Ahmet Alphan Sabancı's Blog, page 5

Rethinking How I Use Internet: 7

On most of what people call “the internet” I’m somewhere between lurker and behind the locked accounts. I want to draw more solid lines on that but maybe what I need is just going with the flow and seeing where it’s going to take me.

What I’m actually thinking about lately is actually my newsletter. I want to go back writing it and making it one of my regular online presence but I’m not really sure about the shape and the frame I want to put on it.

I already took some steps on the infrastructure side of it (which I have explained why in detail on the draft of the first new issue which still waiting me to finish it for, I don’t know, two weeks?). But I still don’t really know what I want that newsletter to be. Sure, keeping people up to date in a way that’s much readable and accessible than Twitter and maybe adding links to things I enjoyed and want other people to see. But what else? Are these enough to write a newsletter?

Probably one thing that’s blocking me to plan this whole thing is I’m still not sure what I’m going to put in this blog. Because I still don’t have a solid idea for one of them, it feels impossible to shape the other. Where’s the line between the blog and the newsletter? I know many people have this line drawn long time ago but when I was writing the newsletter I wasn’t blogging so I used that format pretty much similar to how I blog. Now I’m making those two my main online places so I have to do the hard work.

This is probably the moment I should plan a format for the newsletter. I still don’t know what it’s going to be but the only way to find out is to experiment. In the meantime, this blog is where I’ll be.

Talking About “End of Capitalism” at Recovery Con

[image error]Source

Let’s start thinking about how we can make the world better as we move from pandemic and quarantine into whatever comes next.

Recovery Con is something Willow decided to give it a shot around the end of March, when it was clear that we’re in this for the long run. It’s going to be all about thinking about what’s next for all of us and what we all are thinking and want to do.

Inspiration behind the con is quite similar to my “new bleak” piece. That’s why I was quite excited when Willow invited me for a talk. I’ve decided to talk about what should we keep in mind when we think about the future and the world beyond the end of capitalism. Especially in a global sense, because we’re in this together.

You should definitely register and join with us at 23rd of May and let’s talk about all the things we want to talk. It’ll be good for all of us. I’m also planning to put the text of my talk after the event. Probably it’ll be a sequel to the new bleak in many sense.

NLTR Dijital Akademi’de Güvenlik ve Gelecek Dersleri

Pandeminin etkisiyle birçok şeyin dijitale taşınması kaçınılmaz olarak bize de yansıdı. NewsLabTurkey ve onun parçası olan NLTR Akademi olarak biz de dijital eğitim ve webinar formatını kullanmaya ve kendimizi bu noktada geliştirmeye başladık. Bir önceki webinar serimizin ardından NLTR Dijital Akademi’ye önümüzdeki hafta başlıyoruz.

Bu eğitim serisi önceki sürdürülebilirlik konseptinin dışına çıkarak daha geniş bir çerçeveye sahip olacak. Şu ana kadar duyurduğumuz eğitimlerin listesine bakmanız bu çerçevenin ne kadar geniş olduğunu anlamanıza yardımcı olacaktır. Amacımız bu süreçte eğitimleri artık alıştığımız “gazetecilik eğitimleri” kalıbının dışına çıkartmak ve medyanın içerisinde bulunduğu dönüşüm sürecine de uygun konuları ele almak.

Duyurulan ilk derslerin içerisinde benim de iki dersim var. Bunlardan ilki 19 Mayıs’ta yapacağımız Dijital Güvenlik. Bu artık olmazsa olmazlarımdan birisi fakat her güvenlik dersi arasında geçen sürede yeni gelişmeler olduğundan dolayı her ders biraz daha evrilmiş oluyor. Kayıt olmak isterseniz aşağıdaki tweette kayıt formuna ulaşabilirsiniz.

Welcome to the New Bleak… What Now?

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This is the sentence that’s been circling inside my head for a while now. Not that I was thinking that everything was going great so far —hell, I call the things I’m writing and thinking about “weird and deadly interesting” so no rose-tinted glasses here. But it’s clear that we took a huge step towards whatever this is. We’re walking through the territories we don’t have a map for. 

But even though we don’t fully know what’s going to happen next and where we’re headed, I feel like it’s important to have a name(s) for it. Doesn’t matter if it fits or not, just to start thinking and writing and the conversation. This is why I decided to go with “new bleak”, instead of “new normal”. Because I don’t think normal is a word that can help us to describe what’s happening and what’s ahead of us. Also, I heard the term used on Turkish TV news, so it’s safe to say that it doesn’t really mean anything now.

Everything is changing, nothing what we used to call normal makes sense. Even though most of you who’ll read this were already critical about the complex system we’re inside, not many of us were expecting this. Like Laurie Penny said, this is not the apocalypse we were expecting.1 We didn’t know that a simple virus can show everyone the real face of the late capitalism and how all of our states are ready to save corporations first and ready to sacrifice everyone else for them. We didn’t know that people were ready to attack 5G towers to defeat a virus. We also didn’t know that people were so ready to organize, help each other and try to find help for people at the other side of the planet. Not a single forecast about 2020 were expecting any of these. None of us were expecting to do the things we’re doing right now.

All of this is new and definitely not normal. Normal feels like a useless word right now. Especially when you hear all the heads on TV and newspapers talking about “returning the normal” while not considering the fact that the normal they want to return so badly is the main reason we’re here right now. I know this sounds a bit like cliche but it should be said until everyone understands it.

And definitely these are bleak times. Everything is fucked, thousands of people are dying every day, almost every country is fucking things up one way or another and all of them are focused on making capitalism happy first. The worst part is they’re still in control and it feels like there’s so little we can do other than trying to survive this and help others around us to survive too. It’s natural to be pessimistic in this situation, feel like things are only going to get worse even after we get rid of the pandemic —because all the signs are telling that too.

I know it is hard to talk or even think about anything right now. I’ve been there and I still might be. But not trying makes things worse. It just builds inside our brains until it implodes. Because we’re angry right now. Angry, hurt, panicked, sad, confused… It’s natural but can get worse and harmful if we don’t let these feelings outside. We have to talk about what we’re feeling, thinking, dreaming. What we think the reason we’re in this situation and how we can solve this. It doesn’t matter if you just have a small idea or a full scheme. We have to put all of those out, see what others are thinking and start conversations about it. 

We have to think about the future. What might be or should be ahead of us. Because even though this is the new bleak, to me it feels like what’s next is up for grabs. This is not to say that we should rush for the hot takes about the future. Because those are generally “made before the current situation, after all, using the ideas and categories and levers that were in place before the virus spread.”2 What we need right now is not hot takes, Twitter slogans or ready-made full future scenarios. Quoting from Johannes Kleske3:

”The only thing that any possible future scenario is good for right now, is to tell you something about the world-view, the values, and the imagination of the person publishing it. Use the insights from that analysis to design better preferable future scenarios.”

This is not to say that we shouldn’t talk about the future or think about the possible scenarios. We can but when we do, we should be critical about these and dive as deep as possible to make sure we’re not falling into any pitfalls. This is also why it can be useful to read and listen what others are saying about it, even though you hate them for reasons. Because having that insight and understanding is really useful.4

Conversation and community matters most in this situation. Not some hand-over future from people who thinks they’re above us. We need half-baked ideas, diverse perspectives, long conversations and silly memes. While everyone is relearning that we can use internet for building global communities and events —instead of satisfying the algorithm gods— we should take full advantage of it. This is a global crisis and the new bleak is effecting every part of the world in a similar but also a different way. We should use all of this to understand the current system’s complexity and how interconnected it is. Understand the ideas, logic and the ideology behind it. Understand how it works and how it failed for all of us. 

There’s so much we can and should do. Yes, this is the new bleak but what comes after next depends on us. We should think about the future because even though we act like we’re already in the future, “the future needs to be constantly invented and drawn down to us.”5 This is the best time to do that.6 And this might be the best time to break the spell and even think about the end of the capitalism and the future beyond that. Why not? 

This is my attempt to contribute to the conversation that’s been slowly starting about the now and the potential futures ahead of us. This is not a perfect text and I didn’t want it to be. This is the time to put our half-baked thoughts and observations outside and see what happens. 

Let’s talk, build some weird futures and schemes worthy of these bleak times, form communities beyond any border or logic and see where we can go from there. 

”Revolutions are dark, murky, and can be (very) slow. Living with, and through revolutions, is an act of hope.” — Anab Jain

This article was made possible thanks to my Patrons. If you want to support my work, have an early access to my work and more please consider becoming a supporter at Patreon.

https://www.wired.com/story/coronavirus-apocalypse-myths/ http://www.richardsandford.net/2020/04/06/rush-to-the-future/ https://twitter.com/jkleske/status/1247204745946816513 This is a good example of a critical reading. https://metaviews.substack.com/p/covid-19-and-the-fallacy-of-the-future https://warrenellis.ltd/jot/refuturing-22c/ https://charleseisenstein.org/essays/the-coronation/

Quaranzine

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There are some new and good things coming out of all of the mess we’re in. Quaranzine is one of them. A small, weekly PDF zine with a special topic for every issue. First one was panic, latest one is boredom.

From the Gumroad page:

A weekly zine born out of quarantine—from the Bay Area to Berlin and many places in between. Quaranzine is free but if you care to donate, 100% of donations will go to support front-line healthcare workers and other people impacted by COVID-19. By signing up, you’ll get access to all of our issues—emotional and published. We thank you. We love you. We hope you’re staying safe. 

Late Capitalism with A Smile

There are some photos which has a weird effect on you. Half of you wants to write thousands of words about it but your other half is just speechless. Here’s one of those:

[image error]Source: Anadolu Agency

Another one if you need a close-up:

[image error]Source: Dinçer Akbir – DHA

There’s so much to unpack in these photos: care packages for elderly delivered in boxes with Amazon logo and the presidential seal, Amazon Turkey managing to get a PR campaign this big in a country where they’re active only around 1,5 years, how Amazon tries to turn the pandemic into a profit all over the world, late capitalism in pandemic times… Although there’s so much I wanted to say, it feels like I need to give more time to my brain to just sit with it. And yes, I’m definitely blaming dystopian science fiction writers for this, just like Bruce Sterling does.

Here’s some extra reading on top of this image if you want to think with me:

https://themargins.substack.com/p/the-cares-act-amazon-and-labor-supplyhttps://finance.yahoo.com/news/canada-signs-deal-with-amazon-to-distribute-medical-supplies-154308362.htmlhttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/02/dear-jeff-bezos-amazon-instead-of-firing-me-protect-your-workers-from-coronavirus https://www.ft.com/content/220bf850-726c-11ea-ad98-044200cb277f ( title: Amazon auditions to be ‘the new Red Cross’ in Covid-19 crisis

From Useful Idiots to Useful Facts: What Is Behind the Fake News Debate?

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My first major academic publication is available now. It’s a book chapter written by me and Sarphan Uzunoğlu, titled “From Useful Idiots to Useful Facts: What Is Behind the Fake News Debate?”. It’s part of the book Information Nightmare: Fake News, Manipulation and Post-Truth Politics in the Digital Age, edited by Tirşe Erbaysal Filibeli.

Here’s the abstract of our chapter:

It is claimed by many liberal pundits and some scholars that Lenin used the term, useful idiot, referring to Western intellectuals who supported communist experiment, in the time the new Soviet State was still particularly vulnerable (Landes, 2013). However, there is no conclusive evidence that Lenin used this concept. Nevertheless, this did not preclude the use of the concept to define the function of different political actors in daily political debates. Like useful idiot, the terms post-truth and fake news, are often used by politicians, journalists and academics without questioning histories of these terms and their function in academic and political life. The word post-truth was defined by the Oxford Dictionary in 2016 as the word of the year. There has also been a dramatic increase in the number of searches for the word fake news since presidential elections in 2016 according to Google Trends statistics. Regardless of the prevalence of these terms in the circles of journalists, politicians and intellectuals, Keyes (2004) as the first author to publish a book about the term stated that politicians, authors, journalists, scholars and intellectuals are the subjects who benefit from post-truth politics the most. Likewise, Žižek (2018) claimed that even big media organizations may establish a troubled relationship with the truth and provide a crooked representation of controversial cases such as the situation of Julian Assange. In another interview, Žižek stated that the main problem was that people wanted to believe in more controllable lies (RT, 2019). Taking Žižek’s and Keyes’ arguments into consideration, this article is going to provide the critique of contemporary uses of the term fake news; and focus on how fake news debate is politically manipulated.

From the back cover:

Today, we live in a post-truth era. Creating alternative realities, and making people believe fake realities become easier. Digital platforms tend to promote dramatic, sensational and emotional content that harms democracy. This book examines different aspects of the matter: rise of populist politics, impact of digital social platforms, engagement-oriented algorithms, spread of disinformation and counter-measures like fact-checking mechanism and developing digital media literacy skills.

“Journalists, academics and civil society groups are increasingly working together to help people confront the confusion caused by the post-truth realities of digital communications, which is no longer the stuff of propaganda from the state, but comes from all sides of the internet. In this information space every fact is challenged by an alternative fact, and all of these different versions of the truth look the same online.” – Aidan White

You can find more about the book and get it for yourself here.

Rethinking How I Use Internet: 6

It’s been a while since I wrote in this blogchain. And during this time, I relapsed quite a bit. Especially after all the events going around the world. But this is a good time (at least for time) to restart this conversation.

The main thing is, for many different reasons, what many people consider as “the internet” (platforms all the way down) are actually becoming more and more harmful. In my case, it feels more and more like an addiction than a way of communication (for personal reasons mostly). And yes, I know, most of us stuck at our homes and we need to connect and communicate and conspire but those places are not fit for that. Especially not today.

Why? Because we’re all angry, the world is on fire and we don’t know what to do. But these platforms only helps us to get more angry, react without thinking and consume every new viral thing every minute (pun intended). This isn’t the way to figure that shit out. We can’t find out how to solve our problems or build better futures there. These places aren’t fit for that purpose. “Doomscrolling” is not going to help us.

That’s why I think this is a good time for me to make some big changes. Because I feel like we need to think deeper, write more and talk longer about what we’re going through and what we want next. This requires new ways to use internet. Or maybe return some of the old ways because those tools were more focused on building a community or can be used more easily to start deep conversations.

I’m also happy that people are trying out new ways to start conversations and find other people to think about all that. We need more of that. We need to take our communication and conversations to old and new places and build new stuff.

Since all of this feels more and more like apocalypse, may as well we can just act like that and build all that cyberpunk/post-apocalyptic ideas and communities now. Returning to Isles of Blogging feels like a much better option than keep relying on Silicon Valley gods and their toys.

These are Indeed “Weird and Deadly Interesting Times”

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My Interview in “Speaking Freely”

Here it is.

This is probably one of the most important interviews I did for several reasons. First one is definitely the group of people I’m in. Most of them are people I’ve been following and admiring their work for a long time. That’s why you should definitely read all of them and thank Jillian C. York for starting a series like this one.

Second reason is the fact that I’ve not been thinking about many of these stuff for a long time. Of course I’ve been reading, writing and doing things related to the issues but not really thinking about it or thinking in a self-reflective way. This interview also gave me that chance. And made me realize how things and I have changed since I’ve started dealing with these issues.

There are other reasons too. Like having a chance to remember Özgür Uçkan and talking about these issues with Jillian. It’s something really special for me and I hope you’ll enjoy reading it too.