society.

A new society was under construction, with Christianity abolished and a new calendar created. Appeals to defend the Fatherland and patriotism showed the growth of nationalism. The revolutionary regime became so radical to arrest revolutionaries as insufficiently devoted. One of them declared, The Revolution is a mother that eats her children.

This is a transcript from the video series The Rise of Communism: From Marx to Lenin. Watch it now, on The Great Courses Plus.

The radical leaders were arrested and replaced by a more conservative leadership, which was soon deposed by a young military genius, Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1799, Napoleon made himself dictator then emperor and presided over years of constant war in his bid to control Europe.

Napoleon was finally defeated in 1815. Many were still attached to utopian hopes of making a new society, sought peaceful, cooperative, voluntary means of association rather than force.

Turning away from revolutionary violence, such socialists, as they called themselves, hoped that their utopias could be realized without killing, but by demonstrating new forms of association. Those ideas enjoyed popularity and by 1835, the word socialism had become current in Britain and France.

Further experiments followed in creating an intentional community. Those included the model factories of Robert Owen, the Welsh manufacturer, and his settlement in the United States, New Harmony in Indiana, which only lasted for two years. The followers of the French thinker Henri de SaintSimon also dreamed of a cooperative society owning all wealth, tools, and land in common.

Learn more about the major questions that shape economic systems.

Another French thinker, Charles Fourier, a clerk in Lyon, spent much time, dreaming up new principles of organizing people, who were essentially motivated by 12 main passions, announcing a plan for a new unit of society called the Phalanstery, a blend of the phalanx, a classical Greek military formation, and monastery, to be set in an agricultural setting. The inhabitants would cycle through jobs, romantic partners, and in general, experience work as charming variety. Fourier was convinced that setting up even one of those phalansteries would be world-changing. He also believed that the oceans would turn to lemonade and lions and whales would be tamed and put to work, so as to spare human labor.

In France, some followers of Fourier tried to establish communities along the lines he envisioned, but in the New World, his experiment proliferated. In the 1840s and 1850s, nearly 30 Fourierist colonies were established in the United States. Among those who found Fouriers ideas attractive was PierreJoseph Proudhon, who denounced central control and organization and instead called for free communes that would be loosely associated, called mutualist anarchism. He declared that property was theft.

An age of many communal experiments, where some preached and practiced, free love, breaking with traditional structures of marriage and family. Such communities proliferated in the United States, which earlier had religious communities, like the Shakers and Amish. In the 19th century, an estimated 178 socialist communities existed in the United States. Those experiments were usually shortlived, but many sprang up and continued to do so. One famous hippie commune was The Farm, founded in 1971 in Summertown, in southern middle Tennessee, still going today with 200 members.

In describing their communism, Marx and Engels, later poured scorn on the ineffectiveness of the earlier socialists, deriding them as merely utopian, definitely not a compliment, although sometimes Marx and Engels were generous and admitted that it was at an early stage of the development of the truly revolutionary ideas.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels shared similar ideas about socialism and communism and theirs was one of the most famous intellectual partnerships in history. Both brought different skills to bear on a project, very much grounded in its time and place, the development of the ideas including progress, science, evolution, materialism, and history.

French thinker, Charles Fourier, is known for dreaming up new principles of organizing people, announcing a plan for a new unit of society called the Phalanstery, a blend of the phalanx, a classical Greek military formation, and monastery, to be set in an agricultural setting. He also believed that the oceans would turn to lemonade and lions and whales would be tamed and put to work, so as to spare human labor.

Charles Fourier, a French thinker, is from Lyon, France.

Continued here:

Marx, Engels, and the Rise of Communism - The Great Courses Daily News

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A lot of people denigrate the value of talking about race and racism in technological spaces, said Ijeoma Oluo, author of So You Want to Talk About Race, which has surged to the top of the New York Times best sellers list in paperback nonfiction, two and a half years after its initial January 2018 publication. I dont think theres a more important space to be talking about it.

Oluo and I were talking this January, just before the global pandemic struck, at One Cup Coffee: a no-frills, more than profit coffee shop that shares a storefront with a church, and is just down the road from a methadone clinic. The cafe is not far from Oluos home in Shoreline, Washington, a city just north of Seattle.

Ive seen the absolute best and the absolute worst in race and racism in America on the web, Oluo continued, in ways that have had true-life consequences for me and for people I love. [The internet] is a space that is just as real as face-to-face space. And we absolutely have to be looking at it politically and socially, as to how its contributing to the way in which we look and deal with each other and how we address issues of inequality and injustice.

To drive to Shoreline from the posh Seattle neighborhood in which Id been researching Amazons growing campus which exceeds anything at Harvard and MIT, the two campuses at which I work as a chaplain, in terms of glittering architectural swank Id had to pass directly by probably the largest homeless encampments Ive ever seen in my life. And Ive led interfaith groups of students to study and volunteer in large homeless encampments.

Speaking of religion and faith, Oluo and I began our 90-minute conversation (edited highlights below) by bonding a bit over our shared interest in humanism, a semi-organized movement of atheists, agnostics, and allies who try to do good and live meaningfully without belief in a God. I work as the Humanist Chaplain at Harvard and MIT, and write about humanist philosophy as a kind of secular alternative to religion.

For her part, Oluo accepted an award for feminist humanism from the American Humanist Association in 2018. She delivered her acceptance speech to a mostly white liberal crowd who tended to think of themselves as enlightened and broad-minded and thus took it in stride when she opened by telling them to buckle up, as they ate chicken breasts on white plates and black table cloths, busily passing rolls and butter and accidentally clinking their water glasses. But when Oluo told them, I need for you to not always be looking for the harm others are doing, but look for the harm you are doing, as my friend Ryan Bell tweeted at the time, you could hear a pin drop in here.

Back to this past January, however: as we sipped simple cups of coffee and tea, I told Oluo about the thesis Ive developed over the course of my year-plus here as TechCrunchs Ethicist in Residence: that the world we call technology has grown bigger than any industry, and more impactful than a single culture. Technology has become a secular religion: quite possibly the largest, most influential religion human beings have ever created.

As youll see below, Oluo kindly tolerated, maybe even enjoyed the idea, riffing on several possible tech/religion comparisons. Like this one:

One thing tech fundamentally has in common with many religions, at least in America is that it is a white mans version of Utopia. And tech especially has this cult-like adherence to a white mans vision of a Utopia that fundamentally disempowers and endangers women and people of color.

I consider myself an agnostic (not necessarily an atheist) toward this new religion of technology, because I want to view tech the way Ive always tried to view traditional faith: as a mixed bag, something that can do both good and harm, depending on the circumstance. But as multi-billionaire entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos accumulate power; as social media misinformation sways the fate of democracies while artificial intelligence intrudes on justice systems; and as the current pandemic drives more of our life online, I sometimes wonder if Ill be forced to re-evaluate my own would-be prophesy.If were not careful, tech could become the most dangerous cult of all time.

Just a bit more context before the interview below, which Oluo and I agreed to call So You Want to Talk About Race in Tech, after her bookwhich was already a major success, but has now reached iconic status nationwide in the wake of George Floyds murder.

This article is the last installment of the roughly year-long series Ive done for TechCrunch, offering in-depth analysis of people and issues in the ethics of technology. So let me just mention that up to now my editors and I have produced 38 articles, with over 150,000 words about mostly women and people of color who happen to be leading efforts to reform and re-envision the ethics of our new technological world.

The series included interviewed Anand Giridharadas on Silicon Valleys inequality machine; Taylor Lorenz on the ethics of internet culture; and James Williams on the adversarial persuasion machine of efforts by his former employer Google among others to distract us to death.

It featured CEOs and venture capitalists disclosing childhood traumas before debating the moral merits of their creations; employees and gig workers speaking painful truth to their powerful employers; as well as deep dives into perspectives on tech feminism, intersectionality, and socialism, alongside heroic efforts to combat cultures of abuse and violent immigration policing within the industry.

Now, to introduce the interview with Oluo: which was, again, completed weeks before the current crisis, but is even more relevant today. To paraphrase the self-described zillionaire venture capitalist Nick Hanauer, another Seattle resident with whom I met the same week as I met Oluo, the pitchforks have finally come for American plutocrats. Weve come to the point, across this country, where my fellow white people and I are not talking about race and racism because were woke, or because we want to do everything we can to make the world a better place, but because we fucking have to. As Kim Latrice Jones says in her viral video that has become emblematic of this period, were lucky what black people are looking for is equality, and not revenge.

This is perhaps doubly so in the tech world, where perhaps not all our neighborhoods and offices are literally burning at this moment, but where there is the most to lose because they could be. Tech is immune neither to COVID-19 nor to pitchforks. If Black people arent able to achieve more sustainable forms of equality in the tech world in the coming years, revenge could become the next goalpost. And it could be justified.

But I trust no one wants to go there. As Malcolm X once said on a visit to Coretta Scott King while Martin Luther King, Jr. was in a Birmingham jail:

Mrs. King, will you tell Dr. King ... I didnt come to make his job more difficult. I thought that if the white people understood what the alternative was that they would be willing to listen to Dr. King.

MLK has become an almost literal civil rights deity over recent generations, deservedly so. But we may one day, hopefully a long and peaceful time from now, look back on the life and work of Ijeoma Oluo (along with several of her peers, many of them Black women) as having achieved a level of influence and inspiration that at least approaches Kings.

And while some readers might need to buckle up in order to take in what she has to say, they should remember that her vision is the more optimistic alternative for how things could go in the coming years.

So you want to talk about race in tech? Lets talk.

Editors note: This interview has been edited for clarity.

Greg Epstein:To what extent has the work youve been doing, particularly since your book So You Want to Talk About Race came out, intersected with the tech world?

Ijeoma Oluo:I wrote the book as a black woman who grew up in Seattle, which is such a tech-centric city, and who worked in tech for over 10 years before I moved over to writing. So its very much shaped by these environmentsenvironments that think theyve transcended race and racism and clearly have not, and also a place where people of color are extreme minorities, especially women of color.

So the tech industry was very present in the book even when I wasnt talking about tech. Because a lot of people in tech recognized themselves and their peers in the examples used in the book.

Probably one of the most watched videos of a talk Id given is the one I gave at Google. And a lot of the tech industry, especially here in Seattle, immediately adopted the book, like, Oh, she lives here. Lets read this, this will be the thing we do for the year, as far as race and racism.

But when I walk into a tech space, I think about it the way I think about just about any other white-majority, liberal-leaning space. Which is that theres a very limited amount I can do in the time Im there; the most I can do is reinforce what the extreme minority of people of color in that room are feeling and experiencing. Because Ive lived it to an extent many other speakers cannot.

[The idea of the book as relevant to tech] also applies because as a black woman, and as a writer, I wouldnt be [where] I am today if it werent for social media, the access that it granted me.

But the cost that [social media has] had, and the way in which its giving, via tech, the exact same if not larger platforms to hate, division, and abuse, especially of people of color and women of color, and LGBTQ community, is something that needs to be discussed.

A lot of people denigrate the value of talking about race and racism in technological spaces; I dont think theres a more important space to be talking about it. Ive seen the absolute best and the absolute worst in race and racism in America on the web, in ways that have had true-life consequences for me and for people I love. It is a space that is just as real as the face-to-face space. And we absolutely have to be looking at it politically and socially as to how its contributing to the way in which we look and deal with each other and politically how we address issues of inequality and injustice.

Epstein:Great summary: [tech as] the best and the worst. I mean, Ive learned so much from Black Twitter, which is extraordinarily empowering. Then theres White Supremacist Twitter. And then theres just the sort of White Supremacist Lite Twitter, that is, sort ofTwitter.

Oluo:Its interesting [that you talk about] looking at [tech] like a religion. I think one thing tech fundamentally has in common with many religions, at least in America, is that it is a white mans version of Utopia. And tech especially has this cult-like adherence to a white mans vision of a Utopia that fundamentally disempowers and endangers women and people of color.

Epstein:I love that image; Id love for you to brainstorm with me: what are the characteristics of this white mans vision of Utopia that we see in tech culture?

Oluo:It starts with the mythologizing of white-male struggle thats at the core of tech culture. The idea that these men were outcasts who built things up from nothingthe shunned ones. And theyre going to fix the problems standing in their way. This is their success story, their ascension. So what stands in their way, are people of color, the women that arent sleeping with them, the popularity and the wealth they arent automatically getting, old-class structures that are keeping them away from the new class structure [based on] who has these skills that they, as white men, have?

And the mythology built around it feels very cult-like, very religious-like. Theres this whole origin story thats not true.

If we look at the founding of our biggest technological advances, were going to see a lot of extreme privilege, and this idea that there are rules, merits that are purely good, [things] you can do to ascend in these spaces that are going to revolutionize things. And in the tech space its really these guys saying [the criteria for inclusion are] going to be: How good are you at coding? Can you debate better than this person?

What it starts with is a fundamental centering of white maleness. And the goal is the ascension of white maleness. People of color can aid it, they can mimic it, or theyre in the way, to be overcome. Theres this argument in tech that anyone can prosper in this space. Theyve removed all the boundaries to prosperity. But the truth is, theyve moved their own personal boundaries, and left all the boundaries to people of color and women in place because they just dont exist in these origin stories, as anything other than props.

What cracks me up is, for a dogma that likes to talk about change and adaptation as much as tech does, how completely closed they are to actual change, especially for any sort of ideological change, and how terrified they are of looking around a room and not seeing people who look just like them, of taking things down to bare bones and asking, did we do this right?

There is nothing revolutionary about what many in tech are calling revolutionary right now. And many complaints people have about organized religion Wait, were still sticking to these rules from 2000 years ago? Were still threatened by change and progress? are things you can see in tech already. And its worrying, considering how recent this industry is, that [we already see tech leaders] saying, No, no, no, this is the way its always been done.

Well, where does the change come in then? Are we locking in at these prototype stages and saying, this is the way its always been done? For what, the last 20, 30 years? Its ridiculous.

But the fervor with which Ive seen white men defend [that status quo of the last 20 to 30 years] and the ways in which they talk about threats to it, also have that kind of religious fervor the same fervor that launched the internet even for people who are beyond religion.

Wrter Ijeoma Oluo

Epstein:To what extent have you talked or written publicly about your work in the tech industry?

Oluo:I dont write a lot about [my experiences in tech]. In my book theres a couple of anecdotes about work; any time I write about work, chances are it was in the tech industry, but its not specific.

The one thing I will definitely say is, I have never been more sexually harassed in my life than [while] working in tech. I have never faced more blatant accusations about my race, and whether it helps or hinders my career, than I have in tech. Ive literally been asked to my face, Do you think you got that promotion because youre black?

I have never felt more of an outsider than in tech, and its an incredibly gaslighting environment because it likes to pretend it has that all figured out.

Ive worked in places that suck on race and gender. And they very clearly suck in a way that you know [what youre getting into]. I worked in the auto industry: I knew what I was getting into there. But in tech theyre like, Oh, no. That doesnt matter here. Thats not a problem here. And it most certainly is a problem. A lot of people think everyone joins tech because they love tech, and thats going to be the thing that gets them all together, right? This great passion thats going to help you realize that gender doesnt matter, sexuality doesnt matter, race doesnt matter.

Thats absolutely not true, because the pitfall that tech falls into is the same one that every other corporation, or actually any other group in America falls into. Which is the idea that true diversity and racial justice is going to be painless for white people and there will be no adjustment. And that people of color want the exact same things you want, and value the same things you value. And somehow at the end of that, theyre going to still see you as superior in some way. None of that is true in real diversity, and in real racial justice and gender justice.

And we need to talk about it, because its not just a work environment. Ive talked to some of the biggest tech or tech-adjacent companies in the world: not only [are] real human beings going into an office every day and facing the realities of a space that does not want to acknowledge issues of racism and sexism, but [that same company] creates products that shape how we interact with each other in the world, in a way that replicates those same issues.

If you cant get your shit together first and foremost for the people in the office, youre never going to get it together for the products you serve. You cant have an all white male environment, or a majority white male environment, and think the product you have isnt going to replicate bias and harm.

And you cant create a product that you think eradicates bias and harm, while you have a work environment [in which] the people are creating it are suffering under extreme duress, and exclusion, and harm. It has to both be tackled at once. And a lot of times I find that environments try to do one or the other, and not well, and its impossible. And the ramifications of not attacking it in tech hurt more than just the people sitting in cubicles doing the work. It really hurts everyone.

Epstein:When you say it really hurts everyone, youre talking about the lack of commitment to actual justice?

Oluo:Yes. And the lack of valuing marginalized people. Even when were looking not just from a, do you like your neighbor?, but even from a profit-level standpoint.

Do you believe there is a profitable future in racial justice? Do you believe you can build products and goals around racial justice? Do you believe people of color are your customers? Do you believe that your product should adapt to them instead of them adapting to your products? Do you want their children using your products, and their grandchildren using your products? Do you want them feeling welcome and well-served by you?

If were looking at capitalism and this is a capitalist enterprise, we cant [act] like its divorced from it it matters.

And even these platforms that dont think theyre related to capitalism, think they dont sell a thing: its bullshit. Its all part of the capitalist world. And its about what you value. Do you think the voices of people of color matter? Because if they do, then the way you tackle issues around harassment and abuse looks starkly different than if you just value the voices of white men.

Epstein:A final question Ive asked of everyone Ive interviewed for this TechCrunch series on ethics: how optimistic are you about our shared human future?

Oluo:Im not more or less optimistic than I ever was. I worry. I worry about how easy it is for people in Western utilization of tech to feel like technology means they dont actually have to see anyone face to face, and they dont have to form deep connections with people, or try to build real alliances, or tie their futures and their sense of safety and community and belonging to other people.

The one thing I would definitely say, that [there] is an incredibly Western-centric view of tech. Im Nigerian American. The way in which tech is utilized in Nigeria is completely different than the way its utilized here. In Nigeria its about utility first and foremost. And about bringing people together face to face, to make African businesses run more smoothly, to help undo legacies of colonialism that have taken away physical infrastructure. To build that infrastructure online so that it can exist somewhere.

When we look at even the ways in which Nigerians use the internet to reach across diaspora, its so fundamentally different to the Western view of what the internets for and how it should be used, and I feel like theres so much to be learned there. If you want to look at where real pioneering is being done, look at the ways in which tech and internet [are] being used in Central America, South America, African nations, and many Asian nations. Look at what it looks like when communities of color say, Im going to build technology that solves the problems that we have, within these limitations of white supremacist structure.

Look at what it looks like when youre creating the internet in a society that values the group over the individual. What does the internet look like then? Because its not the dream of extreme independence in Nigeria, thats not what the internets built for, thats not a goal, thats not what you want for your kids or your family, thats not what you set out for. So then, what does the internet look like when you have a different social structure? When you think that maybe it isnt the idea that were all here pulling ourselves by our bootstraps, maybe were pulling our communities up, what does it look like then when youre creating platforms? Whole platforms created for that? Thats where if you want to feel hopeful about what tech can do thats where you need to be.

Epstein:What a beautiful answer to that question. Thank you. Thats in many ways the best answer Ive received to that question, and Ive asked it of a lot of smart people.

Oluo:Oh, thank you.

Epstein:Thank you so much for taking the time, on behalf of myself and TechCrunch.

See the article here:

So you want to talk about race in tech with Ijeoma Oluo - TechCrunch

In early May, Sidewalk Labs ambitious plans to build a sustainable utopia in the heart of Quayside, Toronto sputtered to a sudden and unceremonious end. News of the dropped project first broke when the companys CEO Daniel L. Doctoroff took to Medium to explain that the economic impact of COVID-19 had made it financially impossible to continue the resource-intensive project.

For the last two-and-a-half years, we have been passionate about making Quayside happen, Doctoroff wrote. But as unprecedented economic uncertainty has set in around the world and in the Toronto real estate market, it has become too difficult to make the 12-acre project financially viable without sacrificing core parts of the plan we had developed together with Waterfront Toronto to build a truly inclusive, sustainable community.

Doctoroff tried to soften the news by pointing out that the urban innovation and green-living concepts Sidewalk Labs developed during its time at Quayside could be applied further down the road, when another company takes on the challenge of building a smart city. But, while not technically wrong, his point feels almost hollow in the face of the projects failure. To borrow a quote from Curbeds Alissa Walker, If a well-funded Google subsidiary cant build affordable, low-emission housing, who can?

When viewed through a pessimistic lens, Sidewalk Labs exit seems to suggest that building a genuinely tech-forward, green-minded community is, at least for now, an impossibility -- and perhaps it is. But I would argue that just as the concepts developed during the now-defunct project can be applied to other smart city initiatives, so too can the projects successes and controversies inform the approach that builders use in the future. If we take a retrospective approach, Quaysides rocky history can provide a paint-by-numbers guide of what to (not) do when planning a sustainable urban utopia.

Its worth outlining the broad strokes of what Sidewalk Labs hoped to achieve in Toronto. When the company first published its detailed plans in June of 2019, the project was heralded as a neighborhood built from the internet up [...] the most innovative district in the world.

If plans had come to fruition, the neighborhood would have deserved the superlatives. Sidewalk Labs intended to construct ten new mixed-use buildings -- encompassing thousands of residential units -- out of mass timber. This material is more eco-friendly, quicker to produce, and cheaper than conventional construction materials. Besides the immediate benefit of increasing affordable housing stock, the construction project could have provided an industry-changing blueprint of how to make affordable green housing at a profit.

Other notable intentions include reducing greenhouse gases by 89 percent, implementing a pneumatic trash collection system, designing a street system that would limit car use in favor of walking and biking, and installing public wifi. The new community would also have an extensive network of sensors that would have continuously collected urban data to help guide resource-efficient housing and traffic decision-making.

According to reporting from the Verge, these and other developments would have helped create one of the largest eco-friendly communities in North America, extend no less than 44,000 new jobs to the Quayside area, and generate up to $4.3 billion in yearly tax revenue. Sidewalk Labs itself planned to invest $1.3 billion in the project and anticipated drawing up to $38 billion in private-sector investments within two decades.

The benefits are evident. Sidewalk Toronto would have set a replicable example of what cities can do to boost affordable living and lessen their carbon footprint -- a worthy goal, especially given the worlds continued spiral into a climate crisis. So, how could Sidewalk Labs let the project go so entirely?

Despite what Doctoroff and other Sidewalk Labs representatives say, COVID-19 probably wasnt the sole reason behind the collapse, though it probably was the straw that broke the proverbial camels back. Instead, the forces that drove Sidewalk Toronto to failure were interpersonal: a lack of trust and transparency.

The city is literally built to collect data about its residents and visitors, the Atlantics Sidney Fussell wrote in a scathing 2018 critique of Sidewalk Toronto.

He isnt wrong. If the Sidewalk Toronto project had come to fruition, it would have installed occupancy sensors into every home in the community to adjust temperature and minimize energy use throughout the day. It would have established an expansive network of cameras and used AI to analyze traffic patterns, monitor traffic speed, and predict collisions. Even the streets would collect data and respond accordingly; smart roadways would have used LED lights to dynamically change lane width to accommodate usage by different types of commuters.

These innovations promise safety, convenience, and energy-efficiency benefits -- and a distinct host of privacy concerns. According to The Atlantic, one former advisor and privacy expert quit the Sidewalk Toronto project after becoming concerned that Google would use the data its sister company collected to expand existing profiles of their online activity. The advisor left after project leaders refused to unilaterally ban participating companies from collecting non-anonymous user data."

Sidewalk Torontos fall prompted some citizen groups to celebrate their advocacy efforts. This outcome is a testament to the principled and courageous stance taken by citizens to protect Toronto from Googles corporate takeover, Thorben Wieditz, a representative for Block Sidewalk, told reporters for Curbed.

However, proponents of the project have long been frustrated by the implication that Sidewalk Labs is driven by capitalistic greed. Were not going to gather up all Torontonians data and sell it, were not building Sensorville, Micah Lasher, the head of policy and communications at Sidewalk Labs once commented.

We face a Catch-22. Companies like Sidewalk need to gather data to create a green, tech-forward utopia that can provide comprehensive environmental and community benefits to residents -- and yet, those residents are unable to trust the intentions driving such surveillance enough to allow the project to proceed. Without trust, sustainable communities like Sidewalk Toronto will never come to fruition.

So, what does this tell us about future smart city initiatives? From the get-go, project leaders need to address trust and transparency. They must adopt a near-nonprofit perspective that prioritizes social gain over profits to avoid accusations of corporate greed, and involve advocacy groups in their decision-making processes. Residents must understand how their data will be used, who has access to it, and what they can do to maintain their privacy in a space where data collection is a necessity. It seems an obvious truth, but it bears saying: when you build a smart city, you need to think as much about the residents as you do about the technology that powers it.

Image credit: Sidewalk Toronto

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Sidewalk Labs' Failure and the Future of Smart Cities - Triple Pundit

Since the watershed moment of the 2014 Ebola epidemic in West Africa and again in the midst of the current COVID-19 crisis, the concept of health system resilience has been a recurring theme in global health discussions.1 2 Although most frequently used in the context of epidemic response, resilience has also been framed as a key pillar of health,3 and invoked in high-level calls for countries to lead the work on building health system resilience.4 Yet, as the authors of one of several recent reviews observed, the concept of health systems resilience remains highly confusing and still polysemic.5 What it means depends on ones perception, ones discipline, ones function and what one wants to achieve.5 In this editorial, I will, from the perspective of a health policy and systems researcher, draw out and reflect on some of these tensions, and make some suggestions about how we might achieve greater clarity.

Building on the observations of Turenne et al, the first point is definitional. In both peer reviewed and grey literature, there is still confusion about whether the concept of resilience (as it relates to health systems) should be understood as an outcome or an ability. This distinction is not semantic. Understood as an outcome, some in the field have suggested that health system resilience can and should be measured and monitored.6 By measuring resilience, it is argued, we can help to build more resilient health systems through identification of areas for action.7 8 But an important consequence of this framing is the implication that health system resilience is an uncomplicated, even monolithic good; a goal synonymous with optimised performance. But a question that then arises is whether health systems that produce suboptimal health outcomes are somehow less resilient than those producing better ones?

The alternative framing of resilience as an ability, better aligns with the now broadly accepted observation that health systems and services are social, complex and adaptive in nature.9 When conceptualised in this way, enquiries about health system resilience focus more squarely on the dynamic nature of adaptation, without needing to make statements about the ends to which that adaptation occurs. This point is critical. History has demonstrated that health system adaptation may steer a system towards improved outcomes (normatively defined), but may equally worsen or protect less desirable features of health system function. These latter mal-adaptive processes do not necessarily imply inactive or linear responses; individuals or groups may be highly innovative and willing to change in some areas, while seeking to, indeed often in order to, protect or preserve certain interests. As Gore observed in a study of primary healthcare in India, some systems appear to adapt in ways that ultimately sustain a deficient status quo.10 Observers of the politics of healthcare in the USA over the past several decades may come to similar conclusions.

A second and related point is about our understanding of the types and intensities of shocks against which health systems are supposed to be resilient. We need to more clearly articulate the way: (1) health system shocks or disturbances occur on a spectrum of intensity, from acute and large-scale emergencies to low-level chronic stressors and (2) health system shocks or disturbances are the product of a range of different drivers or causal factorswhich in turn have implications for the types of adaptation available and appropriate in response. As already pointed out by others, the use of the phrase resilient health systems in global health literature still typically presupposes a positive response to some kind of large-scale negative shock such as the current COVID-19 epidemic outbreak, a budget crisis and so forth. But a burgeoning literature is starting to draw attention to the fact that health system disturbances may not necessarily be acute in nature. Gilson et al11 and Barasa et al12, for example, detail the chronic stressors at the level of front-line health services, and describe everyday resilience as emerging from a combination of absorptive, adaptive and transformative strategies that enable continued health service function in the face of such stressors.

But still largely ignored within the resilience literature is the possibility that shocks and disturbances arise out of intentional choices made by actors in international (eg, donor conditionalities; trade agreements), national (election promises; regulatory changes; austerity measures) or local (citizen voice mechanisms, organisational instability) spheres. Reforms to modes of governance, financing mechanisms or service delivery models, for example, are all forms of health system disturbance, capable of producing both intended and unintended consequences. Yet global health writing on resilience still rarely equates these bureaucratic, socially and politically driven changes with disturbances, perhaps due to their less sudden, more structured, and inherently political nature, features that do not align with our still default use of the term shock. Nor, again outside a few notable pieces, have the political and bureaucratic responses to these intentional disturbances been acknowledged as a form of adaptation.

Which brings me to my third point on conceptual clarity; which is, to observe a previous criticism2 1315 regarding the way resilience as a concept so often fails to incorporate consideration of agency or power relations, both of which we know to be defining features of health system function. In much of the health system resilience literature to date, the agency of actors within the health system is, at best blurred, and at worst, masked. With some few exceptions, the focus has tended to be on the ability of health systems to recover from shocks, with far less attention paid to the choices exercised by individuals or groups within the system, and the ways in which they do, or do not, exert control over processes by which that system-level resilience is shaped.16 In part, this is the natural consequence of transposing a concept originally developed with reference to ecosystems, onto social systems. Despite some commonalities these two types of systems retain key differences including that social systems embody power relations and do not involve analogies of being self-regulating or rational.17 In scanning recent reviews of health system resilience it is interesting to note the general absence of mention of power in the formulation of the concept.5 18 19

Clearer recognition of the full spectrum of disturbances (from exogenous epidemic-type shocks to political or bureaucratic stressors) in the context of social systems shot through with power, brings me to a final point. If global health researchers and practitioners are to continue to characterise health systems as social systems, then examination of their resilience (defined as an ability rather than an outcome) makes most sense when anchored to an exploration of the modes and dynamics of health system governance, at whichever level appropriate. As summarised by Blanchet et al, governance relates to the implicit and explicit rules and institutions that shape power, relationships between actors, and the actions of these actors, meaning that: managing resilience of a health system resides in the capacity of managing actors, networks and institutions that have an influence on the health system.20 In other words, by taking governance as the point of departure for enquiries about health system resilience, we are consciously focusing on the actors and networks whose choices and actions we understand that resilience to depend.

Anchoring explorations of health systems resilience on governance provides a guide for considering both the explicit and implicit power dynamics, and the competing interests and goals, of various actors who we know impact all domains and levels of the health system. Such an approach does not preclude, but rather enables exploration of the characteristics of resilient health systems, with cross-disciplinary learning suggesting these characteristics are in any case actor-dependent, including for example: (1) diversity; (2) flexibility; (3) inclusion and participation; (4) recognition of social values; (4) acceptance of uncertainty and change at different levels and (5) and the ability to foster learning.17

Two examples of analyses using different methods to examine such issues have been recently published in BMJ Global Health. One is Saulnier et als account of health system resilience from the perspective of Cambodian communities responding to floods.21 This nuanced work reveals a range of strategies implemented by individuals, families and entire villages to mitigate the health access impacts of regular flood events, but demonstrates how those same actors have limited ability to build systemic resilience given their lack of decision making space or ownership of health system processes. Such a scenario, the authors observe, leaves the community vulnerable to more severe floods and different shocks when their localised absorptive capacities fail. Here, we are reminded that what makes health systems resilient in the real world, may or may not depend on traditional supply side strategies (indeed it may be in spite of such). More disturbingly, we see too that resilience may not in fact enable high quality or equitable health services for vulnerable populations but rather, in Gore's words, underpin a deficient status quo.

Lee et al in their article "How coping can hide larger systems problems: the routine immunisation supply chain in Bihar, India"22 identify how persistent coping behaviours by front-line health workers in aid of routine immunisation, mask systemic deficiencies in the cold chain policy and logistics of that state. While coping behaviours may on the surface be seen as a form of resilience, the authors demonstrate how long term reliance on such behaviours is likely to contribute to systemic brittleness, not resilience, since: one set of personnel, those at the outermost level [] bear a disproportionate burden in supporting the system, leaving them overstretched and in a potentially very unstable situation. If circumstances were to further change or these personnel are no longer able to cope, the entire system could break down very quickly.22 The authors make the critical, if somewhat counterintuitive observation, that instituting anticoping measures and encouraging a culture in which coping is discouraged may be necessary to redress broader and deeper system-related dysfunction.

The above two articles highlight a critical distinction between asking whether the health system has the ability to respond to, and learn from, a change or disturbance, and an assessment of who or what benefits from that adaptation in the short and longer term. If we do not ask the latter (who benefits from adaptation?) we risk conflating the pursuit of resilience with the pursuit of improvements in health and equity. Put bluntly, the capacity to adapt and implied resilience it conveys become equally or more important than whether that adaptation and resilience produces improved health.

And in this, there is a further risk: that resilience is used to help push for the adoption of policies that ultimately undermine high quality or equitable systems or which contract the space available for debating such alternatives.17 The linking of resilience to health security agendas, for example, can be used to divert public attention away from existing deeply embedded health inequities and the conscious choices that shape our (often inadequate) health system responses to them, in favour anticipating how, where, and when health emergencies will happen (ie, preparation), and what sorts of responses are pragmatic and acceptable in those extreme circumstances (ie, adaptation and resilience).2 The danger of the concept of resilience being thus mobilised is greater, moreover, in the midst or immediate aftermath of dramatic systemic shocks, such as the 2014 Ebolavirus epidemic and the current COVID-19 pandemic.

For global health and health systems researchers and practitioners, the concept of resilience has utility, including for its ability to frame health-related challenges within a systemic approach; accounting for different types of disturbance or shock, multiple actors, dynamic processes and feedback loops occurring across different domains and levels of the health system. But resilience in health systems should not be seen as an apolitical outcome, synonymous with a strong health systems or improved population health. What promotes the ability of a health system to be resilient must be assessed in the context of the interests and intentions of health system actors and the ways in which they mobilise and channel their power. Not to do so risks allowing some abstract conception of health system resilience to, intentionally or unintentionally, displace attention and efforts away from the sorts of reforms necessary to address and improve long-standing health inequities. In current COVID-19 context, we must be particularly alert to such risks.

SMT acknowledges Kerry Scott, Veena Sriram and Seye Abimbola for their review and feedback during the formulation of this article.

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Power and politics: the case for linking resilience to health system governance - World - ReliefWeb

Like everything else, Pride Month looks a little different this year. As parades are canceled and celebrations move online, you may be understandably blue. And you may be itching to get out and goliterally anywhere.

The safest way to do that? Through an escapist read that can transport you to new and exciting worldsor at least better versions of our own. On that note, here are ten fantasy and sci-fi adventures that revel in their many shades of queerness.

When was the last time we had a summer without a line-up of superhero blockbusters? Klunes upcoming novel aims to fill that gap. Nick Bell has a motormouth, ADHD, and one of the most-read fanfics about the real-life heroes of Nova City, the Extraordinaries. What else does he have? Possibly more intimate feelings about his best friend Seth than he realizes. Bonus: If you want a sweet, queer fantasy to read right now, you can get your grabby hands on Klunes other new book, The House in the Cerulean Sea.

I cant say the kingdom of Rabu is a better place (what with the robot overlords and all), but Criers War will transport you there, totally and completely. Before the war, the Automae were artificial helpers and playmates for humans. Then they rose up, turning humans into their servants. Against this backdrop we meet two girls on opposite sides of the conflict: Lady Crier, a beautifully Made heir to the throne, and Ayla, a human girl hellbent on killing Crieruntil she very much isnt.

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Magic heist! Found family! Sci-fi mixed with fantasy! Spell Hacker is everything you could wish for. Known as maz, magic has been commodified and is now highly controlled in Kyrkarta. Diz and her friends traffic in a black market maz supply. But when the lucrative job that was supposed to be their last goes awry, theyre pulled into a much bigger conspiracy. Queerness flows more freely than maz here, including with a nonbinary member of the core squad.

Can I interest you in some dragons right about now? All Maren wants is what so many others do: a quiet life with her girlfriend. But those dreams are shattered when Kaia is taken by forces of the tyrannical emperor who conquered their homeland. Marens rescue plan begins with stealing one of the emperors dragons and ends with breaking through the stronghold hiding Kaia. Naturally, things get more complicated.

Couldnt very well make it through this list without including a queer coven. Danny feels drawn to a Northern California town, but that attraction is more than just the towering Redwoods. Shes been summoned there by a group of teen witches who need her help to find a missing friend. The Grays make up a proudly diverse, offbeat group, and youll find lesbian, bi, ace, and nonbinary characters represented.

Polks debut is a magic combination of fantasy and romance. In an alternate world similar to Edwardian England, elite magical families drive politics and national agendas. Miles Singer comes from one such family, and hes faked his own death in order to escape the life destined for him. But a mysterious death and the appearance of an intriguing stranger will change Miless plans yet again.

This complex hard sci-fi story kicks off one heck of a space opera series, one that delights in making the reader do some work. The star of this show is Captain Kel Cheris, whose unconventional tactics have left her in disgrace with the hexarchate regime. To redeem her reputation, she enlists an unusual ally: the brilliant and deeply problematic Shuos Jedao, who also happens to be dead.

Draydens novels are delights because you never know where theyre going to go. Here, she takes you inside the belly of a giant space beast, where humans have learned to carve a society out of living organs and tissue. Anchoring the story are Seske, heir to the matriarchy, and Adalla, her working-class friend. Along with queer romance, the book has trans representation and subverts gender roles.

High fantasy with aromantic asexual sensibilities. Its been a minute since Arathiel has been back to his hometown. Over a hundred years, actually. His noble family is dead, the city has changed, and hes changed too. Instead of trying to reclaim his position, he spends time on the fringes of society. But the fresh life hes built for himself is turned upside down by accusations against one of his new friends.

Its not quite a peppy escapist read, but Porters surreal sci-fi debut will pique your interest even if it doesnt boost your endorphins. The Seep is the gentle, benevolent alien entity we always wanted to invade. The Seeps control creates a veritable utopia, though perhaps one with unintended consequences. We see those consequences through the eyes of Trina, a trans woman grieving the loss of her wife.

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10 LGBTQIA+ Fantasy and Sci-Fi Adventures to Take You Far From Here - Book Riot

Though it took a long time to get to the big screen, Black Panther was a massive hit for the MCU and one of the most talked-about movies in recent memory. The Ryan Coogler film explored the world of Wakanda and T'Challa aka Black Panther's role as its new king.

RELATED:MCU: 10 Behind-The-Scenes Facts About Black Panther

Given the ground-breaking success of the film, it's not surprising that the sequel is in development, thankfully with Coogler and the cast returning. However, while there are plenty of things we want to see more of in the sequel, there are ways it could be even better. Here are some of the ways Black Panther 2 can improve the franchise and some things it should do the same.

Coogler proved his action director chops with his intense boxing scenes in Creed and he continued to show off his skills in this film. The waterfall fights and the casino sequence were great action sequences. Unfortunately, the third act action was letdown by shoddy CGI.

The climactic battle between T'Challa and Killmonger should have been a gripping moment, but the video game look was a distraction. Hopefully, the sequel can deliver some better graphics that boost the action rather than deflate those scenes.

MCU films can sometimes be accused of safe and familiar storytelling. Though that can be a fair criticism at times, Coogler was interested in asking some powerful and thought-provoking questions in Black Panther.

RELATED:Black Panther: 10 Things We Hope To See By The End Of His MCU Arc

The movie maintains the comic book mythos of Wakanda as a secret and hidden society, but Coogler questions the ethics of a place like this not sharing its resources to help its oppressed people around the world. Coogler should be allowed to continue using such a large platform to explore topical issues.

At the end of Black Panther, T'Challa makes the decision to open Wakanda up to the world and sharing its resources with people who need them. Seeing as it happened at the end of the film, there wasn't quite time to explore this idea in great detail.

The impact of this very significant development has yet to be seen in the MCU either. While that is not the fault of the Black Panther franchise, hopefully by the time the sequel comes around, it won't be too late to dive into the fallout of this reveal.

The universe of the MCU has grown into the cosmos and other dimensions, yet Wakanda was still one of the most interesting aspects of the universe at large. Coogler and his team did such an incredible job making this feel like a real lived-in world that exists.

From the costumes to the customs to the culture, the movie was enriched by the world-building of Wakanda. The sequel should keep its focus there. We don't need to see T'Challa going on adventures elsewhere in the world. Allow Wakanda to continue to grow.

T'Challa was introduced as the newest MCU hero in Captain America: Civil War and instantly became a fan favorite. By the time his first solo film came around, fans were ready to see him step into the spotlight.

RELATED:Black Panther: 5 Moments That Prove He Should Lead The Avengers (& 5 Moments That Show He Shouldn't)

While T'Challa was certainly the main character of the film, it's hard to say the focus of the story was on him. With this world to explore and new characters to introduce, T'Challa was not given a lot of opportunities to grow. Now that things have been established, hopefully, he can have a more substantial role in the sequel.

One of the new characters introduced in Black Panther was Shuri who instantly stole the show. She is T'Challa's hilarious younger sister who may also be the smartest person in the MCU. She is like the Q to T'Challa's James Bond, outfitting him with all the latest gadgets.

Clearly the sequel needs to keep Shuri as a big part of the film as she likely has a long future in the MCU. It would be nice to see her pulled into the story a little more as well instead of being a side character.

Following the events of Civil War, T'Challa becomes King of Wakanda. This sets the stage for his struggle to deal with the new responsibilities as the leader of a nation. But with all the other story elements going on, we don't get to spend much time with T'Challa the ruler.

This would be an interesting aspect of the character for the sequel to explore. Is he a popular king? Is there backlash amongst his people for exposing Wakanda? There are many thrilling possibilities to explore.

When Erik Killmonger reveals himself to T'Challa, the new king has to face the uncomfortable truth about Wakanda's past and his own father. It is revealed that King T'Chaka killed his own brother and left his young son, Erik, alone in order to protect Wakanda's secret.

RELATED:10 Best MCU Movies According To Rotten Tomatoes

This revelation is one of the most powerful moments in the film. There is a lot that can be explored by looking into the history of Wakanda and uncovering its secrets and mistakes as T'Challa tries to make it into the utopia it strives to be.

The MCU has always had a bit of a spotty record when it comes to their romances. Black Panther is not one of the worst, but it shows room for improvement. The relationship between T'Challa and Nakia needs to decide which path it should take.

Thankfully, Nakia is a much more rounded character than a simple love interest. If the sequel abandoned the romantic storyline and just kept her as a character, it would be welcome. If the sequel wants to pursue the romance, it needs to make it much more compelling.

In the early days of the MCU, many criticized the films for their lack of interesting villains. It seems the cinematic universe has turned a corner and delivered some truly great bad guys, including Erik Killmonger in Black Panther.

With a powerful performance by Michael B. Jordan, Killmonger was an intimidating villain who had motivations that were easy to understand and sympathize with. Hopefully, Coogler can create another memorable villain that will help to elevate the story.

NEXT:10 Best Chadwick Boseman Movies, Ranked (According To Rotten Tomatoes)

Next Twilight: 5 Inspiring Things Edward Did (& 5 Times Fans Felt Sorry For Him)

A writer and film fan. I always enjoy keeping up with the latest films in theaters as well as discovering some hidden gems I may have overlooked. Glad to be a part of Screen Rant's positive and fun community and have the opportunity to share my thoughts with you.

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Black Panther 2: 5 Ways It Can Improve The Franchise (& 5 Things It Should Do The Same) - Screen Rant

From All Lives Matter to just doing my patriotic duty, Cable reporter Priyanka Raval reflects on the protect the cenotaph demonstration on Saturday.

Its Saturday afternoon and about 300 people have gathered to defend Bristols cenotaph from apparent fears of vandalism, amid rumours of nationalists coming to clash with anti-racists across the UK.

They stand, 30m from the plinth where Edward Colstons bronze likeness gazed over the harbour for 125 years, before being rolled unceremoniously into it during the Black Lives Matter protest six days previously.

Interviews from the 'All Lives Matter' demonstration to "protect the Cenotaph" in Bristol City Centre on Saturday 13th. Organised in response to last weekend's Black Lives Matter protest. Speaking to people there I heard a range of opinions. Some just wanted to protect the Cenotaph, some feared a "Marxist Revolution," others voiced disgust at the "snowflake generation." Among peaceful conversations were nastier times. The Black Power fist sign, laid at the former Colston plinth, was torn up while the crowd cheered. Fights broke out. On three occasions men tried to grab my phone out of my hands. I got started on, sworn at, threatened, hit with a creative range of sexist and racist slurs. Many there were angry and mistrustful of journalists. A photographer I met told me someone told her, "We've got your picture now and we will hunt you down." A Bristol Post reporter was spat at. Give the video a watch, forgive my amateur filming. Ultimately, yesterday proved a beneficial and insightful experience: Life outside my bubble. What actually constitutes "Bristol."

The protestors are flanked by leather-clad bikers: Hells Angels, Wiltshire Force and The Sodbury Crew are among those present. Football supporters in attendance have put aside traditional rivalries for the day.

A white van filled with cans of Thatchers and Stella arrives. It may be a cloudy afternoon but there are many bare chests on display among the predominantly white, male crowd.

But speaking to the people gathered, its evident theres no single cause that unites those assembled.

A group of army veterans on the scene tell me they just want to protect the cenotaph, and are in full support of Black Lives Matter with some even having attended last weeks protest.

Others though are openly racist and give a fierce defence of why All Lives Matter. There are rants about the prevalence of the left wing Marxist snowflake generation.

Early in the day, scuffles break out as a demonstrator starts clearing away BLM signs left in a bin bag by Colstons vacant plinth. Some urge him to discuss and de-escalate the situation, and to refocus the attention on the cenotaph.

But thats far from the days only nasty incident. At one point, bottles and cans are thrown at a black driver passing by. Over at the nearby Tuk Tuck cafe, a girl of Caribbean heritage tells me shes received racist remarks from customers, leading to the manager closing the doors early.

Then, the sign of a Black Power fist is grabbed, taken into the middle of the crowd and aggressively stomped on and torn up.

Again, some people cheer and join in, while others call for them to stop, saying it is derailing their reason for being there. As the police step in, one protestor yells, Why are you stopping this when you let the Colston statue be taken down?

The scuffle after the sign is torn up turns things more volatile. On three separate occasions, men attempt to grab my phone and I have to wrestle it back. One, who Ive been speaking to, warns his friend, Shes only going to edit it and put what she wants to!

Shortly afterwards, I find myself behind the police line, accidentally kettled in with protestors. Someone sarcastically yells, Got what you want did you? and snowflake cunt, while others call out slag.

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A photographer, more clearly distinguishable due to her camera, gets an even greater torrent of abuse. As she rushes to photograph the sign being torn up, there are shouts of, Stop taking photos! and several attempts to rip her camera away.

The beer previously meant to keep up crowd morale is soon weaponised, with cans thrown in her direction along with another freelance videographer present and Stella poured on her lens. A Bristol Post reporter is reportedly spat at.

Paranoia about being misrepresented, distrust of being demonised by the media, hangs in the air.

These guys have taken photos of you and will hunt you down and find you, so you should stop filming now, the photographer is told. Its unclear whether the tone was threatening or if he was looking out for her.

I single out one of the few women in the crowd to ask why she is here today.

To be honest, Im just here for the cenotaph, I havent got nothing against Black Lives Matter my father is mixed race, she says. I think we just want to do our patriotic duty and protect the cenotaph.

Patriotism is a common reason given to me from those I spoke to. Normal people protecting our heritage, one tells me.

When I push people on the topic, that history is based very much around a glorified idea of Britain winning the war. But when I pose a counter-perspective what about Empire or slavery Im derided for bringing up the past.

Have you seen white poverty? asks another man. If you have then All Lives Matter!

Hes echoed by another, I went to the same shit school as a black person.

Its another trend of the days conversation: we have it hard too, so why are black people given special treatment?

Over the road and across the police line, a young, multicultural group stands in opposition a visual representation of divides that exist in our city. Saturdays crowd at the cenotaph may be far from the scale of the Black Lives Matter protest a week earlier, but it still offers a sharp challenge to lazy stereotypes that hold up Bristol as a liberal-left utopia.

It reminds me of the days of the National Front when I moved to the UK in the 70s, an unsettled woman of Indian origin told me afterwards.

I left rattled, but not wholly unsurprised. At school, my history lessons portrayed exactly the one-sided version of history that was parroted back to me today. A glorious portrayal of Britains heroic involvement in the World War, a noticeable omission of the manifold atrocities that took place under the British Empire. Naturally, such a cherry picked version of history left unchallenged would lead to this misguided sense of patriotism.

Meanwhile, a 2017 Runnymede Trust report showed that Bristols ethnic minorities experience much greater disadvantages in education and employment than the national average, with the city ranking seventh-worst of England and Wales 348 districts on the reports Index of Multiple Inequality. That said, its undeniable that economic hardship is rife among some white communities too. It seems important to understand the protest today bearing in mind Bristols socio-economic context.

Former Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage has claimed that a new form of Taliban was formed in the UK over the BLM weekend, adding that full-on race riots are now possible. Thats sensationalist scaremongering. But as I leave the protest, hearing abuse as I do so, I cant help but feel its essential we shift conversations ideally less tense ones than those I snatch during the afternoon to how we bridge our divides, not entrench divisions.

Or perhaps what Im trying to express is best summed up by the new statue that has appeared yesterday beside the empty Colston plinth.

A bald man in a string vest on top of a bin with the words: Spoiler: St George was Turkish on it. In one hand he holds a globe, a mobile in the other. The screen reads England for the English a parody I assume of the Orb and Sceptre symbols of monarchy.

Statues and cenotaphs it seems, have become the battle sites on which race relations are contested in Bristol. This latest iteration seems to poke fun at Saturdays demonstration at the cenotaph.

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Reflections on the All Lives Matter protest - The Bristol Cable

Life is rarely straightforward as weve all been reminded lately and its even less so on the road. Pre-lockdown, Melbourne band Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever singer-songwriters and guitarists Tom Russo, Joe White and Fran Keaney and bassist Joe Russo and drummer Marcel Tussie spent 18 months on a gruelling world tour, and it seems that endless staring out of plane windows left them questioning their identities.

This is surprising when you consider the quintets first two EPs, 2016s Talk Tight and 2017s The French Press, which seemed so in-tune with who the band are. These records offered danceable, guitar-driven indie, their laid-back harmonies and louche lyrics putting a golden filter on the world.

The beauty lay in the simplicity of Rolling Blackouts sound. There were no fanciful tricks just masterful songwriting. 2018 debut album Hope Downs furthered this approach, sounding like a group of friends enjoying lifes simple pleasures. But second album Sideways To New Italy is a bit more complicated.

This 10-track collection sees the band returning home and rediscovering themselves. The albums title references New Italy, a village near Tussies childhood home in Bellingen, New South Wales. The idyllic destination has become something of a symbol of refuge for these young men; it was home to Venetian immigrants in the 1800s and the landscape is dotted with replica Roman statues. Russo has explained: These are the expressions of people trying to find home somewhere alien, trying to create utopia in a turbulent and imperfect world.

Musically, the euphoria remains. Opener The Second Of The First nestles back into the bands reclined, jangly groove and theres a real sense of togetherness as Russo, White and Keaney share vocal duties. Despite the sunny sounds, though, Whites partner makes an appearance to deliver a spoken-word monologue steeped in confusion and displacement: Nothing is the same, the street hasnt changed / There is a light feeling in the back of my head and my mind is somersaulting.

The jangly Cars In Space, which already feels like a familiar favourite, finds Rolling Blackouts reflecting on the sickly excitement of life on the road: You trace your hands around the wheel / Your face it shines. The Only One, with its blasts of harmonica, offers even more intimacy, dissecting the strange, bittersweet relief of returning home from an adventure: Back into the new world / That looks exactly the same / When I walk through the gate / Cold sweat on my face. Not Tonight features a wistful refrain that would make Elliott Smith proud, replete with aching lyrics: Im burning all my candles down.

Sideways To New Italy might sound like sun-splashed indie for good times, but theres a great deal of angst buried within. Yet this is clearly also the sound of a band excited to be in the studio together; warmth and friendship seeps through every note. Rolling Blackouts have obviously been reflecting heavily on home recently who hasnt? and here it seems that theyve found it in one another.

Originally posted here:

Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever Sideways To New Italy review: sunny indie hints at melancholia within - NME

Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever has crafted a little piece of home to carry with them on their second record, the cheerfully summery 'Sideways to New Italy'.It's no secret that the grueling touring schedules bands often embark on can take a serious toll on both their physical and emotional health. For Rolling Blackouts, their time spent away from home while they were on tour for their critically-acclaimed debut 'Hope Downs' left them grasping for something reliable.

The relentless schedule had them feeling ungrounded, to the point that even the familiar started to seem foreign.Led by singer-songwriter-guitarists Tom Russo, Joe White and Fran Keaney (and rounded out by bassist Joe Russo and drummer Marcel Tussie), the guitar-pop five-piece, upon returning to Melbourne after long stretches looking out at the world through the windows of airplanes and tour vans, felt an intense sense of dislocation, something they describe as "being like the knot in the middle of a game of tug-o-war."

"I felt completely rudderless on tour," Keaney says. "It's fun but you get to a point where youre like, Who am I anymore? You feel like youre everywhere and nowhere at the same time. And no one in particular." Russo adds, "We saw a lot of the world, which was such a privilege, but it was kind of like looking through the window at other people's lives, and then also reflecting on our own."

But rather than dwell in the displacement, Keaney was determined to channel how he was feeling into something optimistic. "I wanted to write songs that I could use as some sort of bedrock of hopefulness to stand on, something to be proud of. A lot of the songs on the new record are reaching forward and trying to imagine an idyll of home and love."And out of this creative space comes Rolling Blackouts' second record that sees the band interrogate their individual pasts and the places that inform them. In clicking the scattered pieces back into place, they crafted for themselves a new totem of home to carry with them no matter where they end up.

Home, for Russo, manifests in different ways: there's Melbourne, where he and brother Joe grew up, but also Southern Italy where the forebears of their family originated. The eponymous New Italy is a village near New South Waless Northern Rivers the area Tussie is from. A blink-and-you'll-miss-it pit-stop of a place with fewer than 200 residents, it was founded by Venetian immigrants in the late-1800s and now serves as something of a living monument to Italians' contribution to Australia, with replica Roman statues dotted like souvenirs on the otherwise rural landscape.

As members of the band individually visited the Mediterranean and returned home to Melbourne's inner-north, where waves of European migrants forged a sense of home since the 1950s, they realized the emotional distance between the two was minuscule. The prominent and romantic Greco-Roman statues that sit outside tidy brick homes in Brunswick represent, for Russo, an attempt to "build a utopia of where your hearts from."

The parallel between these remnants of home and the band's own attempts to maintain connections and create familiarity during their disorienting time on the road was not lost on Russo. "These are the expressions of people trying to find home somewhere alien; trying to create utopia in a turbulent and imperfect world."

This emotion is the underlying theme on 'Sideways to New Italy', which essentially is the band's attempt to reconcile the physical feeling of home with the emotional experience of home being 'wherever you lay your hat'. And in keeping with the emotional crux of the album, Whites early attempts at writing big, high-concept songs were abandoned in favor of love songs like 'She's There' and 'The Only One'. Additionally, the band wove in bits of their personal lives into the songs with familiar voices and characters filtering in and out, allowing the record to serve as the anchor that grounds the band's members.

On 'Second of the First' the voice of a close friend joins White's partner in delivering a spoken word passage. The chorus from 'Cool Change' began its life in a song the trio played in an early band, over a decade ago. The chords from 'Cameo' were once in an eventually abandoned song called 'Hope Downs'. And an early version of 'Falling Thunder' featured a reference that only the trio's friends would recognize."We tried to make these little nods to our friends and loved ones, to stay loyal to our old selves," Russo explains. "I think we were trying to recapture some of the innocent weirdness of our very first recordings," Keaney adds of the 'Cool Change' chorus.

The inclusion of such personal notes hidden within the cheerfully melodic and uplifting pop/rock melodies on 'Sideways to New Italy' serves as a totem of sorts, something the band can take with them on the road, something they can seek solace and comfort in as they find themselves buffeted from stage to stage around the world. They'll be taking the voices of their loved ones with them, following cues from their neighbors and ancestors and anyone else who responded to their newfound displacement by crafting a utopia in their own backyard.

And in their highly personal and comforting record, listeners may also find a piece of home to carry with them amidst these disorienting times.Follow Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Spotify, or Bandcamp, or via RollingBlackoutsBand.com or SubPop.com for more.

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'Sideways to New Italy': Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever craft a piece of home on their latest record - MEAWW