Newmedia on Sat, 12 May 2012 16:49:05 +0200 (CEST)


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Re: <nettime> Another insult of the 1 percent: everybody does it!


JH:
 
> At any rate, much of the concept of capital investment 
> and such abstractions lose any reason to exist without 
> a passively operating consuming class which dominates 
> the developed world.

Excellent observation but . . . that is EXACTLY what has *already*  
happened!
 
The *effect* of digital media is to directly undermine "conspicuous  
consumption" which REQUIRED mass-media to prop it up.  It's OVER!!
 
We have been living in a DIGITAL ECONOMY for 20+ years now, which is why  
there will be *no* recovery of "capitalist" consumption-driven growth . . .  
*EVER*
 
What is called the "Eurozone Crisis" and even things like Brzezinski's  
lamentation about a *failure* of "Strategic Vision" are the direct playing out  
of this already fundamentally changed reality.
 
(Btw, the Chinese appear to have already figured this out but apparently  
none of the Western elites -- or their necessary counterparts, the 
"protesters"  -- seem to have grasped what has already occured.) 
 
Welcome to the FUTURE!
 
Mark Stahlman
Brooklyn NY
 
 
In a message dated 5/11/2012 11:57:37 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
jhopkins@neoscenes.net writes:

Hi  Brian:

> In this way you can see that the current attack on the  universities is
> not just a caste issue for academics, it's a societal  issue. The
> structure of society based on distinct professional fields  defined and
> guarded by credentials is useless for the business  entrepreneurs. The
> real question, imo, is not how to defend  professional status but rather
> how to transform it into something that  can have a positive social
> function for everyone. So instead of  getting a degree to carve out a
> protected niche in the economy, you  would get both a degree and a
> profession in order to contribute to a  greater good.

My experience is exactly so, though, in my engineering  education -- I
learned how to extract things from the earth that were/are  in high (social)
demand benefiting many, so, not sure what you mean here.  What I learned was
 <...>


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