A blog of aggregated miscellanea and things I like uncovered from my daily travails. I'm Jacob, a peripatetic interdisciplinary designer of British persuasion, having interests in gastronomy, fashion, technology, interiors and sustainability. I'm currently working on online e-Commerce and identity. I dig Macs, mountain biking and smelly cheese.
↩ Jacob's Ephemerata
Posts tagged “society”
«It’s not enough these days to simply question authority, you got to speak with it too.» —Taylor Mali; typomation by Ronnie Bruce.
FRONTLINE: ‘digital nation’
Want to hear some South Korean kids sing about netiquette? Well here’s a distraction! Oh but you heard the news that multitasking is turning human-kind into imbeciles didn’t you? So close that Facebook window before hitting play, and for the love of all that is good concentrate. This PBS report looks behind the research and asks us, «is our 24/7 wired world causing us to lose as much as we’ve gained?»
«LOL… Trinkets for those with OCD. Do they come in sterilized baggies?» (via Skip The Hand Shake Now Has A Wristband)
“ Despite fearful rhetoric to the contrary, terrorism is not a transcendent threat. A terrorist attack cannot possibly destroy a country’s way of life; it’s only our reaction to that attack that can do that kind of damage. The more we undermine our own laws, the more we convert our buildings into fortresses, the more we reduce the freedoms and liberties at the foundation of our societies, the more we’re doing the terrorists’ job for them. ”
“ You can’t very easily invite somebody to your church and then to supper and inform him that he’s marked for perdition. ”
Liquid Modernity
…is Zygmunt Bauman’s (a Polish sociologist) term for the present condition of the world as contrasted with the “solid” modernity that preceded it. According to Bauman, the passage from “solid” to “liquid” modernity has created a new and unprecedented setting for individual life pursuits, confronting individuals with a series of challenges never before encountered. Social forms and institutions no longer have enough time to solidify and cannot serve as frames of reference for human actions and long-term life plans, so individuals have to find other ways to organize their lives. Individuals have to splice together an unending series of short-term projects and episodes that don’t add up to the kind of sequence to which concepts like “career” and “progress” could be meaningfully applied.
Such fragmented lives require individuals to be flexible and adaptable — to be constantly ready and willing to change tactics at short notice, to abandon commitments and loyalties without regret and to pursue opportunities according to their current availability. In liquid modernity the individual must act, plan actions and calculate the likely gains and losses of acting (or failing to act) under conditions of endemic uncertainty.
![Under a fair carbon allocation (per person), the US would deplete its allowance for 50 years in just 6 years, Europe in 12 and China in 24. India is one of the few countries that would have a large carbon surplus (of 38 years), due to its low level of current development. [via Fair carbon means no carbon for rich countries - New Scientist]](http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kqb9zrbza21qz4yr8o1_500.jpg)
Under a fair carbon allocation (per person), the US would deplete its allowance for 50 years in just 6 years, Europe in 12 and China in 24. India is one of the few countries that would have a large carbon surplus (of 38 years), due to its low level of current development. [via Fair carbon means no carbon for rich countries - New Scientist]
“ to create behavior change we need to start thinking of people as herd animals. […] The consumer analogue Earls would point to is the white ear buds for iPod. ”
“ The French president has announced a «revolutionary» plan to make joy and wellbeing the key indicators of growth, rather than traditional yardsticks like a country’s gross domestic product (GDP). ”
